Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election fraud, election manipulation or vote rigging, is illegal interference with the process of an election,
either by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate,
depressing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both. What exactly
constitutes electoral fraud varies from country to country.
In national elections, successful electoral fraud can have the effect of a coup d'état, democracy protest or corruption of democracy. In a narrow election,
a small amount of fraud may be enough to change the result. Even if the
outcome is not affected, the revelation of fraud can reduce voters'
confidence in democracy.
Electorate manipulation
Electoral fraud can occur in advance of voting if the composition of
the electorate is altered. The legality of this type of manipulation
varies across jurisdictions. Deliberate manipulation of election
outcomes is widely considered a violation of the principles of
democracy.
Artificial migration or party membership
In
many cases, it is possible for authorities to artificially control the
composition of an electorate in order to produce a foregone result. One
way of doing this is to move a large number of voters into the
electorate prior to an election, for example by temporarily assigning
them land or lodging them in flophouses.
Many countries prevent this with rules stipulating that a voter must
have lived in an electoral district for a minimum period (for example,
six months) in order to be eligible to vote there. However, such laws
can also be used for demographic manipulation as they tend to disenfranchise those with no fixed address, such as the homeless, travelers, Roma, students (studying full-time away from home), and some casual workers.
Another strategy is to permanently move people into an electoral district, usually through public housing.
If people eligible for public housing are likely to vote for a
particular party, then they can either be concentrated into one area,
thus making their votes count for less, or moved into marginal seats, where they may tip the balance towards their preferred party. One notable example of this occurred in the City of Westminster in England under Shirley Porter.
Immigration law may also be used to manipulate electoral demography. For instance, Malaysia gave citizenship to immigrants from the neighboring Philippines and Indonesia, together with suffrage, in order for a political party to "dominate" the state of Sabah; this controversial process was known as Project IC.
A method of manipulating primary contests
and other elections of party leaders are related to this. People who
support one party may temporarily join another party (or vote in a
crossover way, when permitted) in order to elect a weak candidate for
that party's leadership. The goal ultimately is to defeat the weak
candidate in the general election by the leader of the party that the
voter truly supports. There were claims that this method was being
utilised in the UK Labour Party leadership election in 2015, where Conservative-leaning Toby Young encouraged Conservatives to join Labour and vote for Jeremy Corbyn in order to "consign Labour to electoral oblivion". Shortly after, #ToriesForCorbyn trended on Twitter.
Disenfranchisement
The composition of an electorate may also be altered by disenfranchising
some classes of people, rendering them unable to vote. In some cases,
states have passed provisions that raised general barriers to voter
registration, such as poll taxes, literacy and comprehension tests, and
record-keeping requirements, which in practice were applied against
minority populations to discriminatory effect. From the turn of the
century into the late 1960s, most African Americans in the southern
states of the former Confederacy were disenfranchised by such measures.
Corrupt election officials may misuse voting regulations such as a
literacy test or requirement for proof of identity or address in such a
way as to make it difficult or impossible for their targets to cast a
vote. If such practices discriminate against a religious or ethnic
group, they may so distort the political process that the political
order becomes grossly unrepresentative, as in the post-Reconstruction or Jim Crow era until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Felons have been disenfranchised in many states as a strategy to prevent African Americans from voting.
Groups may also be disenfranchised by rules which make it
impractical or impossible for them to cast a vote. For example,
requiring people to vote within their electorate may disenfranchise
serving military personnel, prison inmates, students, hospital patients
or anyone else who cannot return to their homes. Polling can be set for inconvenient days, such as midweek or on holy days of religious groups: for example on the Sabbath or other holy days
of a religious group whose teachings determine that voting is
prohibited on such a day. Communities may also be effectively
disenfranchised if polling places are situated in areas perceived by
voters as unsafe, or are not provided within reasonable proximity (rural
communities are especially vulnerable to this).
In some cases, voters may be invalidly disenfranchised, which is
true electoral fraud. For example, a legitimate voter may be
"accidentally" removed from the electoral roll, making it difficult or
impossible for the person to vote.
In the Canadian federal election of 1917, during the Great War, the Union government passed the Military Voters Act and the Wartime Elections Act.
The Military Voters Act permitted any active military personnel to vote
by party only and allowed that party to decide in which electoral
district to place that vote. It also enfranchised those women who were
directly related or married to an active soldier. These groups were
believed to be disproportionately in favor of the Union government, as
that party was campaigning in favor of conscription.
The Wartime Elections Act, conversely, disenfranchised particular
ethnic groups assumed to be disproportionately in favour of the
opposition Liberal Party.
Division of opposition support
Stanford
University professor Beatriz Magaloni described a model governing the
behaviour of autocratic regimes. She proposed that ruling parties can
maintain political control under a democratic system without actively
manipulating votes or coercing the electorate. Under the right
conditions, the democratic system is maneuvered into an equilibrium in
which divided opposition parties act as unwitting accomplices to
single-party rule. This permits the ruling regime to abstain from
illegal electoral fraud.
Preferential voting systems such as score voting, instant-runoff voting, and single transferable vote are designed to prevent systemic electoral manipulation and political duopoly.
