List of controversial elections

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1934 Italian general election: Facade in Rome, with Mussolini's face and the word "SI" (yes) repeated.

This is a list of controversial elections arranged by continent and date.

By continent[]

Africa[]

Asia[]

Central America[]

Europe[]

2011–2013 Russian protests were motivated by claims that the election process was flawed.

Middle East[]

North America[]

This is a list of notable elections involving accusations of direct voter fraud or in which the results were procedurally contested, extensively protested, or recognized as fraudulent by a reliable international organization.

Canada[]

  • 2011 Canadian federal election - During the Robocall scandal, Elections Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated widespread reports of robocalls from Conservative Party campaign offices misleading voters from casting ballots by claiming that their polling stations had been changed, an act of electoral fraud and voter suppression under the Canada Elections Act. Although the investigation was initially centered around the riding of Guelph, Ontario, further instances were reported around the country, leading to widespread protests. Although the Commissioner of Canada Elections ultimately refused to press charges against the Conservative Party, a junior staffer named Michael Sona was ultimately convicted of voter fraud.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23]

Mexico[]

  • 1988 Mexican general election - The election was the first in which Mexico introduced a parallel vote tabulation system in which electoral districts report results by telephone to the Secretariat of the Interior. Although early results showed the National Democratic Front (FDN) candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in the lead, Secretary of the Interior Manuel Bartlett claimed that the new voting system had broken down, and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari ultimately was declared the winner. In 1991, President Miguel de la Madrid admitted in his autobiography that the breakdown had been faked and that there were no complete results when Salinas de Gortari was declared the winner. The result was the lowest performance for any winning President since the institution of direct elections for the presidency under the 1917 Constitution, and the PRI's worst electoral performance since dominating Mexican politics after 1929.
  • 2006 Mexican general election - The election was plagued by irregularities, and President Vicente Fox was accused of using government resources to favor the PAN candidate Felipe Calderón over the initially heavily favored PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The official election results gave Calderón a very narrow victory with 35.89% of the votes, with López Obrador in second place with 35,31% of the votes. López Obrador refused to recognize the results and claimed victory for himself; a political crisis ensued, and there were nationwide protests calling for a complete recount of the votes, which was rejected by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. In spite of the protests, Calderón took office as president on 1 December; only ten days later he declared war on the drug cartels, thus beginning the Mexican Drug War, a move widely perceived to have been an extraordinary step to gain popular legitimacy after the chaotic electoral process.
  • 2012 Mexican general election - After the PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto was declared the winner, the Yo Soy 132 movement emerged protesting the results due to reports that the PRI had participated in campaign finance violations, electoral fraud, and vote buying by providing poor voters with Soriana store credit cards. Although Peña Nieto was eventually redeclared the winner after a recount endorsed by the United States, unrest continued through Peña Nieto's inauguration.

United States[]

