Ballot stuffing

Ballot stuffing

Ballot stuffing is the illegal act of one person submitting multiple ballots during a vote in which only one ballot per person is permitted. The name originates from the earliest days of this practice in which people literally did stuff more than one ballot in a ballot box at the same time. In a government election, this is a form of electoral fraud.

Detecting ballot-stuffing depends a great deal on how good the record-keeping is. Most election systems match the number of persons showing up to vote with the number of ballots cast, and/or preparing the forms so that they are difficult to fake. A common method still used in small village elections throughout the USA uses two ballot boxes and a single sheet of paper for a ballot. After marking the ballot, the sheet is folded in half with each part dropped in the corresponding ballot box. The number of marked ballots in one box will equal the number of ballot sheet headers in the other ballot box, thus preventing ballot stuffing. In short, successful ballot-stuffing usually requires the misconduct of genuine registered voters and/or elections personnel.

Ballot stuffing with voting machines would be possible with Sequoia touchscreen machines. They have a yellow button on the back side which allows to vote again. Pressing the button also triggers two beeps so abusing this feature is essentially only possible without supervision.Fact|date=July 2007 On other voting machines administrative access using a key or chip card might also allow a person to vote multiple times.Fact|date=July 2007

Ballot-stuffing can be accomplished in a number of ways. Often, a ballot-stuffer will cast votes on the behalf of people who did not show up to the polls (known as "telegraphing"); sometimes, votes will even be cast by those who are long dead or fictitious characters in TV shows, books, and movies (known as "padding"). In earlier societies with little paperwork, dead people were kept "alive" on paper for the purpose of ballot-stuffing. The family of the deceased often helped along, either to assist their party or for money.

ee also

*Election fraud


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • ballot stuffing — See: STUFF THE BALLOT BOX …   Dictionary of American idioms

  • ballot stuffing — See: STUFF THE BALLOT BOX …   Dictionary of American idioms

  • ballot\ stuffing — See: stuff the ballot box …   Словарь американских идиом

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  • stuff the ballot box — {v. phr.} To give more votes to a candidate in an election than there are people who actually voted for him. * /It is a crime to stuff the ballot box./ [ballot stuffing] {adj. phr.} …   Dictionary of American idioms

  • stuff\ the\ ballot\ box — v. phr. To give more votes to a candidate in an election than there are people who actually voted for him. It is a crime to stuff the ballot box. • ballot stuffing adj. phr …   Словарь американских идиом

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  • Electoral fraud — Articleissues|article=y cleanup=January 2008 wikify=January 2008Electoral fraud 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… …   Wikipedia

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