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In some countries, the deceased seem to cast ballots from the grave. Children too are on the electoral rolls. Ballot boxes disappear into thin air. Candidates are arrested, poisoned, even murdered. Although elections are now held in most countries around the globe, in many cases they are anything but free and fair. Up to sixty regimes in the world today can be classified as "electoral authoritarian": They restrict the exercise of democratic freedoms, yet allow periodic multiparty elections in an attempt to bolster their domestic and international legitimacy. The rulers of these regimes are unwilling to risk losing elections, however, and so they manipulate elections to ensure that they remain in power. Electoral authoritarian regimes are the most common political system in Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and North Africa and the Middle East.1
The electoral fraud and manipulation employed by these regimes take a variety of forms. They are aimed at every step of the electoral process, ranging from altered voter-registration lists, to disrupted campaigns, to rigged vote tabulations. Some are brazen, while others are subtle. In recent years, authoritarian regimes have become increasingly adept at keeping up the appearance of meeting democratic norms while subverting the integrity of the electoral process.
The growing sophistication of electoral fraud and manipulation has been matched by improvements in the skills and methods of election observers. Domestic and international monitoring organizations have been adopting a more comprehensive approach to election observation. They assess a country's election laws and regulations, which may tilt the playing field in the regime's favor, and they monitor the electoral process from start to finish. Even when their access is restricted, they are often able to detect and to document electoral malpractice. Election observers' judgments carry significant weight, especially since many countries have repeatedly made international commitments to hold free and fair elections and to accept election observation.2
Authoritarian regimes often succeed in retaining power, even when their resort to electoral fraud and manipulation is exposed, by relying on state resources and the use of force. Nonetheless, exposing fraud and manipulation can help to erode the legitimacy that such regimes seek to gain through elections. In a few cases, authoritarian regimes were ultimately brought down by their citizens' indignation over acts of electoral fraud...