Vote buying

== Monitoring of voting ==
When [[postal ballot]]s are mailed to voters, the buyer can fill them out or see how they are filled out. Monitoring is harder when ballots are cast secretly at a polling place.<ref name=Stokes2005 /> In some cases, there have been instances of voter tickets, or monitoring by individuals.<ref name="Nichter2008" /> Voters seeking to be compensated for their votes would use specially-provided voter ballots, or would fold their ballot in a particular way in order to indicate that they voted for the candidate they were paid to vote for.

If a buyer is able to obtain a blank ballot (by theft, counterfeit, or a legitimate [[absentee voting|absentee ballot]]) the buyer can then mark the ballot for their chosen candidates and pay a voter to take the pre-marked ballot to a [[polling station]], exchange it for the blank ballot issued and return the blank ballot to the attacker. This is known as chain voting.<ref name="jones-chain">{{Cite web |last=Jones |first=Douglas |date=2005-10-07 |title=Chain Voting |url=http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/nist2005chain.pdf |access-date=2020-06-25 |publisher=University of Iowa |archive-date=2020-06-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200628144950/http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/nist2005chain.pdf |url-status=live }}
* also at {{Cite web |last=Jones |first=Douglas |date=2005-08-26 |title=Chain Voting (pages 53-55 |url=https://www.nist.gov/document-13971 |access-date=2020-06-23 |publisher=National Institute of Standards and Technology |archive-date=2021-01-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210115180645/https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/itl/vote/threatworksummary.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
It can be controlled in polling places by issuing each ballot with a unique number, which is checked and torn off as the ballot is placed in the ballot box.

Another strategy has been to invoke personalized social norms to make voters honor their contracts at the voting booth.<ref name="rienner.com" /> Such social norms could include personal obligation such as moral debts, social obligations to the buyers, or a threat of withholding or ceasing to produce necessary resources. This is made more effective when the rewards are delivered personally by the candidate or someone close to them, in order to create a sense of gratitude on behalf of the voters towards the candidate.<ref name="rienner.com" />