Intimidation
Voter
intimidation involves putting undue pressure on a voter or group of
voters so that they will vote a particular way, or not at all. Absentee and other remote voting
can be more open to some forms of intimidation as the voter does not
have the protection and privacy of the polling location. Intimidation
can take a range of forms including verbal, physical, or coercion. This
was so common that in 1887, a Kansas Supreme Court in New Perspectives on Election Fraud in The Gilded Age said "[…] physical retaliation constituted only a slight disturbance and would not vitiate an election."
- Violence or the threat of violence: In its simplest form, voters from a particular demographic or known to support a particular party or candidate are directly threatened by supporters of another party or candidate or by those hired by them. In other cases, supporters of a particular party make it known that if a particular village or neighborhood is found to have voted the 'wrong' way, reprisals will be made against that community. Another method is to make a general threat of violence, for example, a bomb threat which has the effect of closing a particular polling place, thus making it difficult for people in that area to vote. One notable example of outright violence was the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack, where followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh deliberately contaminated salad bars in The Dalles, Oregon, in an attempt to weaken political opposition during county elections.
- Attacks on polling places: Polling places in an area known to support a particular party or candidate may be targeted for vandalism, destruction or threats, thus making it difficult or impossible for people in that area to vote.
- Legal threats: In this case, voters will be made to believe, accurately or otherwise, that they are not legally entitled to vote, or that they are legally obliged to vote a particular way. Voters who are not confident about their entitlement to vote may also be intimidated by real or implied authority figures who suggest that those who vote when they are not entitled to will be imprisoned, deported or otherwise punished. For example, in 2004, in Wisconsin and elsewhere voters allegedly received flyers that said, "If you already voted in any election this year, you can’t vote in the Presidential Election", implying that those who had voted in earlier primary elections were ineligible to vote. Also, "If anybody in your family has ever been found guilty of anything you can’t vote in the Presidential Election." Finally, "If you violate any of these laws, you can get 10 years in prison and your children will be taken away from you." Another method, allegedly used in Cook County, Illinois in 2004, is to falsely tell particular people that they are not eligible to vote.
- Coercion: The demographic that controlled the voting ballot would try to persuade others to follow them. By singling out those who were against the majority, people would attempt to switch the voters' decision. Their argument could be that since the majority sides with a certain candidate, they should admit defeat and join the winning side. If this didn't work, this led to the threatening of violence seen countless times during elections. Coercion, electoral intimidation was seen in the Navy. In 1885 William C. Whitney started an investigation that involved the men in the Navy. As said by Whitney "the vote of the yard was practically coerced and controlled by the foremen. This instance shows how even in the Navy there were still instances of people going to great lengths for the desired elective to win.
Disinformation
People may distribute false or misleading information in order to affect the outcome of an election. For example, in the Chilean presidential election of 1970, the U.S. government's Central Intelligence Agency
used "black propaganda"—materials purporting to be from various
political parties—to sow discord between members of a coalition between
socialists and communists.
Another use of disinformation
is to give voters incorrect information about the time or place of
polling, thus causing them to miss their chance to vote. As part of the 2011 Canadian federal election voter suppression scandal, Elections Canada
traced fraudulent phone calls, telling voters that their polling
stations had been moved, to a telecommunications company that worked
with the Conservative Party.
Vote buying
Vote
buying occurs when a political party or candidate seeks to buy the vote
of a voter in an upcoming election. Vote buying can take various forms
such as a monetary exchange, as well as an exchange for necessary goods
or services.
This practice is often used to incentivise or persuade voters to turn
out to elections and vote in a particular way. Despite the fact that
this practice is illegal in many countries such as the United States,
Argentina, Mexico, Kenya, Brazil and Nigeria, its prevalence remains
worldwide.
In some parts of the United States
in the mid- and late 19th century, members of competing parties would
vie, sometimes openly and other times with much greater secrecy, to buy
and sell votes. Voters would be compensated with cash or the covering of
one’s house/tax payment. To keep the practice of vote buying secret,
parties would open fully staffed vote-buying shops.
Parties would also hire runners, who would go out into the public and
find floating voters and bargain with them to vote for their side.
In England, documentation and stories of vote buying and vote
selling are also well known. The most famous episodes of vote buying
came in 18th century England when two or more rich aristocrats spent
whatever money it took to win. The notorious "Spendthrift election" came
in Northamptonshire in 1768, when three earls spent over £100,000 each to win a seat.
Voters may be given money or other rewards for voting in a
particular way, or not voting. In some jurisdictions, the offer or
giving of other rewards is referred to as "electoral treating".
Electoral treating remains legal in some jurisdictions, such as in the Seneca Nation of Indians.
Vote buying can take the form of "turnout buying", where a broker
brings many people to the polls, with a background sure to vote one
way, and the results are seen in the precinct results.
Whom to target
One
of the main concerns with vote buying lies in the question of which
population or group of voters are most likely to be susceptible to
accepting compensation in exchange for their vote. Scholars such as
Stokes argue that it is the weakly opposed voters are the best ones to
target for vote buying.
This means that in a situation in which there are two parties running
for office, for example, the voters who are not inclined to vote one way
or the other are the best to target.
Other scholars argue that it is people of lower income status who are
the best group to target, as they are the most likely to be receptive to
monetary or other forms of compensation.
