CHEATING IN ELECTIONS
Ding Tanjuactco
I. Registration
1. Registration of non-qualified voters
This can also be called packing of voters' lists. To ensure that a candidate will have captive votes, he will haul in voters even if these voters do not meet the citizenship, age or residence requirements. Where the registration period has already lapsed, the same objective can be achieved through the manipulation of inclusion proceedings in court.
2. Disenfranchisement of qualified voters
This is resorted to where a candidate believes that a voter or group of voters will vote for his opponent(s). It can come in the form of discouraging them from registering at all or, if they managed to register, to exclude them from the voters' lists through an ostensibly legal exclusion proceedings in court.
II. Election Day
1. Vote buying
a) with or with out chained balloting
Some candidates will take the word of the bought voter. However, if he wants to be sure that he gets his money's worth, the candidate will employ chained balloting or "lansadera". At the start of the day, all the potential "buyees" are gathered in one place and, as soon as the polls are opened, one of them is sent to the polling place. After the usual identification process, he obtains a ballot from the poll clerk, which he takes with him to the polling booth.
At this point, everything is still fine and dandy. But what he does with the ballot becomes the heart of the illegal scheme. Instead of filling up the ballot, he puts it in his pocket and casts something that looks like a ballot into the ballot box. Thereafter, he presents the blank official ballot to the buyer who pays him an amount for his effort. The buyer then fills up the ballot himself and hands the same to the second voter. The second voter goes to the polling place and obtains a blank official ballot but does not drop this in the ballot box. Instead, he drops the ballot which was filled up by the buyer. He then turns over the blank official ballot to the buyer and the cycle is repeated.
b) with or without identifying marks
Another way of ensuring that the bought voter will live up to his end of the bargain is to specify how that voter will fill up his ballot. The voter can be required to write the candidate's name in a peculiar way, e.g. first name last, with nickname, slightly misspelled etc.
3. Negative vote buying
This is the simplest way of buying votes. Where a candidate is certain that a voter will not vote for him, he can pay him not to vote. Efficiency can be achieved by herding the voters together and getting them on a bus that will take them away for the rest of the day. A lot of times, the voters will be compelled to have their index fingers smeared with indelible ink.
4. Waylaying of voters
a) through fraud or stealth
This has the same objective as negative vote buying except that no financial benefit accrues to the voter. With the connivance of the Board of Election Inspectors, the voter's name is deleted from the list. This results in confusion resulting in the voter being disenfranchised.
b) through intimidation or downright terrorism
Disenfranchisement is also attained except that the means used are less subtle.
3. Stuffing of Ballot box with fake Ballots
The ballots stuffed may or may not be faithful reproductions of the genuine ones. In either case, the fake ballots will have the name(s) of the candidate(s) written in the appropriate place(s).
4. Ballots written by only one person or group of persons
This is usually employed in highly controlled or highly terrorized areas. The legitimate voters are driven away and the henchmen of the warlord are left to do the voting for them.
5. Voting by persons other than the registered voters
Toward the end of the voting period, the list is scanned for those who have not voted yet. Ballots are issued to persons other than the registered voters and are filled up by the co-conspirators of the cheating candidate. As expected, it is his name that will appear in the appropriate place.
6. Misreading of Ballots
This is a rather simple maneuver. All it requires is the blind albeit cooperative eyes of the Board of Election Inspectors and the complacency of the watchers.
7. Ballot/Ballot Box snatching or destruction
Where a candidate is losing in a precinct, the snatching of the ballot box or its destruction (together with its contents) will deny his opponent the lead that the latter could have enjoyed in that precinct.
8. Ballot/Ballot box substitution
This is a refinement of snatching or destruction. Not only does it deny the opponent of the votes he could have gotten - it also credits the cheating candidate, as many votes as there are substituted ballots.
9. Falsification (tampering) of Election Returns
This is a very cost efficient way of cheating. After the counting is completed in the precinct, the votes are recorded in a document called the Election Return. The intercalation of a single digit can result in a hundred votes added in favor of a candidate. And this is so easy to do because by this time the level of awareness had been relaxed, the recording being anti-climactic to the counting.
10. Falsification of Statement of Votes or Certificate of Canvass in the Municipal or City Board of Canvassers
And this becomes even more vicious when the manipulation is done at the level of the city or municipal board of canvassers. The results of all the precincts in a city or municipality are recorded in a document called the Statement of Votes which is prepared by the board of canvassers. Note that municipalities or cities have thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of voters. The insertion or intercalation of one or two digits can result in tens of thousands of votes undeservedly added.
11. Falsification of Statement of Votes or Certificate of Canvass in the Provincial Board of Canvassers
The situation becomes fatal if the manipulation is done at the level of the provincial board of canvassers, given the number of voters in most provinces which can go up to a million.
