Ballot Stuffing: The Traces It Leaves in Election Numbers
Extra ballots in a box are hard to hide, because they have to match signatures, envelopes and turnout. Each way of hiding them leaves its own trace.
Original page on electionscount.info: Distribution of votes by polling station depending on turnout, 2015Ballot stuffing means putting more ballots into the box than there were real voters. It sounds crude, but it can be done in several ways, and each one needs the help of the commission to keep the numbers consistent. That is exactly why it can be found.
Four ways to stuff a box, and what each leaves behind
| How it is done | What it needs | Trace in the numbers |
|---|---|---|
| Ballots dropped in before voting starts | Agreement between organizers and observers | More ballots in the box than signatures |
| Envelopes added little by little during the day | The same number of fake signatures in the list | Turnout above the station's hourly capacity |
| Voter lists signed in advance, using old lists, and swapped after voting | Access to lists and signatures | Signatures of people who were absent or abroad |
| Ballots thrown in during a fight or chaos | A staged disorder at the station | Mismatch of ballots, envelopes and signatures |
The book stresses one point about capacity: no polling station can serve more than a certain number of people per hour. If the number of voters and ballots in an hour is above that limit, signatures and ballots were most likely forged. See how polling station capacity is calculated.
Signs seen in Armenian elections
- At many polling stations there were fewer signatures in the voter list than envelopes and ballots in the box.
- Voters received one ballot to put in one envelope, yet some boxes held more ballots than envelopes.
- Representatives of candidates, and even commission members, were intimidated, attacked or removed from polling stations.
- In 2009, after a fight at a Yerevan polling station, copies of marked ballots were dropped into the box with the help of a commission member; several people were convicted.
The "carousel"
When a box holds more envelopes than ballots, some voters probably carried their blank ballot out. This points to the "carousel": a voter receives an already marked ballot outside, drops it in, and brings out the empty one for the next person. Bribed or pressured voters make it work. The numbers cannot prove who did it, but they show where the media and law enforcement should look.
How big it was in 2015
At stations with proper public oversight, turnout was lower and votes were split differently than at stations without it. That difference is in itself a measure of what oversight prevents.
What stops it
The book's proposals are practical: publish turnout often during the day, publish signatures and ballot counts right after polls close and before counting starts, and declare the result of a station invalid when its numbers do not match. Each step makes the fake numbers harder to keep in line.
Data and sources on this site
From the book
This article is based on Chapters IV and V of Electoral Rights and Election Falsification by Lyudvig Khachatryan, which explains the full method, the formulas and the cases behind it.