Chain Voting

Chain voting (sometimes called the "Tasmanian dodge" after a 19th-century Australian scandal) is a vote-buying or coercion scheme that exploits paper-ballot systems. The fraud works in a repeating loop:

1. An organizer obtains one blank official ballot, often by stealing it or having a confederate request a replacement.
2. The organizer marks it for the preferred candidate(s) outside the polling place.
3. A voter is paid or coerced to enter the polling station, deposit the pre-marked ballot, and smuggle out the blank ballot they were issued.
4. That fresh blank is then marked by the organizer and given to the next voter, perpetuating the chain.

The scheme defeats secret-ballot protections because the organizer can verify compliance — payment is contingent on the voter returning a genuine unmarked ballot. This distinguishes chain voting from simple bribery, where the buyer cannot confirm how the voter actually voted.

Common countermeasures include:

• Numbered ballot stubs retained by poll workers, so each issued ballot must be returned or accounted for.
• Ballot serialization and reconciliation at close of polls.
• Tearing or detaching stubs only after the voter receives the ballot, and requiring deposit in the presence of an official.
• Restrictions on taking ballots outside the polling place, and bans on photographing ballots in many jurisdictions.
• Mail-ballot safeguards such as signature verification, since absentee and postal voting are particularly vulnerable variants.

Chain voting has been documented in U.S. machine-politics eras (notably accusations during late-1800s and early-1900s urban elections) and remains a recurring concern in jurisdictions with weak chain-of-custody controls over paper ballots. Election-integrity bodies such as the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and OSCE/ODIHR observation missions routinely flag ballot-accountability procedures as a primary defense against the technique.