This has proven to be the case in both Argentina and Nigeria. Since the
wealthy are presumably not in need of money, goods or services, it
would require a much larger compensation in order to sway their vote.
However, as seen in the case of Argentina for example, citizens who
reside within poor communities are in great need of income, or medical
services, for example, to feed their families and keep them in good
health. With that being said, a much smaller sum of cash or a medical
prescription would be of much greater value and thus their political
support can be much easier to purchase.
How to monitor
When postal ballots
are mailed to voter,s the buyer can fill them out or see how they are
filled out. Monitoring is harder when ballots are cast secretly at a
polling place. In some cases, there have been instances of voter tickets, or monitoring by individuals.
Voters seeking to be compensated for their votes would use
specially-provided voter ballots, or would fold their ballot in a
particular way in order to indicate that they voted for the candidate
they were paid to vote for.
If a buyer is able to obtain a blank ballot (by theft, counterfeit, or a legitimate absentee ballot) the buyer can then mark the ballot for their chosen candidates and pay a voter to take the pre-marked ballot to a polling station, exchange it for the blank ballot issued and return the blank ballot to the attacker. This is known as chain voting.
It can be controlled in polling places by issuing each ballot with a
unique number, which is checked and torn off as the ballot is placed in
the ballot box.
Another strategy has been to invoke personalized social norms to make voters honor their contracts at the voting booth.
Such social norms could include personal obligation such as moral
debts, social obligations to the buyers, or a threat of withholding or
ceasing to produce necessary resources. This is made more effective when
the rewards are delivered personally by the candidate or someone close
to them, in order to create a sense of gratitude on behalf of the voters
towards the candidate.
Consequences
There
are several negative consequences that arise from the practice of vote
buying. The presence of vote buying in democratic states poses a threat
to democracy itself, as it interferes with the ability to rely on a
popular vote as a measure of people's support for potential governments'
policies.
Another noted consequence is that the autonomy of voters is
undermined. Since getting paid or receiving rewards for their votes
generates a form of income that they may need to support themselves or
their families, they have no autonomy to cast the vote that they truly
want.
This is extremely problematic because if it is the most corrupt
politicians who are engaging in vote buying, then it is their interests
that remain the ones that dictate how the country is going to be run.
This, in turn, perpetuates corruption in the system even further
creating an unbreakable cycle.
Thirdly, vote buying can create a dependency of voters on the
income or goods that they are receiving for their votes, and can further
perpetuate a type of poverty trap.
If they are receiving medicine from their communities’ broker for
example, if this tie is cut off then they may no longer have access to
this necessity. It can be true that the broker in that community has no
interest or incentive to actually increase the standards of living of
the community members, as it is very possible that they are only
interested in getting whatever share of the profit they are entitled to
for working for the party.
Additionally, if the goods or money are coming directly from a
candidate, this candidate's only wish is to maintain their power. That
being said, they may provide services but their real interest may lie in
keeping the voters dependent on the rewards they are providing in order
to stay in power.
Latin America
Argentina
Vote
buying and the overall practice of clientelism is widespread in
Argentina. According to Simeon Nichter, one of the main perpetrators of
these illegal activities were the Peronist party.
The relationship between voters and Peronist candidates allegedly are
such that voters are offered particular goods, services, favours or
monetary compensation in exchange for their political support for the
party. These rewards could include a job, medicine, a roof, clothing,
foods, and other goods or services. The case of Argentina in particular
in that it relies heavily on face-to-face and day-to-day interactions
between "brokers" who act as middlemen and voters.
Since many of the communities in Argentina are ridden with poverty and
are in need of these particular resources, it is these communities that
have statistically shown to be in a certain demographic that were
targeted for voted buying. Additionally, vote buying in this region
focuses on citizens who are not strongly in favour or opposed to the
political machine, and whose political loyalty does not necessarily lie
with one party or another. In this way, vote buying acts as a mechanism to sway the decisions of weakly opposed voters. In a study done by Susan C. Stokes,
she finds that the brokers in these communities are known to all the
citizens and have access to the necessary resources from the
municipality. They maintain relationships with the voters and grant them
rewards and favours continuously in order to keep the party they work
for in the office. This is one main explanation for why many
lower-income voters are seen voting for populist leaders, as well as
authoritarian ones.
Many citizens view these brokers as positive pillars in their lives and
have the utmost respect for the help they distribute. However, others
view them as hands of corruption. Stokes further explains that the
capacity of these brokers is constrained due to the fact that they can
only maintain this type of transactional relationship with a limited
number of voters.
Furthermore, the brokers have the additional responsibility of
maintaining trusting and solid relationships with their resource
suppliers. Without these strong ties, they would have no means through
which to carry out vote-buying practices.
Mexico
Similarly to Argentina, it has been found that vote-buying in Mexico is most likely in rural and poor regions of the country.
There are many instances of vote buying that have occurred in the
history of Mexican elections, however, there are two main instances of
fund in the literature that occurred in the last two decades. The first
was the 2006 Mexican election, where it was found that 8.8% of the
population that was not a beneficiary of a specific social program was
offered compensation for their vote. Similarly, a corruption inquiry arrested Andrés Granier Melo for embezzlement of funds in the state of Tabasco
during his governorship: among other things, some of these funds were
used for vote-buying (although Melo has denied all accusations).
