is illegal interference with the process of an Election . Acts of Fraud tend to involve affecting vote counts to bring about a desired election outcome, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both.
Election fraud is probably as old as elections themselves. The first suspicion dates back to 471 BC in the Athenian Democracy . Archaeologists found 190 pieces of Broken Pottery used then as Ballot s with only 14 different handwritings.
Electoral fraud is illegal in most countries including Dictator ships likely to both control the electoral process and excuse any measures that achieve a desired result.
Especially with national elections, successful election fraud can have the effect of a , July 2004)
A look at some Narrow Elections with a margin of less than 0.1% shows that sometimes there would not be much fraud needed to change the outcome.
Extreme examples of election fraud are Sham Elections that are a common event in Dictator ial regimes that still feel the need to establish some element of public legitimacy, some even showing 100% of eligible voters voting on behalf of the régime. Most people only call a regime democratic as long as electoral fraud is rare, isolated, and small, or that electoral fraud by opposing groups roughly cancels the effects.
Electoral fraud is not limited to political polls and can happen in any kind of election where the potential gain is worth the risk for the cheater, as in elections for Labor Union officials, Student Council s, sports judging, and the awarding of merit to books, films, music, or television programming.
Despite many known instances of electoral fraud, it remains a difficult phenomenon to study and characterize. This follows from its inherent illegality. Harsh penalties aimed at deterring electoral fraud make it likely that any individuals who perpetrate acts of fraud do so with the expectation that it either will not be discovered or will be excused after the fact.
The introduction of Secret Ballot s in the 19th century made electoral fraud more difficult, forestalling attempts to influence the voter by Intimidation or Bribery . Secret balloting appears to have been first implemented in the former Australia n Colony -- now a State -- of Tasmania on 7 February 1856 . The first President Of The United States elected using a secret ballot was president Grover Cleveland in 1892.
Reconstruction , an effort to secure the voting rights of former slaves, ultimately failed in the states of the former Confederate States Of America as reactionary interests used Violence And Intimidation Against Freedmen as well as political legerdemain to disenfranchise African-Americans, including Poll Taxes and so-called Literacy Test s, for almost a century after the American Civil War , ensuring the continuing hegemony of élite agrarian interests at the expense of all other interests in the South until the Voting Rights Act Of 1965 .
Enabled by the Reichstag Fire Decree on March 23, 1933 Hitler arrested, intimidated or murdered all members of the Communist Party Of Germany and some of the Social Democratic Party Of Germany . This helped the NSDAP to get the needed two-thirds-majority to pass the Enabling Act giving Hitler Dictator ial powers.
Some examples of election fraud in the 20th Century include Communists seizing power in Poland , Romania , Hungary , and Czechoslovakia from nominally democratic governments between 1946 and 1948 with the aid of electoral fraud and maintaining formal power through rigged elections .
Ferdinand Marcos , once fairly elected as President of the Philippines , remained in power and became increasingly Dictator ial and Kleptocratic as he succeeded in marginalizing dissent and opposition through rigged elections.
Many dictatorships hold Show Election s in which results predictably show that nearly 100% of all eligible voters vote and that nearly 100% of those eligible voters vote for the prescribed (often only) list of candidates for office or for referendums that favor the Party in power irrespective of economic conditions and the cruelties of the government.
Some notorious examples of electoral fraud in the United States Of America include the widespread election manipulation committed by the Daley Machine in 20th century Chicago and Tammany Hall in 19th century New York.
There have been cases of electoral fraud with Postal Vote s in the UK (including at the 2004 European And Local Government Elections in Birmingham ) Judge upholds vote-rigging claims (BBC, 4. April 2005) New fears over postal vote fraud (Guardian, 13. April 2005) Labour to halt postal vote fraud but only after election (Times, April 11, 2005) and in the US in 2005. Connors pleads guilty to election fraud (Times Union, November 30. 2006)
- Bleeding Kansas election, March 30, 1855
- Romanian General Election, 1946
- U.S. Presidential Election, 1960
- Jammu And Kashmir Constituent Assembly Election, 1951 -Legislature elected by this election ratified Indian rule in Kashmir, providing India with legitimacy, but no pro-Pakistan parties contested the polls, and pro-India candidates were elected unopposed
- Greek Legislative Election, 1961
- Philippine Presidential Election, 1986
- Jammu And Kashmir Legislative Assembly Election, 1987 -The insurgecy in the Indian state of Jammu And Kashmir has been linked to the allegations that the election was rigged in favour of the National Conference Party of Farooq Abdullah .
- Mexican General Election, 1988
- Serbian Parliamentary Election, 1992
- Serbian Presidential Election, 1992
- Serbian Parliamentary Election, 1993
- Serbian Presidential Election, September–October 1997
- Serbian Presidential Election, December 1997
- Serbian Parliamentary Election, 1997
- Chadian Presidential Election, 1996
- Chadian Parliamentary Election, 1997
- Peruvian National Election, 2000
- Russian Presidential Election, 1996
- Sri Lankan Parliamentary Election, 2000
- 2000 United States Election, Controversy In Florida
- 2002 New Hampshire Senate Election Phone Jamming Scandal
- Georgian Legislative Election, 2003, Fraud Allegations
- 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Controversy And Irregularities
- --- 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Controversy, Voting Machines
- --- 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Controversy, Vote Suppression
- --- 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Controversy, Exit Polls
- --- 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Recounts And Legal Challenges
- --- 2004 U.S. Election Voting Controversies, Florida
- --- 2004 U.S. Election Voting Controversies, Ohio
- Romanian Legislative Election, 2004
- Philippine General Election, 2004
- Ukrainian Presidential Election, 2004
- Washington Gubernatorial Election, 2004
- Egyptian Presidential Election, 2005
- Belarusian Presidential Election, 2006
- Mexican General Election 2006 Controversies
- Italian General Election, 2006
- Morocco Elections, 2006
- Nigerian General Election, 2007
- Intimidation of voters that prevents them from voting, such as by Voter Suppression .