  • 1792 New York gubernatorial election – The Federalist Party candidate John Jay received more votes than the Democratic-Republican Party candidate George Clinton, but on technicalities, the votes of Otsego, Tioga and Clinton counties were rejected, giving George Clinton a slight majority in the official result.
  • 1824 United States presidential election - John Quincy Adams became President after winning a contingent election in the House of Representatives due to the absence of an absolute majority in the Electoral College, despite the fact that Andrew Jackson (who would win the 1828 presidential election) won a plurality of the popular and electoral vote.
  • Bleeding Kansas election, March 30, 1855 – An election to decide whether Kansas should be a free state or a slave state involved massive immigration to sway the vote and resulted in post-election violence, including a severe beating of a US Senator by a Congressman. The events it encompasses directly presaged the American Civil War. (See Kansas–Nebraska Act)
  • 1876 United States presidential election – One of the most disputed and controversial presidential elections in American history between the Democratic Party's candidate Samuel J. Tilden and the Republican Party's candidate Rutherford B. Hayes was resolved by the Compromise of 1877, which allowed Hayes to become president in exchange for the end of Reconstruction and the withdrawal of all federal troops stationed in the South after the American Civil War. Although it is generally agreed that Tilden won a majority of the popular vote, the results of the electoral vote continue to be disputed.
  • 1888 United States presidential election - The incumbent Democrat President Grover Cleveland won the popular vote, but Benjamin Harrison won the electoral vote. Cleveland would be re-elected in 1892.
  • 1891 New York State Senate election in Dutchess County
  • 1948 United States Senate election in Texas - Lyndon B. Johnson won the Democratic primary over Coke R. Stevenson by only 87 votes. However, Johnson was accused of voter fraud in Duval County, as it had initially appeared Stevenson had won before 200 votes were allegedly found for Johnson.
  • 1960 United States presidential election[24] - Some accounts claimed that mobster Sam Giancana and his Chicago crime syndicate played a role in Kennedy's victory in Illinois.[24]
  • 2000 United States presidential election - After a close election in which the winner was unclear, the Republican candidate George W. Bush won Florida by such a slim margin that a recount of the votes was triggered under Florida state law, beginning a series of legal battles between Bush and the Democratic candidate Al Gore and considerable public controversy. After the completion of a machine recount, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a manual recount due to continued concerns over the validity of the election. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which halted the recount in the Bush v. Gore and Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board decisions, which Bush to win Florida by a 0.009 percent margin and the electoral vote.
  • 2002 Alabama gubernatorial election - Although the incumbent Democratic Governor Don Siegelman was initially declared the winner by a close majority, the Republican candidate Bob Riley ultimately won after a recount in Baldwin County without the presence of Democratic observers.
  • 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal[25] - During the 2002 United States Senate election in New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Republican State Committee hired a telemarketing firm to jam the phone bank used by the Democratic Party in a "get out the vote" operation. The Republican candidate John E. Sununu won a narrow victory over the Democratic candidate Jeanne Shaheen, while James Tobin was later charged for lying to the FBI.
  • 2004 United States presidential election : The certification of Republican electors in Ohio were legally challenged. Representative John Conyers investigated voter suppression, culminating in his report What went wrong in Ohio. Several independent researchers including Bob Fitrakis, Mark Crispin Miller, Steven F. Freeman, Richard Hayes Phillips and Richard Charnin published books alleging that Bush won the election due to Electoral fraud and Voter suppression.[26]
  • 2004 Washington gubernatorial election - After a close election in which the Republican candidate Dino Rossi was declared the winner in the initial election and the machine count, the Democratic candidate Christine Gregoire was declared the winner after a manual recount. Rossi made an unsuccessful legal challenge to the results, and did not officially concede the election for seven months.
  • 2008 United States Senate election in Minnesota - Republican incumbent Norm Coleman initially led against the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate Al Franken, but the close margin triggered a mandatory recount under Minnesota state law; Franken was ultimately declared the winner by the Minnesota State Canvassing Board.
  • 2016 United States presidential election - The election was widely characterized as divisive and negative and was plagued by scandals such as the Republican candidate Donald Trump's alleged sexual misconduct and the Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton's alleged improper use of an email server. No Russian citizen accused of interfering in the election in the form of online influencing from a St. Petersburg-based troll farm has been formally charged, and as result no Court will have the opportunity to review evidence to support or dispute accusations of Russian interference that adhere to the standards of the United States Judicial System for proving guilt. Trump ultimately won an upset victory in the Electoral College despite Clinton's victory in the popular vote, and characterized the Russian interference as a "hoax" and "fake news" despite the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community to the contrary. In 2016, the FBI initiated the Crossfire Hurricane investigation over the Russian meddling in the election and links between Trump associates and Russian officials, and President Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey due to his continuation of the investigation. Due to allegations of collusion with the Russian government, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to lead an investigation. Although the investigation resulted in 34 indictments and eight criminal convictions, it was refraining from making a judgment about whether Trump could be criminally charged for obstruction of justice due to his conduct during the investigation. In 2020 US Attorney General William Barr initiated a criminal investigation of the Rosenstein/Mueller collusion investigation in response to its questionable basis and procedures.
  • 2017 United States Senate special election in Alabama - During the election to fill U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions's vacated Senate seat in Alabama, the Republican Party candidate Roy Moore refused to concede the election after being defeated by the Democratic Party candidate Doug Jones despite pressure from his ally President Donald Trump's administration to do so, claiming that he had been the victim of a voter fraud conspiracy. Moore was additionally plagued by sexual misconduct allegations, including allegations of child molestation.
  • 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election - Brian Kemp retained his post as Georgia Secretary of State after his nomination by the Republican Party for Governor of Georgia, leading to conflict of interest allegations. Due to irregularities in voter registration, the Republican state government was accused of voter suppression, while U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May ruled that Gwinnett County violated civil rights law by rejecting absentee ballots. After the election was re-certified, the Democratic Party candidate Stacey Abrams ended her campaign, but refused to concede the election.
  • 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses - The Iowa Democratic Party was initially unable to collect and announce results due to the failure of a mobile application designed to collect the votes. Although the results were eventually released with Pete Buttigieg leading, they have been subject to scrutiny and the Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has advocated a recanvassing of the votes.
  • 2020 Wisconsin Democratic primary - During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tony Evers, Wisconsin Governor moved to delay the primary election because voters were expected to shelter in place to minimize the spread of the virus. The Wisconsin Supreme Court stepped in and ruled that this was not allowed, while the U.S. Supreme Court also ruled 5-4 that the election would take place as scheduled, disregarding the fact that only five of the 180 polling places would be open due to a lack of poll workers due to the coronavirus pandemic. President Donald Trump stated, "The things they had in there [the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act] were crazy. They had things — levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again." It is fair to note that a seat for the Wisconsin State Supreme Court was on the ballot, which a Democrat won.
  • 2020 United States presidential election — The election was heavily reliant on mail-in ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Republican Donald Trump repeatedly alleged that mail-in ballots would allow the Democratic Party to commit electoral fraud. Snopes immediately debunked the claim.[27][28] Trump's critics accused him of blocking funding to the U.S. Postal Service to sabotage the election, although Postmaster General Louis DeJoy later agreed to delay certain changes until after the election.[29] Trump also suggested that he would not accept the results if he lost and even refused to commit to a peaceful transition.[30][31] A unanimous vote of the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. Armed Forces announced their commitment to a peaceful transition, while Trump's comments were heavily criticized.[32][30] International observers from OSCE described the elections as well-managed, but said that baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies, made by the incumbent President, harm public trust in democratic institutions.[33] Various allegations of fraud relating to election processes in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona were also debunked by independent fact-checking organizations like FactCheck.org and Snopes.[34][35][36][37][38] Trump ultimately lost the election to Joe Biden, but refused to concede, continued to repeat allegations of voter fraud, and obstructed the presidential transition.[39] Despite there being no evidence for voter fraud, there were hundreds of affidavits across the country alleging that there was voter fraud and voter irregularities.[40][41][42][43] On January 6, 2021, a mob breached the police lines and invaded the U.S. Capitol, delaying the counting of the electoral votes by several hours, and resulting in the shooting death of a protestor. Trump was subsequently impeached by the House due to his being accused of inciting the insurrection; he was later acquitted of these charges.