Venezuela
Carnet de la Patria, a digital ID based on China's Social Credit System.
The card allows the government to monitor citizen behavior such as
social media presence, political party membership, and whether or not
they voted.
During the 2018 Venezuelan presidential election, reports of vote buying
were prevalent during the presidential campaigning. Venezuelans
suffering from hunger were pressured to vote for Maduro, with the
government bribing potential supporters with food. Maduro promised rewards for citizens who scanned their Carnet de la Patria
at the voting booth, which would allow the government to monitor the
political party of their citizens and whether or not they had voted.
These prizes were reportedly never delivered.
Everyone who has a Carnet de la Patria has to go to vote on 20 May. ... I am thinking of giving a prize to the people of Venezuela who go out to vote that day with the Carnet de la Patria
— President Nicolás Maduro, 28 April 2018
In a visit to Delta Amacuro,
president and reelection candidate Nicolás Maduro gave away eight motor
boats, nine ambulances, and reopened the "Antonio Díaz" Tucupita
Airport, among other announcements, violating Article 223 of the Organic
Law of Electoral Processes which forbids the use of state resources
during election campaigns, as well as one of the prerogatives in the
Agreement of Electoral Guarantees signed by the presidential candidates
to the CNE. On 8 May Maduro again violated the electoral law during an electoral act in the Amazonas state by promising to give fuel to the entity in exchange for votes.
Africa
Nigeria
On
a self-reported survey that was conducted, 1 in 5 Nigerian has
experienced an offer for their vote. The rewards offered by Nigerian
politicians include money, commodities such as food and clothing, or a
job.
Although the practice of vote buying is widespread, 58% of Nigerians
surveyed at the time of the 2007 election viewed vote buying as immoral. Despite this, when asked if they thought it was wrong to accept rewards or monetary compensation for your vote, 78% said no.
One factor that needs to be iterated when it comes to studies that are
based on surveys is that since vote buying is illegal in most countries,
a researcher's ability to collect accurate data is hindered. This is
because many citizens may not feel comfortable revealing their
experience or involvement with corrupt activities, or fear that they
will suffer repercussions from their governments for coming forward with
such information.
Kenya
Since the
1990s, Kenya has had regular multiparty elections in which vote buying
has played a central role. In his article, scholar Eric Kramon states
that: "According to the data gathered by the Coalition for Accountable
Political Finance in Kenya, cash handouts to voters represents around
40% of the average parliamentary candidates’ campaign budget, making up
the largest budget item."
These handouts are made in various ways including stops on the campaign
trail, and at-large campaign rallies. "In the 2002 election, 40% of
surveyed adult Kenyans reported having accepted a bribe in exchange for
their vote, and 22% for the 2007 elections."
It is noted by Kramen that access to information is a huge factor
in determining the success of vote buying in Kenya. If the voters have
little access to political information or lack political knowledge then
they are more likely to be swayed by clientelistic reasoning.
Moreover, if the voter does have access to information about an
incumbent, then the price to sway their vote is more likely to go up.
Additionally, Kramon notes that citizens of Kenya tend to value
candidates who provide rewards because their ability to do so points to
how great their abilities will be once they are in office.
Asia
Philippines
Despite the Commission on Elections's
(COMELEC) tight campaign against vote buying in the Philippines, it was
rampant across the country especially near the election period. According to the Philippine National Police,
the business of vote buying was done in the dark where the number of
people gathered there to received a sample ballot with the money, mostly
at least ₱500 attached to it. However, the authorities have since apprehended those who involved.
Voting process and results
A list of threats to voting systems, or electoral fraud methods considered as sabotage are kept by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Misleading or confusing ballot papers
Ballot
papers may be used to discourage votes for a particular party or
candidate, using the design or other features which confuse voters into
voting for a different candidate. For example, in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Florida's butterfly ballot
paper was criticized as poorly designed, leading some voters to vote
for the wrong candidate. While ballot was designed by a Democrat, it was
the Democrat, Al Gore, who was most harmed by voter errors because of this design.[55]
Poor or misleading design is usually not illegal and therefore not
technically election fraud, but it can nevertheless subvert the
principles of democracy.
Sweden
has a system with separate ballots used for each party, to reduce
confusion among candidates. However, ballots from small parties such as Piratpartiet, Junilistan and Feministiskt initiativ have been omitted or placed on a separate table in the election to the EU parliament in 2009. Ballots from Sweden Democrats have been mixed with ballots from the larger Swedish Social Democratic Party, which used a very similar font for the party name written on the top of the ballot.
Another method of confusing people into voting for a different
candidate than intended is to run candidates or create political parties
with similar names or symbols as an existing candidate or party. The
goal is to mislead voters into voting for the false candidate or party
to influence the results.
Such tactics may be particularly effective when a large proportion of
voters have limited literacy in the language used on the ballot. Again,
such tactics are usually not illegal but often work against the
principles of democracy.
Another type of possible electoral confusion is multiple variations of voting by different electoral systems. This may cause ballots to be counted as invalid if the wrong system is used. For instance, if a voter puts a first-past-the-post cross in a numbered single transferable vote
ballot paper, it is invalidated. For example, in Scotland and other
parts of the United Kingdom, up to four different voting systems and
types of ballots may be used, based on the jurisdictional level of
elections for candidates. Local elections are determined by single transferable votes; Scottish parliamentary elections by the additional member system; national elections for the UK Parliament by first-past-the-post; and elections to the European Parliament by a party list system.