- Disrupting voting in , including Ballots , Ballot Box es, or Voting Machines .
- Using Caging Lists For Voter Suppression
- For example, in 2004, police stationed outside a Cook County, Illinois, polling place were requesting photo ID and telling voters if they had been convicted of a felony that they could not vote. {Link without Title}
- Also in 2004, for example, In Pima, Arizona, voters at multiple polls were confronted by an individual, wearing a black t-shirt with “US Constitution Enforcer” and a military-style belt that gave the appearance he was armed. He asked voters if they were citizens, accompanied by a cameraman who filmed the encounters. {Link without Title}
- Voters often complain about misinformation campaigns via flyers or phone calls encouraging them to vote on a day other than election day or spreading false information regarding their right to vote. In Polk County, Florida, in 2004, for example, voters received a call telling them to vote on November 3 (the election was on November 2). Also in 2004, in Wisconsin and elsewhere voters 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.” Intimidation and Deceptive Practices Incidents Of Voter Intimidation & Suppression
- Another simple, but notorious method of voter intimidation is the shoe polish method, which is often used in Company Towns . This method entails coating the Voting Machine s lever or button of the opposing candidate(s) with Shoe Polish . To understand how this works, take the example of an employee of the ''company'' who, against the advice of the party in power, votes for the opposing candidate(s). After they leave the voting booth, a conspirator to the fraud (a precinct captain or other local V.I.P.) will Handshake the voter. The conspirator will then subtly check their hand for any shoe polish and will note that the voter has left some shoe polish after the handshake. Soon afterward that unfortunate voter gets fired from his job.
- Buying or coercing votes from persons who would normally vote for another candidate or would not vote at all, but who are nevertheless eligible to vote.
- Intimidation of voters that alters their vote. "Four-legged voting," where Precinct workers would pull the levers on voting machines instead of the voter.
- Absentee and other Remote Voting can be more open to some forms of intimidation and coercion as the voter does not have the protection and privacy of the polling location.
- In Britain , one historically popular technique has been long known as ''granny farming'', after a contemptuous Slang designation for retirement homes. In this, party activists visit Retirement Home s, purportedly to help the elderly and immobile exercise their voting rights. Residents are asked to fill out 'absentee voter' forms, allowing them a Proxy Or Postal Vote . When the forms are signed and gathered, they are then secretly rewritten as applications for proxy votes, naming party activists or their friends and relatives as the proxies. These people, unknown to the voter, then cast the vote for the party of their choice. This trick relies on elderly care home residents typically being absent-minded, or suffering from Dementia . A case for this had occurred into the United States, when Kwame Kilpatrick was running for reelection as mayor of Detroit . Kilpatrick supporters had nursing home residents sign absentee ballots which were either already marked or later marked as voting for Kilpatrick.
- Ballot Stuffing , also called "ghost voting."
- Booth Capturing is a persistent problem in India n democracy where thugs of one party "capture" a polling booth and stamp their votes, threatening everyone.
- Theft or destruction of ballot boxes.
- Destroying election material in order to annul results for individual polling stations or even whole constituencies.
- Change the Software of a voting machine to shift votes between candidates. A demonstration how this can be done on a Diebold Election Systems AccuVote-TS was conducted by the Center for Information Technology Policy, at the University of Princeton. Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine . Another demonstration was shown on Dutch TV by the group "Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet". Nedap/Groenendaal ES3B voting computer a security analysis
- Altering or replacing the Hardware of the Voting Machine , such as inserting a circuit board using a Man In The Middle Attack technique to manipulate recorded votes. The board could be placed between keyboard, display and voting storage. In the case of Nedap machines this would allow manipulation without breaking the seals covering the central unit. Nedap/Groenendaal ES3B voting computer a security analysis (chapter 7.1) . Another place for a man in the middle attack could be between the central unit and the printer, but this would only be useful on machines where the stored votes will not be verified by other means like a display.
- Altering voting machines to favor one candidate over another, for example by jamming a button or changing the sensitive area of a Touchscreen . Test run for voting (Miami Herald, 10/31/2006)
- Intentional misconfiguration, for example altering the ballot design to misidentify a candidates party.
- Voting machines might also be subject to Van Eck Phreaking on the display or keyboard, compromising the secrecy of the votes. Nedap/Groenendaal ES3B voting computer a security analysis (chapter 6)
- One voting machine possibly subject to Ballot Stuffing if the voter is allowed unsupervised access, is the Sequoia Voting Systems ''AVC Edge'' touchscreen. These machines have a yellow button on the bottom (the reverse side of the touch screen) which if pressed after a valid vote will set the machine in "''manual mode''" bringing up a blank ballot allowing an additional vote. Button on e-voting machine allows multiple votes . This is an ''optional'' feature not found on all ''AVC Edge'' touchscreens, and is programmed to alert supervisors with two audible beeps.
- Abusing the administrative access to the machine by election officials might also allow individuals to vote multiple times.
- Electronic , and mechanical voting machines can be subject to different types of electoral fraud, as potential fraud could be incorrectly categorized as a technical problem.
A list of other threats to voting systems is kept by the National Institute Of Standards And Technology . Threats to Voting Systems (NIST)
The most comprehensive study on attacking electronic voting machines has been compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice. The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World
- Registering false voters such as the deceased or even fictitious persons.
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