6 Simple Steps to Stealing an Election
From the Foreign Policy website: How to Steal an Election Without Breaking a Sweat. A tad reductive, but fun, and with illustrated examples.
From the Foreign Policy website: How to Steal an Election Without Breaking a Sweat. A tad reductive, but fun, and with illustrated examples.
AllAboutVoting on 01 Feb 2008 at 4:27 pm #
My post on the same:
http://allaboutvoting.com/2008/01/29/your-friendly-guide-to-stealing-an-election/
Jack on 01 Feb 2008 at 5:00 pm #
In the United States, you steal an election in court. Get lots of lawyers. If you’re a Republican, get voters disqualified. If you’re a Democrat, keep the polls open as late as possible.
As with gerrymandering - which, as an aside, only matters for the handful of marginal congressional districts in America - stealing an election in court takes long-term planning. In the case of the court, you’ve got to get the governor and state legislature to appoint cronies.
Stolen elections are not unique to new democracies. It’s more a question of degree. In the USA, we need a professional, independent election commission chartered and run in a way similar to PBS. Or, at least, 50 state commissions.
AllAboutVoting on 04 Feb 2008 at 10:23 am #
Some thoughts on the election commission approach (in the context of gerrymandering):
http://allaboutvoting.com/2008/01/02/do-independent-or-bi-partisan-commissions-solve-gerrymandering/
The risk to me is that the commission becomes partisan or more likely bi-partisan rather than non-partisan.
Another risk is that the commission may become unable to function if there are not enough people on it to achieve a quorum. That can happen if there is political gaming in how people are assigned to the commission. I believe the US FEC is in a situation like this right now.
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/009997.html
http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/01/08/fec-lacks-a-quorum-cant-resolve-many-campaign-finance-issues/
Jack on 13 Feb 2008 at 12:09 am #
I come at the issue from the perspective of election administration, not the drawing of legislative districts.
Your two scenarios would be unfortunate. But having independent election administration would be better than the overtly partisan process that now exists in most states.
I suspect any realistic implementation of the commission approach would be at the state level.
One way to mitigate the partisanship problems you highlight would be something like this. Have three-member boards. Let each party’s legislative caucus appoint one member each. Let the minor party with the greatest seat (or vote in the absence of seats) share appoint the third.