Ballot stuffing
Transparent ballot box used in Ukraine to prevent election officials from pre-stuffing the box with fake ballots.
A specialised ballot box used to assist ballot stuffing, featured in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper in 1856.
Ballot stuffing, or "ballot-box stuffing", is the illegal practice of one person submitting multiple ballots during a vote in which only one ballot per person is permitted.
Ballot stuffing is still possible with electronic machines. For example, a version of the Sequoia touchscreen voting machine
has a yellow button on the back side that allows repeated voting.
Pressing the button triggers two audible beeps to alert election
observers about the illegal votes.
- In the 1883 election for the district of Cook, in Queensland, Australia, arrests were made in connection with accusations of ballot stuffing, and the election committee subsequently changed the result of the election.
- The Major League Baseball All-Star Game has suffered from ballot stuffing more than once.
- In 1957, Cincinnati Reds fans arranged for seven of the eight elected starting fielders to be Reds players.
- In 1999, the online ballot was stuffed in favor of Nomar Garciaparra.
- In 2015, Major League Baseball annulled 65 million (out of a total of 620 million) online ballots.
- During the 2018 Russian Presidential Election, there were multiple instances, some caught on camera, throughout Russia of voters and polling-staff alike stuffing multiple votes for incumbent President, Vladimir Putin in the ballot box.
Misrecording of votes
Votes may be misrecorded at source, on a ballot paper or voting machine, or later in misrecording totals. The 2019 Malawian general election
was nullified by the Constitutional Court in 2020 because many results
were changed by use of correction fluid, as well as duplicate,
unverified and unsigned results forms.
Where votes are recorded through electronic or mechanical means,
the voting machinery may be altered so that a vote intended for one
candidate is recorded for another, or electronic results are duplicated
or lost, and there is rarely evidence whether the cause was fraud or
error.
Many elections feature multiple opportunities for unscrupulous
officials or 'helpers' to record an elector's vote differently from
their intentions. Voters who require assistance to cast their votes are
particularly vulnerable to having their votes stolen in this way. For
example, a blind or illiterate person may be told that they have voted
for one party when in fact they have been led to vote for another.
Misuse of proxy votes
Proxy voting
is particularly vulnerable to election fraud, due to the amount of
trust placed in the person who casts the vote. In several countries,
there have been allegations of retirement home residents being asked to
fill out 'absentee voter' forms. When the forms are signed and gathered,
they are secretly rewritten as applications for proxy votes, naming
party activists or their friends and relatives as the proxies. These
people, unknown to the voter, cast the vote for the party of their
choice. In the United Kingdom, this is known as 'granny farming.'
Destruction or invalidation of ballots
One
of the simplest methods of electoral fraud is to destroy ballots for an
opposing candidate or party. While mass destruction of ballots can be
difficult to execute without drawing attention, in a very close
election, it may be possible to destroy a very small number of ballot
papers without detection, thereby changing the overall result. Blatant
destruction of ballot papers can render an election invalid and force it
to be re-run. If a party can improve its vote on the re-run election,
it can benefit from such destruction as long as it is not linked to it.
Another method is to make it appear that the voter has spoiled
his or her ballot, thus rendering it invalid. Typically this would be
done by adding another mark to the paper, making it appear that the
voter has voted for more candidates than entitled, for instance. It
would be difficult to do this to a large number of paper ballots without
detection in some locales, but altogether too simple in others,
especially jurisdictions where legitimate ballot spoiling by voter would
serve a clear and reasonable aim. Examples may include emulating
protest votes in jurisdictions that have recently had and since
abolished a "none of the above" or "against all" voting option, civil
disobedience where voting is mandatory, and attempts at discrediting or
invalidating an election. An unusually large share of invalidated
ballots may be attributed to loyal supporters of candidates that lost in
primaries or previous rounds, did not run or did not qualify to do so,
or some manner of protest movement or organized boycott.
Tampering with electronic voting systems
General tampering
All voting systems face threats of some form of electoral fraud. The types of threats that affect voting machines vary.
Research at Argonne National Laboratories revealed that a single
individual with physical access to a machine, such as a Diebold Accuvote
TS, can install inexpensive, readily-available electronic components to
manipulate its functions.
Other approaches include:
- Tampering with the software of a voting machine to add malicious code that alters vote totals or favors a candidate in any way.
- Multiple groups have demonstrated this possibility.
- Private companies manufacture these machines. Many companies will not allow public access or review of the machines' source code, claiming fear of exposing trade secrets.
- Tampering with the hardware of the voting machine to alter vote totals or favor any candidate.
- Some of these machines require a smart card to activate the machine and vote. However, a fraudulent smart card could attempt to gain access to voting multiple times or be pre-loaded with negative votes to favor one candidate over another, as has been demonstrated.
- Abusing the administrative access to the machine by election officials might also allow individuals to vote multiple times.