Oceania[]

  • 2014 Fijian general election
  • April 2021 Samoan general election

South America[]

Examples of electoral fraud[]

  • Reconstruction, an effort to secure the voting rights of former slaves after the American Civil War, ultimately failed in the former Confederate States due to reactionary interests using violence and intimidation against freedmen and political legerdemain (including poll taxes and so-called literacy tests) to disenfranchise African-Americans and ensure the continuing hegemony of élite agrarian interests at the expense of all other interests in the South until 1965.
  • Politically enabled by the Reichstag Fire Decree on March 23, 1933, Hitler arrested or ordered the murder of all MPs from the Communist Party of Germany that were unable to flee or hide, and some from the Social Democratic Party of Germany, before intimidating most of the other MPs into supporting him. This helped the NSDAP to get the required two-thirds majority to pass the Enabling Act, thus giving Hitler dictatorial powers.
  • In Romania, the heavily rigged election of 1946 formalized the takeover by Communists and the destruction of multi-party democracy.
  • Ferdinand Marcos, fairly elected as President of the Philippines in 1965, remained in power and became increasingly dictatorial and kleptocratic, as he succeeded in marginalizing dissent and opposition through allegedly rigged elections.
  • Many dictatorships (and former Warsaw Pact nations) hold show elections, in which results predictably show that nearly 100% of all eligible voters vote and that nearly 100% of those eligible voters vote for the prescribed (often only) list of candidates for office, or for referendums that favour the party in power, irrespective of economic conditions and the cruelties of the government.
  • Slobodan Milošević was accused of rigging elections in 1996 and 2000 which was followed by mass popular protests. He resigned in October 2000.[48]
  • It was widely held in the Ukrainian media that the Ukrainian election of 2004 was also hit by ballot rigging and voter intimidation on all sides.[49]
  • Both tabloid press accusations and several anecdotal public claims of postal vote fraud in both Birmingham and Hackney dogged many aspects of 2001 United Kingdom general election and 2005 United Kingdom general election which were reviewed in the court of appeal.[50][51][52][53][54][55][56] There were also claims made over postal vote fraud and intimidation at the 2004 European and local government elections in Birmingham[57][58][59]
  • Both the Ugandan election of 2006[60] and the Kenyan[61] election of 2007 were marred by opposition claims that the ruling party had cheated its way back into power with the heavy use of electoral fraud.[60]

