Nite Owl:
Only one convicted over 2017 'double voting' claims - BBC News337 allegations of double voting in the last (2017) general election. Whittled down to 5 investigations and just one conviction.
Makes you wonder how rife this is, considering it’s practically impossible to detect.
Obviously not very rife!
The balloting process is well-tested over hundreds of years. The weak points for systematic manipulation are well-known and there are protections in place against it.
People sometimes seize on theoretical or perceived holes, but are not focussing on the real goal of ballot fraud which is for a very small number of people to produce a large systematic bias, and for this large systematic bias not just to remain undetected beforehand but also afterwards.
Double voting requires double registration, and double registration is very easily detected by simply looking for matches in the electoral roll. The roll is publicly available to inspect, and is available in bulk to commercial fraud prevention agencies (who are not just looking for electoral fraud but all kinds).
Next you’ve got identity fraud. Again, the appearance of many unknown names on the roll, with no apparent history anywhere in society, will set off alarm bells. Enrolling the local graveyard will not just flag against the “deads” lists, but may potentially lead to a double registration (and double voting) situation if several ballot fraudsters are trying the same trick without mutual coordination.
It’s also a question of confidence. There may be 100 votes in a constituency which could be fraud, but if the MP is returned with a 10k majority, electoral officers will shrug and express confidence in the ballot.
And you’ve also got to remember the hassles and the stakes involved. To vote multiple times, a person has to invest time and effort, and they risk detection and serious consequences, typically without any immediate return and without their own behaviour having significant influence on the outcome even if it is undetected.
All these things and more add up to quite robust controls over the reliability of electoral balloting.