- Election results that are sent directly over the internet from the polling place centre to the vote-counting authority can be vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack, where they are diverted to an intermediate website where the man in the middle flips the votes in favour of a certain candidate and then immediately forwards them on to the vote-counting authority. All votes sent over the internet violate the chain of custody and hence should be avoided by driving or flying memory cards in locked metal containers to the vote-counters. For purposes of getting quick preliminary total results on election night, encrypted votes can be sent over the internet, but final official results should be tabulated the next day only after the actual memory cards arrive in secure metal containers and are counted.
United States
In
2014-2017 an intruder had control of the state computer in Georgia
which programmed vote-counting machines for all counties. The same
computer also held voter registration records. The intrusion exposed all
election files in Georgia since then to compromise and malware. The FBI studied that computer in 2017, and public disclosure came in 2020 from a court case. Georgia did not have paper ballots to measure the amount of error in electronic tallies.
In October 2016 Russians accessed the internal computers of VR Systems, which provides election services, including compilation of election results and their release on the web, in 8 states.
The intruders damaged 10 computers.
The NSA
prepared a classified report in May 2017, and it was leaked in June
2017. Whether the damage affected vote tallies has not been revealed.
Ukraine
In 2014 Ukraine's central election system was hacked. Officials found and removed a virus and said the totals were correct.
South Africa
In
1994, the election which brought majority rule and put Nelson Mandela
in office, South Africa's election compilation system was hacked, so
they re-tabulated by hand.
Voter impersonation
United States
Some commentators, such as former Federal Election Commission member Hans von Spakovsky,
have claimed that voter impersonation fraud, in which one person votes
by impersonating another, eligible voter, is widespread, but
documentation has been scarce and prosecutions rare. Numerous others,
such as Professor Larry Sabato, and a variety of studies have shown this to be "relatively rare" in the USA.
Since 2013, when the US Supreme Court ruled that a provision of the
Voting Rights Act was no longer enforceable, several states have passed voter ID laws,
ostensibly to counter the alleged fraud. But many experts counter that
voter ID laws are not very effective against some forms of
impersonation. These ID laws have been challenged by minority groups
that claimed to be disadvantaged by the changes. By August 2016, four
federal court rulings overturned laws or parts of such laws because they
placed undue burdens on minority populations, including African
Americans and Native Americans.
In each case: Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and North Dakota, and
may adversely affect minority voters. The states were required to accept
alternatives for the November 2016 elections. These cases are expected
to reach the US Supreme Court for hearings.
Allegations of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 United States presidential election by busing out-of-state voters to New Hampshire were found to be false. Suspicions of hacking of electronic voting machines in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were determined to be unfounded.
The N.C. Board of Elections reported in 2017 on questions of
voter fraud and the state's proposed voter ID law. The report showed
that out of 4,769,640 votes cast in the November 2016 election in North
Carolina, only one illegal vote would potentially have been blocked by
the voter ID law. The investigation found fewer than 500 incidences of
invalid ballots cast, the vast majority of which were cast by
individuals on probation for felony
who were likely not aware that this status disqualified them from
voting, and the total amount of invalid votes was far too small to have
affected the outcome of any race in North Carolina in the 2016 election.
Artificial results
In particularly corrupt regimes, the voting process may be nothing
more than a sham, to the point that officials simply announce whatever
results they want, sometimes without even bothering to count the votes.
While such practices tend to draw international condemnation, voters
typically have little if any recourse, as there would seldom be any ways
to remove the fraudulent winner from power, short of a revolution.
In Turkmenistan, incumbent President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov received 97.69% of votes in the 2017 election, with his sole opponent, who was seen as pro-government, in fact being appointed by Berdymukhamedov.
Postal ballot fraud
Fraud with absentee or postal ballots has been found occasionally in the United Kingdom,
and the United States
and has been alleged in Malaysia.
In both the United Kingdom and the United States, experts estimate there
is more fraud with postal ballots than in-person voting, and that even
so it has affected only a few local elections.
Types of fraud have included pressure on voters from family or others, since the ballot is not cast in secret;
collection of ballots by dishonest collectors who mark votes or fail to deliver ballots;
and insiders changing or destroying ballots after they arrive.
A significant measure to prevent some types of fraud has been to
require the voter's signature on the outer envelope, which is compared
to one or more signatures on file before taking the ballot out of the
envelope and counting it.
Not all places have standards for signature review,
and there have been calls to update signatures more often to improve this review.
While any level of strictness involves rejecting some valid votes and accepting some invalid votes,
there have been concerns that signatures are improperly rejected from
young and minority voters at higher rates than others, with no or
limited ability of voters to appeal the rejection.
Some problems have inherently limited scope, such as family
pressure, while others can affect several percent of the vote, such as
dishonest collectors and signature verification.
In legislature
Vote
fraud can also take place in legislatures. Some of the forms used in
national elections can also be used in parliaments, particularly
intimidation and vote-buying. Because of the much smaller number of
voters, however, election fraud in legislatures is qualitatively
different in many ways. Fewer people are needed to 'swing' the election,
and therefore specific people can be targeted in ways impractical on a
larger scale. For example, Adolf Hitler achieved his dictatorial powers due to the Enabling Act of 1933.
He attempted to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority to pass the
Act by arresting members of the opposition, though this turned out to be
unnecessary to attain the needed majority. Later, the Reichstag was
packed with Nazi party members who voted for the Act's renewal.
