Some disenfranchisement is perfectly legal and enacted through laws. It’s not always voter fraud, either. For instance, in the US there’s a law that bans all convicted felons from voting in elections. It’s meant to be a deterrent to committing crimes. If you end up in jail on a felony you never get to participate in government again. Shadier types of laws can be passed and these tend to happen in other, lesser developed countries (stuff like banning anyone that recently became a citizen from voting, etc). The US sticks to other, less easy to notice types of disenfranchisement.

Groups targeted for disenfranchisement are those that are less likely to speak up about it. These tend to be poor, ethnic groups in the US who are less likely to speak up about anything in the first place. The simplest types of disenfranchisement are half effective. It’s the sort of stuff that makes it a little harder to get your vote in so it seems more difficult and thus people who are in a rush and need to get to work will simply skip over voting and let their disenfranchisement happen. It’s voter fraud but in a non-prosecutable kind of way.

There are more overt kinds of election fraud through disenfranchisement as well. Some voters may find that they’ve been removed from the electoral roll, making it almost impossible for them to cast a vote without an incredible hassle involving phone calls, visits to county offices, and more. It’s a simple task to take someone off and a nightmare to get back on. In the past voters have been disenfranchised by having to meet unnecessary identification requirements or having to pass ridiculous tests, being told that those things are necessary for them to vote when in fact that’s not the truth. These voters tend to the type that will believe these things to be true and simply give up on trying to vote. This happened a lot in the United States prior to 1965 and still happens in smaller pockets.

Voter intimidation is a serious and frequently used form of electoral fraud. People tend not to report it because they’re afraid of those intimidating them. In the US unions have been known to essentially require that their members vote a certain way under threat of ominous but unsaid awful occurrences if they don’t. Threats are made in unbelievable ways but still have an effect, such as a mailing that goes out telling everyone that if they’ve already voted in an election in that year that they can’t vote for president. It’s absurd but it manages to turn away some people and that’s a basic and effective form of electoral fraud through voter disenfranchisement.

A simple way of enacting electronic voting machine fraud is to mess with the software on the machine. You can do any number of things but the primary use would be to alter votes or vote totals to tip the scales in favor of your candidate. Several demonstrations of this technique have been conducted and they’ve always been successful. It’s easier than you might think but of course it’s still a complicated operation that requires a skilled computer operator and access to the machines.

One of the biggest issues with these machines is that they’re not produced by the government, which leaves them open to all sorts of corruption issues. The facility is not inspected by the government and the production procedures aren’t vetted. It’s certainly possible that someone to enact large scale voting fraud could change things on the production level and break the machines as they see fit. It’s also possible to pull the memory cards out of the machines and replace them with one of your own. If at any point in the process someone had unfettered access to them they could do some serious damage.

Some voting machines require a smartcard to be able to vote. The cards are usually deactivated by the people at the polling station but it’s entirely possible to manufacture your own at home (obviously a complicated process) and then vote endlessly in the booth. The machines are often not checked thoroughly because the folks behind them are worried about the competition stealing their code. That means if something is fishy with a machine there’s a chance it can go overlooked. All the election fraud possibilities with the machines are unlikely but still possible so everyone has to be vigilant and aware that these things can happen. Never underestimate the desire of politicians and those that surround them to win at all costs and grab power for themselves.

If an election official has a nefarious agenda they are often presented with multiple opportunities to commit voter fraud, typically by changing someone’s vote. If a blind or exceptionally old person comes into the balloting center and needs helping casting their vote the official could simply cast it for whomever they want and tell the person the vote they desired was cast. It’s simple and requires a morally corrupt person to put into motion.

Simple misinformation campaigns are used to deter voters. In the US every candidate engages in such things with almost every ad they run. Laws were recently enacted that require the candidate to essentially swear to the truth of what’s said in every ad, but that doesn’t stop his support groups from running ads that are full of lies. Voters can also be lied to about the time and place of polling, leaving them unable to cast their choice when the time comes. They’re not overtly illegal but still immoral. When it comes to gaining political power people are willing to do anything.

Using absentee ballots has become far more popular. In 1993 William G. Stinson of Pennsylvania was elected to the senate. The Democrat gave his speech and prepared to take his seat but something wasn’t right. A suit was filed against him and it was alleged that he committed voter fraud. As it turns out, he did. The federal judge on the case ruled that he had stuffed the ballot box and he was ejected from his seat and replaced by Bruce Marks. He used absentee ballots to stuff the box, sending in votes from dead people, mostly. You’d think that a politician wouldn’t have the stones to do something so brazen in the modern world where it seems easy to discover these frauds but he went for it full on.

Ballot stuffing can also occur when someone casts a vote for a person that didn’t show up at the polls. Typically they have some way of knowing that the person it’s coming and then they cast a vote in their place. Fictional characters have cast ballots in the past. Ballot stuffing can be prevented by impeccable record keeping. When a voter dies they should be removed from the electoral roll so their ballot won’t be counted. All ballots should be checked against possible voters. It’s typically not an issue if good records are kept.

The rules regarding gerrymandering are a bit fuzzy and therefore it’s often practiced but no one ends up charged with electoral fraud. Even if someone is clearly remaking electoral districts with the intention of swaying elections it can be difficult to prove that they’re doing so. Sometimes gerrymandering slips right under the radar and no one even pays attention. It’s a surprisingly effective way of shifting elections though. You can try to prevent gerrymandering as election fraud by paying close attention to these changes and bringing them to the attention of anyone that will listen. News outlets in particular are good because everyone loves a corruption story.