Fraud-proofing Beyond Election Monitors: An Institutional Design Approach

Electoral fraud happens frequently. An emerging literature focuses on election monitors to counter it. We propose an unexplored complementary approach: institutional design. We build on Rundlett and Svolik’s (2016) insight that fraud requires coordination among agents who participate only when they are optimistic about the incumbent’s chances. We identify an electoral design that eliminates election fraud and simultaneously preserves the majoritarian outcome, so that the incumbent wins exactly when a majority supports her. In this design, the electorate is divided into near-identical districts; the incumbent wins the election if she wins a super-majority of districts; and she wins a district if she receives the majority of the district’s votes. Requiring the incumbent to win a super-majority of districts amplifies her agents’ coordination problem by inducing mutual fear that others will abandon the incumbent. We highlight multiple directions for future research on fraud-proof institutional design.