Vote Early, Vote Often/Playing With
Basic Trope: A character wins an election through fraudulent extra voting.
- Straight: Alice is elected Mayor of Tropesville over Bob because Alice's campaign cast extra votes under the names of dead people or children.
- Exaggerated: Alice wins solely because of fake votes; she was way behind Bob in the polls and had no chance of winning legitimately.
- Justified: The powers-that-be don't want Bob to win. For example, Alice already has many connections in the Tropesville government, while Bob is an outsider. Or in a school election, Alice is a responsible student who the staff know will get the job done, while Bob is a slacker or troublemaker.
- Inverted: Alice beats Bob by suppressing legitimate votes for Bob.
- Subverted: When Alice unexpectedly wins the mayoral race, Bob's campaign accuses Alice's of voter fraud. However, a lengthy investigation discovers that no such fraud occurred. Alice supporters just turned up in larger numbers than expected, or Bob supporters stayed home.
- Double Subverted: A lengthy investigation into voter fraud in Alice's campaign ends up concluding that no fraud occurred...only because Alice's campaign was really good at hiding the evidence. Or because the investigators are on Alice's side anyway.
- Alternately, it turns out Bob's campaign was actually the one committing voter fraud, and they cast blame on Alice's campaign as a way of diverting attention away from their own shady behaviors.