Vote Buying: Causes and Consequences

The process wherein the individuals cast their votes is called voting. This process is prone to manipulation and electoral frauds such as vote buying, vote rigging, and electoral manipulation. Vote buying is a type of electoral fraud that occurs when a political party tries to buy the votes of people for an upcoming election. It seeks to persuade voters to turn up for the election and vote in a particular way. In practice, the political parties can buy votes in two ways. The first way involves offering money and the second way involves buying votes by offering them goods or services. There are several negative impacts of vote buying. It poses a potential threat to democracy, as it tampers the ability to rely on popular vote as a measure of people's support for potential policies of the government. Occurrences of vote buying incidents undermine the autonomy of the voters as well as the power of democracies. This book outlines the causes and consequences of vote buying in detail. Researchers and scholars of political science will be greatly assisted by it.