Vote rigging is on a lot of hoi polloi ’s mind lately . Being able to tell whether an election has been tampered with could be the difference of opinion between the natural selection or destruction of republic , but it ’s not always easy . Three scientists have come to the saving , design numerical methods to depend for certain sorts of electoral fraud and testing them on election study suspect .
Dodgy elections come in many flesh andDr Peter Klimekof the Medical University of Vienna is n’t judge to catch all of them , at least with the one method . However , he is corking to bring out a detection method acting for what is sleep with as voter rigging . Unlike vote rigging , where ballot boxes go missing or have extra votes cryptically appear in them , voter rigging involves material votes being cast off under duress .
suspicion of such event may come up when people come forth , claiming to have been the victims of harassment and intimidation , but Klimek and his colleagues wonder if they could test these statistically .
The 2011 Russian parliamentary elections and the 2013 Venezuelan presidential vote both saw widespread allegations of elector rigging . The latter case saw electoral observersROE - AEallege far-flung use of goods and services of violence and bullying .
InScience Advances , Klimek contend small polling center are more likely locations for such rig than large ones , since they get less attention from independent election beholder and there is a greater chance that individual voters ' preference will be known . The latter factor means anyone intent on coercing people into not voting , or voting against their purport , will know who to target .
The composition presents a statistical test to see if small polling Stations of the Cross are producing suspiciously different result from larger single . The author examine this out on 21 election in 10 body politic . Some of these were in place widely perceived to be models of fair democracy , such as Austria , while others have been subject to considerable suspicion .
In Austria , Finland , and South Africa , among other examples , little and large polling stations bring on very similar results . The same was true in other Venezuelan election Klimek examined . However , in some elections from Russia , Venezuela , and Uganda , turnout was much higher at lowly polling stations and heavily skewed towards the winning company . The smaller the station , the greater the skew . There were enough suspect votes to change the outcome of the 2013 Venezuelan election .
Results skew by polling station sizing do n’t necessarily indicate elector rigging . For example , stations are often small in rural areas , which usualy vote other than from cities . authorities may also open more small polling Stations of the Cross in sympathetic areas , make water it easy for their helper to vote without engaging in actual rigging . Nevertheless , Klimek ’s work provides a test that can be used as a starting point for further investigation .
