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Comment by elpool2 | Hacker News Reader

How do the people buying votes make sure that the voter is voting the way they want? Do they not have a secret ballot?

I've seen religious tactics applied effectively for this,

The potential voter is asked to swear over a religious artifact after receiving the money (bribe).

e.g. For Hindu voters, a plate with oil lamp, an idol, a mixture of auspicious powder is used.The voter should swear over it that they will vote for that particular candidate.

Elections are the main reason, politicians ensure religious superstitions flourish in India inspite of evil practices like casteism, sharia etc. Even when India's constitution is godless & secular (amended).

Thanks to really noble people behind India's constitution.

As an Indian who has worked extensively in multiple elections have "been there done that", let me tell everyone that above comment is completely ridiculous and devoid of any truth. It is not even a fringe phenomenon.

Let me answer the original question.

No one buys a vote in return of goodies. They buy "loyalty" vote is a consequence of that.

Each candidate appoints a booth level worker first. The booth level worker is in the inner circle of trust for the candidate and booth size is typically <1400 voters. Entire history of voting patterns of each booth is available publicly. A worker may handle multiple booths too.

The booth worker being a local already knows which way the winds are blowing and how to change their directions. For the poorest of poor he might offer cash and alcohol. For others he might offers government jobs, fake degrees, sex, licenses for businesses, shut eye approach towards illegal construction, protection from abusive husband and so on.

Once the voter buys in, he has to show absolute loyalty towards this candidate. He is expected to appear in rallies, at local speeches and even argue in favor of the candidate in market. Each person has enemies and in case Mr X appears to be saying unfavorable things in public someone will inform the booth level worker who will then show up at his house with goons.

You also need to understand secondary consequences of this sort of signaling. It means if a person was seen so actively working for Candidate X and if candidate Y wins, Candidate Y will not even help this person in future because obviously he was seen with Candidate X so often. (This can literally ruin people's lives from what I have seen). This also means there is zilch advantage for the person to backstab candidate X at the voting booth. (If you are married to her , you might as well have sex with her sort of thing). It is this phenomenon that eliminates back stabbing voters.

In my personal experience this soon reaches the level of lassie fair economics. At some point it pays lot more to simply sabotage the booth agent of your opponent instead of actually buying voters. If your prospective booth agent betrays you, you lose hundreds of votes. Just like voters even the booth agents are greedy. The candidate gives him lot of cash to distribute but sometimes he just keeps it to himself.

Part of the reason why BJP has done well in recent times despite spending less money than Congress is because BJP relies on its sister organization RSS which is a cadre based organization. They have pre-vetted individuals at every booth level whose loyalty is beyond doubt. The Congress party on other hand mostly relies on mercenary concept. They do a primary round of bidding where people who want their tickets tell how much money they can spend. The highest spender will then be given the ticket to fight elections. He has to donate 10% upfront to the party chief.

Note:

In my personal experience, with the exception of certain regions in most regions elections are pretty fair and are not determined by money. At least when it comes to Federal (central) elections. All candidates are aware of this fact. You might be able to gain additional 3% votes by sheer cash but you need to employ various other tactics to get more votes. As the middle class in India becomes larger and more aspirational the bids for votes change too. Even the poorest of poor now has electricity and hence correctly values 24x7 electricity above Rs 500 once in 5 years.

> At some point it pays lot more to simply sabotage the booth agent of your opponent instead of actually buying voters.

Could you please elaborate how after the booth agent is sabotaged, he changes the voters mindset or vote? I believe it is very difficult to actively do it i.e. tell the voters to vote for the opposite candidate. At the maximum it will be very passive i.e. he keeps the money to himself and simply not go to voters to work for his candidate.

Booth agents are sabotaged very early in the campaigning process. The most common scenario is where the booth agent will secretly contact the opposition candidate and continue to pretend to be loyal to his own master while deliberately feeding incorrect information. In many cases he will simply not spend the cash that was given to him to distribute among voters. In some cases he will deliberately ignore visiting the swing votes.