In many legislatures, voting is public, in contrast to the secret ballot
used in most modern public elections. This may make their elections
more vulnerable to some forms of fraud since a politician can be
pressured by others who will know how he or she has voted. However, it
may also protect against bribery and blackmail, since the public and
media will be aware if a politician votes in an unexpected way. Since
voters and parties are entitled to pressure politicians to vote a
particular way, the line between legitimate and fraudulent pressure is
not always clear.
As in public elections, proxy votes are particularly prone to
fraud. In some systems, parties may vote on behalf of any member who is
not present in parliament. This protects those members from missing out
on voting if prevented from attending parliament, but it also allows
their party to prevent them from voting against its wishes. In some
legislatures, proxy voting is not allowed, but politicians may rig
voting buttons or otherwise illegally cast "ghost votes" while absent.
Prevention
The
three main strategies for the prevention of electoral fraud in society
are: 1) Auditing the election process, 2) Deterrence through consistent
and effective prosecution; and 3) Cultivation of mores that discourage
corruption. Some of the main fraud prevention tactics can be summarised
as secrecy and openness. The secret ballot
prevents many kinds of intimidation and vote selling, while
transparency at all other levels of the electoral process prevents and
allows detection of most interference.
Election audits
Election auditing refers to any review conducted after polls close
for the purpose of determining whether the votes were counted accurately
(a results audit) or whether proper procedures were followed (a process
audit), or both.
Audits vary and can include checking that the number of voters
signed in at the polls matches the number of ballots, seals on ballot
boxes and storage rooms are intact, computer counts (if used) match hand
counts, and counts are accurately totaled.
Election recounts are a specific type of audit, with elements of both results and process audits.
Prosecution
In
the United States the goal of prosecutions is not to stop fraud or keep
fraudulent winners out of office; it is to deter and punish years
later. The Justice Department has published Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses
in eight editions from 1976 to 2017, under Presidents Ford, Carter,
Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Trump. It says, "Department does not have
authority to directly intercede in the election process itself.... overt
criminal investigative measures should not ordinarily be taken... until
the election in question has been concluded, its results certified, and
all recounts and election contests concluded." Sentencing guidelines provide a range of 0–21 months in prison for a first offender; offense levels range from 8 to 14. Investigation, prosecution and appeals can take over 10 years.
In the Philippines, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was arrested in 2011 following the filing of criminal charges against her for electoral sabotage, in connection with the 2007 Philippine general election. She was accused of conspiring with election officials to ensure the victory of her party's senatorial slate in the province of Maguindanao, through the tampering of election returns.
Mores
The patterns of conventional behaviour in a society, or mores, are an effective means for preventing electoral fraud and corruption in general. A good example is Sweden, where the culture has a strong tendency toward positive values, resulting in a low incidence of political corruption. Until recently Canada had a similar reputation. The In and Out scandal of 2008 and the Robocall scandal of 2011 has tarnished Canada's electoral integrity.
An advantage of cultivating positive mores as a prevention
strategy is that it is effective across all electoral systems and
devices. A disadvantage is that it makes other prevention and detection
efforts more difficult to implement because members of society generally
have more trust and less of a sense for fraudulent methods.
Secret ballot
The secret ballot,
in which only the voter knows how they have voted, is believed by many
to be a crucial part of ensuring free and fair elections through
preventing voter intimidation or retribution.
Others argue that the secret ballot enables election fraud (because it
makes it harder to verify that votes have been counted correctly) and that it discourages voter participation. Although the secret ballot was sometimes practiced in ancient Greece and was a part of the Constitution of the Year III
of 1795, it only became common in the nineteenth century. Secret
balloting appears to have been first implemented in the former British colony—now an Australian state—of Tasmania on 7 February 1856. By the turn of the century, the practice had spread to most Western democracies.
In the United States, the popularity of the Australian ballot
grew as reformers in the late 19th century sought to reduce the problems
of election fraud. Groups such as the Greenbackers, Nationalist, and
more fought for those who yearned to vote, but were exiled for their
safety. George Walthew, Greenback, helped initiate one of the first
secret ballots in America in Michigan in 1885. Even George Walthew had a
predecessor in John Seitz, Greenback, who campaigned a bill to "
preserve the purity of elections" in 1879 after the discovery of Ohio's
electoral fraud in congressional elections.
The efforts of many helped accomplish this and led to the spread
of other secret ballots all across the country. As mentioned on February
18, 1890, in the Galveston News "The Australian ballot has come to
stay. It protects the independence of the voter and largely puts a stop
to vote to buy." Before this, it was common for candidates to intimidate
or bribe voters, as they would always know who had voted which way.
Transparency
Most
methods of preventing electoral fraud involve making the election
process completely transparent to all voters, from nomination of
candidates through casting of the votes and tabulation. A key feature in ensuring the integrity of any part of the electoral process is a strict chain of custody.
To prevent fraud in central tabulation, there has to be a public
list of the results from every single polling place. This is the only
way for voters to prove that the results they witnessed in their
election office are correctly incorporated into the totals.
