Illicit Tactics as Substitutes

Abstract

What is the relationship between ballot reforms and electoral malpractice? This article contributes to the growing comparative politics literature on the causes of election fraud in democratizing countries using the case of the 19th-century United States. We examine the adoption of the Australian ballot and disenfranchisement laws, and estimate their effects on multiple types of election fraud. Using a new measure of fraud in elections to the House of Representatives from 1860 to 1930, we find that the Australian ballot and disenfranchisement measures reduced vote-buying and voter intimidation. However, we further find that the Australian ballot had an "iatrogenic effect" of increasing registration and ballot fraud. Voting secrecy therefore led to substitution of one illicit electoral tactic for another.

Varieties of clientelism across political parties: new measures of patron–client relationships

“…Scholars have highlighted the role of monitoring and enforcement in clientelistic exchanges (Stokes, 2005;Nichter, 2008). Indeed, monitoring mechanisms are observed in some cases where secret voting does not either exist (Mares, 2015;Kuo and Teorell, 2017), is compromised (Rueda, 2017), or violated (Corstange, 2016;Frye et al, 2019). Nevertheless, it recently became clear that, in most cases, the mechanisms are generally much weaker than previously believed (Hicken and Nathan, 2020).…”

Who are the Election Skeptics? Evidence from the 2022 Midterm Elections

“…This is not to say that election fraud has never occurred. Indeed, social scientists and historians have uncovered a number of anomalies over the course of American history (e.g., Kuo and Teorell, 2017). However, all such anomalies are from a century ago in the U.S.…”

“…In the U.S., it is generally agreed that the height of election fraud occurred around the turn of the last century (Allen and Allen, 1981;Reynolds, 1993;Summers, 2001). While changes to the secret ballot made tactics such as voter intimidation and vote buying rare, there was a subsequent increase in registration and ballot fraud (Kuo and Teorell, 2017).…”

The Puzzling Practice of Paying “Cash for Votes”

“…For example, in the relevant US legislation (52 U.S. Code § 10307c) states: "Whoever knowingly or willfully … pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both"). make verification costly or infeasible and therefore reduce vote-buying (e.g., Baland and Robinson 2008, Gans-Morse et al 2014, Mares and Young 2016, Kuo and Teorell 2017.…”