election fraud
Ballot box tampering
Election fraud is illegal interference with an election—casting fraudulent votes, tampering with ballots, manipulating counts, or suppressing legitimate votes.
The term appears frequently in political rhetoric, where allegations of election fraud often outpace documented evidence: They claimed election fraud without proof.
Actual cases of widespread fraud are rare in established democracies, though isolated incidents occur.
- vote buyingExchanging money for ballots
- ballot stuffingFraudulent vote inflation
- fake ballotsCounterfeit election documents
- gerrymanderingManipulating electoral boundaries strategically
- poll watchersThose monitoring voting procedures
bribery · corrupt officials · disenfranchisement · hackers · voter impersonation · dead voters · voter suppression · recount · foreign agents · whistleblower protections · voter ID laws · electoral commission · dead · voter rolls · hanging chads · chain of custody · overturn · big lie
- criminal schemesconspiracy, collusion, racketeering, kickback scheme, assassination plot
- election disputescontested results, recount, recounts, vote recount, vote recounts
- election fraudballot stuffing, ballot tampering, vote rigging, rigged elections, overcounting
- crimesarson, burglary, robbery, kidnapping, vandalism
- Eastern EuropePoland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria
- politicsdemocracy, campaigning, campaigns, democrats, bill
election fraudvoter protection
Measures ensuring ballot access
ballot security · election security · civic participation · enfranchisement · voting rights