End-to-end auditable voting systems
provide voters with a receipt to allow them to verify their vote was
cast correctly, and an audit mechanism to verify that the results were
tabulated correctly and all votes were cast by valid voters. However,
the ballot receipt does not permit voters to prove to others how they
voted, since this would open the door towards forced voting and
blackmail. End-to-end systems include Punchscan and Scantegrity, the latter being an add-on to optical scan systems instead of a replacement.
In many cases, election observers
are used to help prevent fraud and assure voters that the election is
fair. International observers (bilateral and multilateral) may be
invited to observe the elections (examples include election observation
by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
European Union election observation missions, observation missions of
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), as well as international
observation organised by NGOs, such as CIS-EMO,
European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), etc.).
Some countries also invite foreign observers (i.e. bi-lateral
observation, as opposed to multi-lateral observation by international
observers).
In addition, national legislatures of countries often permit
domestic observation. Domestic election observers can be either partisan
(i.e. representing interests of one or a group of election contestants)
or non-partisan (usually done by civil society groups). Legislations of
different countries permit various forms and extents of international
and domestic election observation.
Election observation is also prescribed by various international
legal instruments. For example, paragraph 8 of the 1990 Copenhagen
Document states that "The [OSCE] participating States consider that the
presence of observers, both foreign and domestic, can enhance the
electoral process for States in which elections are taking place. They,
therefore, invite observers from any other CSCE participating States and
any appropriate private institutions and organisations who may wish to
do so to observe the course of their national election proceedings, to
the extent permitted by law. They will also endeavour to facilitate
similar access for election proceedings held below the national level.
Such observers will undertake not to interfere in the electoral
proceedings".
Critics note that observers cannot spot certain types of election fraud like targeted voter suppression or manipulated software of voting machines.
Statistical indicators
Various forms of statistics can be indicators of election fraud, e.g. exit polls
which diverge from the final results. Well-conducted exit polls serve
as a deterrent to electoral fraud. However, exit polls are still
notoriously imprecise. For instance, in the Czech Republic, some voters
are afraid or ashamed to admit that they voted for the Communist Party
(exit polls in 2002 gave the Communist party 2–3 percentage points less
than the actual result).
When elections are marred by ballot-box stuffing (e.g., the
Armenian presidential elections of 1996 and 1998), the affected polling
stations will show abnormally high voter turnouts with results favouring
a single candidate. By graphing the number of votes against turnout
percentage (i.e., aggregating polling stations results within a given
turnout range), the divergence from bell-curve distribution gives an
indication of the extent of the fraud. Stuffing votes in favour of a
single candidate affects votes vs. turnout distributions for that
candidate and other candidates differently; this difference could be
used to quantitatively assess the number of votes stuffed. Also, these
distributions sometimes exhibit spikes at round-number turnout
percentage values. High numbers of invalid ballots, overvoting or undervoting are other potential indicators.
Risk-limiting audits are methods to assess the validity of an election result statistically without the effort of a full election recount.
Voting machine integrity
One method for verifying voting machine accuracy is Parallel Testing,
the process of using an independent set of results compared to the
original machine results. Parallel testing can be done prior to or
during an election. During an election, one form of parallel testing is
the VVPAT.
Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verified paper record (VPR)
is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting
system. A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for
voting machines designed to allow voters to verify that their vote was
cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and to
provide a means to audit the stored electronic results. This method is
only effective if statistically significant numbers of voters verify that their intended vote matches both the electronic and paper votes.
On election day, a statistically significant number of voting
machines can be randomly selected from polling locations and used for
testing. This can be used to detect potential fraud or malfunction
unless manipulated software would only start to cheat after a certain
event like a voter pressing a special key combination (Or a machine
might cheat only if someone doesn't perform the combination, which
requires more insider access but fewer voters).
Another form of testing is Logic & Accuracy Testing (L&A), pre-election testing of voting machines using test votes to determine if they are functioning correctly.
Another method to ensure the integrity of electronic voting machines is independent software verification and certification.
Once a software is certified, code signing can ensure the software
certified is identical to that which is used on election day. Some argue
certification would be more effective if voting machine software was
publicly available or open source.
Certification and testing processes conducted publicly and with
oversight from interested parties can promote transparency in the
election process. The integrity of those conducting testing can be
questioned.
Testing and certification can prevent voting machines from being a black box where voters cannot be sure that counting inside is done as intended.
One method that people have argued would help prevent these
machines from being tampered with would be for the companies that
produce the machines to share the source code, which displays and
captures the ballots, with computer scientists. This would allow
external sources to make sure that the machines are working correctly.
Notable United States legislation
Help America Vote Act
The Help America Vote Act (Pub.L. 107–252), or HAVA, is a United States federal law enacted on October 29, 2002. It was drafted (at least in part) in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election. The goals of HAVA are: to replace punchcard and lever-based voting systems; create the Election Assistance Commission to assist in the administration of Federal elections; and establish minimum election administration standards.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This was the most important federal legislation of the 20th century
to protect voting rights, especially of ethnic and language minorities
who had been disenfranchised
for decades by states' constitutions and practices. Initially, it was
particularly important for enforcing the constitutional right of African
Americans in the South to vote, where millions of people had been
mostly disenfranchised since the turn of the 20th century and excluded
from politics. The law has also protected other ethnicities, such as
Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and language minorities in other
states, who have been discriminated against at various times, especially
in the process of voter registration and electoral practices.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and other minorities.