Isn't this very risky? There is a high chance that he will get caught. A smart politician would do recce to see if the money is distributed. What would happen if he is caught?

This is really close to the Roman concept of plebs and patricians, or patreons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage_in_ancient_Rome

That is an excellent observation. People and societies are more or less very similar all across the world. The details might vary but the main motivations are more or less same.

This is a complete fabrication. Never have I heard of this happening, let alone it being a major phenomenon anywhere.

I have heard from family members who were approached by party workers asking to swear on god to get money. But they refused. It doesn’t happen in rich and posh areas they target less developed uneducated neighborhoods.

There is no doubt in some remote corner of India some party worker might ask people to swear on their kids, gods and what not. But let me confirm that it is not even a phenomenon. Mostly figure of speech. OP used graphic details as if it is some cult practice "For Hindu voters, a plate with oil lamp, an idol, a mixture of auspicious powder is used."

Either the party worker has to be naive to believe that such ritual has any value or the people have to be completely stupid. Poor people are desperate and will happily take whatever money that comes their way and will not care too hoots about swearing on Gods. Remember if you can do a ritual to swear on God another one can invent a ritual to free you from that oath.

He is right about the oil lamp and the idol thought. When I said swear on god it’s on the idol.

But he is completely wrong to claim that is common or even a working solution.

I presume, most readers if HN would know Bangalore.

'Karnataka election 2018: Rider for freebies - swear in the name of god that you'd vote for me'[1]

[1]:https://m.timesofindia.com/city/bengaluru/karnataka-election...

I am not sure what your agenda is, but your response is disingenuous. You have taken a specific and rare incident which was reported for its "shock value" (it is quite easy in India to publish a story with an agenda) and have presented it in a manner which implies it is some sort of a norm.

While there certainly is corruption, given the size and scale of elections in India, it is laudable that things are conducted in a proper manner for the large part.

I don't understand why this is being down voted. The op is backing his argument with a link to national news paper and he is getting down voted. This post getting down voted is the proof of educated people still having caste feelings within them. Thanks to the Indian Constitution, without it most of population in India would never had education.

This is true. Especially in the slum area's this is very common. The voters are supposed to switch off the burning camper with their hand as a religious promise ritual.

The people who are given incentives are very poor and uninformed about the ways of politics. Ideally, they can either refuse the incentives or just get it and vote the way they want.

By human nature, they get a sense of obligation when they receive the incentives. They feel committed to vote for the party that provided the incentive. Even trying to convince them they don't have to, does not work. They feel the onus is on them to complete the "transaction" by casting the vote.

That said, this is more of issue in by-elections, where there is only one or a handful of constituencies and the politicians can focus on them.

When the election is state-wide or nation-wide, the major determining factor is still the popular sentiment towards the political parties in question (based on their track record in power, which of course is skewed by media).

Elections are a recurring event. I cannot prove it but it's behavioral training. People seem to vote for whoever gives them the best "incentive". I hesitate to call it a bribe because in other countries they call it "tax relief", "student loan forgiveness" etc.,

There are many academic studies on this exact topic. Two theories are given weight: 1) people feel a sense of obligation because they received something (the natural human tendency to repay debts) 2) being able to buy votes is a forward-looking signal that shows the party/candidate is serious and may be able to provide further benefits down the line.

Further, political operators can at least guarantee that they went to the polls. This way, they can influence turnout.

See https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/world-politics/artic...

I imagine it's more practical to try to 'get out the vote' without all the marketing in the middle, than try to bribe a person to vote against their interest.

It's a secret ballot but many people have phones.

The tradition in (parts of) Italy is similar:

http://in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Voto_di_scambio...

This is why it is illegal to take pictures of your vote.

Capture your ballot with vote on the phone, then show it to dealer to receive bribe.

Banned a long time back. No cellphones are allowed.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/ec-bans-use-of-cell-pho...

They can't. It's a secret ballot.

Cell phone with camera?

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