See also[]

References[]

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  2. ^ "Opposition reveals rigging plot", Zimbabwe Independent, 27 March 2008
  3. ^ McKenzie, Roy (8 May 2014). "Zille: Dumped ballots raises concern about fair election". News24. Archived from the original on 3 July 2014. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  4. ^ "Kashmir's flawed elections". September 14, 2002 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
  5. ^ "BBC News | EUROPE | Armenian elections go to run-off". news.bbc.co.uk.
  6. ^ 2013 Malaysian general election
  7. ^ "Fraud claims mar Armenia referendum". BBC News. December 7, 2015.
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  14. ^ "Bulgaria Election Body Ignores Questions About EU Elections". Balkan Insight. 2019-06-06. Retrieved 2019-06-07.
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  25. ^ "Opinion | The New Hampshire Phone Scam". The New York Times. 2007-09-17. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  26. ^ Freeman, Steven (2005). Was the 2004 Presidential Election stolen?. Seven Stories Press.
  27. ^ Saul, Stephanie; Epstein, Reid J. (2020-08-31). "Trump Is Pushing a False Argument on Vote-by-Mail Fraud. Here Are the Facts". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  28. ^ "Trump's 'Major Fraud' Speech, Fact-Checked". Snopes.com. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  29. ^ "US Postal Service warns of risks to mail-in votes". BBC News. 2020-08-15. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  30. ^ a b "Unanimous Senate commits to peaceful transfer of power after Trump refuses". ABC News. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  31. ^ Fritze, John. "Trump declines to commit to peaceful transfer of power, McConnell promises 'orderly transition'". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  32. ^ Ryan Browne and Barbara Starr. "As Trump refuses to commit to a peaceful transition, Pentagon stresses it will play no role in the election". CNN. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  33. ^ "Highly competitive elections in US tarnished by legal uncertainty and unprecedented attempts to undermine public trust, international observers say". www.osce.org. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
  34. ^ "No, There's Isn't a 'Glitch' in Michigan Election Software That Flipped Thousands of Trump Votes". Gizmodo Australia. 2020-11-07. Retrieved 2020-11-09.
  35. ^ Bogart, Nicole (2020-11-04). "Truth Tracker: Were Trump ballots marked with sharpies disqualified in Arizona?". America Votes. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
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  37. ^ Schiffer, Zoe (2020-11-03). "Election hoax spreading through text messages in Michigan". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  38. ^ Brewster, Jack. "Trump Floats Baseless Conspiracy Theory About 'Very Strange' Ballot Dumps As Michigan, Wisconsin Tilt Blue". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
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  40. ^ https://hamodia.com/2020/11/11/rnc-chair-says-11000-people-shown-voter-fraud-claims/
  41. ^ "GOP obtains over 900 affidavits highlighting voting irregularities".
  42. ^ "RNC Chair says people have come forward with 11,000 voter fraud claims". Newsweek. 10 November 2020.
  43. ^ "RNC Chair Says 11,000 People Have Come Forward with Voter Fraud Claims". MSN.
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  46. ^ "Venezuela opposition demands vote recount, protests flare". Reuters. 2013-04-15.
  47. ^ Balogh, Eva S. (April 10, 2018). "Widespread suspicion about electoral fraud in Hungary".
  48. ^ "Milosevic Resigns, People Celebrate". Javno.com. 2008-10-06. Archived from the original on 2013-01-27. Retrieved 2012-11-18.
  49. ^ "Revealed: the full story of the Ukrainian election fraud". Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on November 28, 2004. Retrieved 2012-11-18.
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  53. ^ Mason, Barnaby (5 April 2005). "Voting scandal mars UK election". BBC News UK. BBC. Retrieved 2008-10-22.
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  58. ^ Gillan, Audrey; Laville, Sandra; Muir, Hugh (13 April 2005). "New fears over postal vote fraud". Guardian. London. Retrieved 2008-10-22.
  59. ^ "Labour to halt postal vote fraud but only after election". Times. April 11, 2005. Retrieved 2008-10-22.
  60. ^ a b Campbell, Denis (2006-02-26). "Uganda hit by violence as opposition claims election fraud | World news | The Observer". London: Observer.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-11-18.
  61. ^ "Kibaki hints at power-sharing deal - CNN.com". Edition.cnn.com. 2008-01-05. Retrieved 2012-11-18.
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