Electoral Reform

Electoral Reform, elimination of undemocratic, dishonest, and corrupt practices in the conduct of public elections. Reform is usually effected by statutory enactments that contain provisions for accomplishing one or more of the following ends: a change in the qualification of voters in order to include in the electorate certain categories of citizens previously barred from voting; a revision of procedures for selecting candidates and arranging elections to ensure that voters will be able to register an effective choice; the definition and outlawing of corrupt practices employed to influence the outcome of elections.

Among the practices that have been the objects of electoral reform are actual or threatened physical violence against voters; concealed pressures such as those exercised by some employers; bribery, consisting of gifts of money or other rewards for voting as directed; impersonation of duly qualified voters by others, called personation; voting more than once, called repeating; shifting voters from districts where the result is certain to others where it is doubtful, called colonization; nullification of ballots by altering counting of ballots; and some other practices.

In Great Britain the purchase of votes was long a common practice. Efforts to eliminate bribery and other forms of electoral corruption were embodied in numerous acts passed by Parliament between 1729 and 1918. The law known as the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act (1883), defined as corrupt practices, undue influence, personation, treating (the offer by a candidate for office to a voter of food or drink in a public place), and seven specific forms of bribery. These practices were made statutory offences, punishable by fines, jail sentences, and loss of political rights for seven years. Under the act, the elections of parliamentary candidates found guilty of any of the above corrupt practices are voided. After the establishment of the United States legislation against electoral malpractices was at first mostly enacted by individual states. Federal legislation against electoral fraud and abuses gained momentum from the mid-1920s onwards. Electoral practices aimed at preventing blacks from exercising their legal right to vote were the focus of electoral reform in the 1950s and 1960s. The most sweeping reforms were embodied in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This law provided for automatic suspension of literacy tests and other voter qualification devices because they were applied in a discriminatory way; gave federal voting examiners the authority to register voters in areas not meeting certain voter participation requirements; authorized the US Attorney-General to investigate the validity of state poll taxes; required federal review to prevent racial discrimination by new state voting laws; and made interference with voting rights conferred by the law a criminal offence.

Electoral reform elsewhere varies with the experience of each democratic nation. In some nascent democracies, such as South Africa, intimidation of or attacks on voters remains a serious problem. Gerrymandering has also been regarded as answerable to electoral reform measures. The political reform measures enacted in Japan in January 1994 included measures limiting sponsorship of political parties, altering representation of constituencies, and other anticorruption initatives. Recent debate in the United States and elsewhere has focused on media coverage during elections, calling for this to be limited to lessen parties' need for funds. Some countries ban opinion poll broadcasts during elections, to avoid undue influence on the electorate.