Electoral Fraud Detection
The methods used to detect fraud, from statistical forensics to observer reports, and the difference between real and imagined fraud.
What Fraud Actually Looks Like
Electoral fraud takes many forms: ballot stuffing (adding fake ballots to the count), vote buying (paying voters to vote a certain way), coercion (threatening voters or their families), multiple voting (the same person voting more than once), manipulation of results (altering counts during tabulation), and dead voter fraud (voting in the name of deceased registrants). The most common forms worldwide are vote buying and result manipulation, not the voter impersonation that dominates US debate.
The scale of fraud varies enormously. In mature democracies with strong institutions, systematic fraud is extremely rare. The US has documented fewer than 2,000 proven cases of voter fraud since 1979 out of billions of ballots cast. In weaker democracies, particularly those with controlled media and weak election administration, fraud can be systematic: entire ballot boxes stuffed, opposition votes discarded, or results fabricated before they leave the polling station.