Comments on: Bumblers boldly buying ballots?

By: Dr Amonymous

Dr Amonymous — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:00:54 +0000

You might want to take a look at some of Mushtaq Khan’s work on the factional organization of politics in South Asia. It’s useful in understand what this means and what it doesn’t.

Also votes are still bought in the U.S. – it’s just done through advertising instead

By: roger23

roger23 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:26:51 +0000

Well, given a secret ballot I’d say it would be a wasteful strategy on the part of the political parties, when instead they could engage more standard bribing practices… like when one party in the last Tamil Nadu state election promised ‘Free’ televisions for everyone upon victory. Not only is that not illegal, but they will have the state treasury at their disposal to fulfill it.

By: ExPatInLA

ExPatInLA — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:54:50 +0000

Khoofia wrote

it isn't uncommon for homeless people to be bussed ...

Reminds me of a politico friend I had growing up in Bihar, who used to say that the politician with the most Jeeps at his disposal was always the winner of the election.

Turns out that if you could stuff a village with Jeeps, you could corner the women folks' votes.

The women apparently enjoyed the change of scenery that came with the free ride to the polling station, and the politician got their votes in return.

By: khoofia

khoofia — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:56:19 +0000

Shady practices are not uncommon. here in canada, it isnt uncommon for homeless people to be bussed to critical ridings. i am sure a meal and other niceties are wrked into the deal somewhere. So! homeless people can vote but they can not eat the ballot.

By: bytewords

bytewords — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:36:10 +0000

Lastly, Iâ€™m not sure how much vote buying actually buys. If the vote is secret, or secret enough, then voters can simply take the money and then vote for whoever they want. (In fact, poorer opposition parties in some African countries encourage voters to do this since they donâ€™t have enough money to win the bidding war). And if the vote isnâ€™t secret, then why not simply tamper with it directly?

to some extent, i think it is a case of “thieves have honor too”. buying votes is ok (tough to track and prove), tampering with cast votes (easier to track) is worse. tampering with votes happens though—it even has a name “booth capturing”.

if you are going to pull this off in india, you have one worry—the judiciary and the election commission are fairly independent of the legislature and executive (no appointments to the supreme court, for example). they are not averse to baring their fangs if they can prove something. so it may simply be easier to bribe voters, or in some cases, bribe voters to stay home and get your people to vote. to be fair, the later cannot work on a mass scale. moreover it is not unheard of to be paid by multiple parties for your vote .

By: Alok

Alok — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:25:43 +0000

I have a friend who voted mulitple times in the same election in Punjab because his relative was running.

By: Paranoid Android

Paranoid Android — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:03:23 +0000

Any realpolitik or in fact any really successful strategy flirts with the fringes of law. Any strategist would advocate using your means to the best extent possible. The richer parties exploit the same weakness of the system which cannot prevent smaller/regional/communal parties to campaign on the basis of religion/ caste etc, which are clearly banned by the Election Commission.

In fact, I would much rather prefer a “fair” system of payback for vote – i.e. hard cash – than a flawed system such as religion. Defining fair as equal opportunity. Also, it is a system which can control its own future. The market determines the price of a vote and then a party can keep doing it only for so long. They will be forced to make a trade off between the marketing material and buying the votes, which can have very different pain-gain ratio. Also, this will work only in so many places with so many votes, so the effect on the elections in general would be minimal.

By: ignoramus

ignoramus — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:39:18 +0000

What is a bumbler?

By: pingpong

pingpong — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:13:14 +0000

See? SEE? Double standards everywhere, I tell you. US politicians can thump their tubs about democracy, free market, and capitalism, and they are held to be patriots and champions of American values. Some enterprising Indian politicians and voters practice free market democracy to keep capitalism alive, and immediately there’s a hue and cry over election corruption. Shouldn’t these intrepid pioneers be felicitated for their achievements in reducing the unscientific guesswork from elections?

By: pkr

pkr — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:54:43 +0000

The side of the bribe varies from around $3/voter up to (and this I find hard to believe) $25

I have seen people getting paid 1000 bucks for one vote, especially during local body elections like Panchayat etc, and that was five years ago.