Electoral fraud
Electoral fraud is when someone tries to cheat in an election by breaking electoral laws. It is officially called electoral malpractice.
Electoral fraud includes:
Campaigning
- not declaring campaign expenses properly
- not including the names and addresses of the printer and who the leaflets were printed for on election leaflets
Voting
- pretending to be someone else to use their vote
- bribing someone to vote the way you want them to
- abusing a position of power to persuade someone to vote your way, for example a religious leader telling their congregation which way to vote
Becoming a candidate
- lying on a candidate nomination form
- forging or making up signatures on a candidate nomination form
- registering as a candidate when you are ineligible, for example because of your occupation or criminal record
Registration
- registering to vote when you are not entitled to vote
- lying about the deadline for people to register to vote, to stop people bothering to register