Teaching Comparative

Voting Participation and Fraud

The legitimacy of representative government depends, in part, on wide-spread voter participation and on honesty and transparency in election procedures. Sometimes efforts at increasing participation result in opportunities for vote fraud. (It should be noted, that up until now in Western democracies, neither academic research nor criminal investigations have found very much evidence of fraud that would have affected election outcomes -- even thought anecdotal evidence of voter fraud is often discussed,.)

While efforts are being made to increase participation in British elections, the investigators at Scotland Yard are busy monitoring attempts to game and cheat the system. This report from The Guardian (London) on October 23, highlights the law enforcement efforts.

This could become the basis for a comparative study if you or your students could find information on the connections between efforts to increase participation and voting irregularities in other countries. For instance, it seems that comparisons could easily be made between the cases described below and "mail in" voting in Oregon.

Parties accused over electoral fraud

"One of the country's most senior police officers has accused political parties of 'sharp practice' as he warned that postal voting has increased the scope for ballot-rigging.

"Evidence has been unearthed that political parties have involved themselves in 'questionable practices' which undermine the integrity of the postal voting system in London...

"The risk was highlighted last week when two Liberal Democrat councillors were found guilty of using proxy votes to secure a council seat in Burnley...

"Postal voting on demand was rolled out to local elections in 2003 following a series of pilots which showed it boosted turnout at the polls...

"One of the outstanding inquiries is a major investigation into alleged fraudulent activity at Tower Hamlets borough council, east London, following allegations that hundreds of postal votes were stolen from blocks of flats in the borough.


"The council saw its Labour majority cut to just one seat after the poll last May.

"Those most vulnerable to exploitation are voters whose first language is not English..."

posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:04 AM