Sham Election

Sham Election

A sham election is an election that is held purely for show; that is, without any significant political choice or real impact on results of election.

Show elections are a common event in dictatorial regimes that feel the need to feign the appearance of public legitimacy. Published results usually show nearly 100% voter turnout and high support (close to 100% in many cases) for the prescribed candidate(s) or for the referendum choice that favors the political party in power. Dictatorial regimes can also organize show elections with results simulating those that might be achieved in democratic countries.

Sometimes only one government approved candidate is allowed to run in sham elections with no opposition candidates allowed or opposition candidates are arrested on false charges or even without any charges before the election to prevent them from running.

Examples

Examples of such elections are elections in Fascist Italy in 1929 and 1934, elections in Nazi Germany, Portuguese presidential election, 1958, most communist and socialist states (East Germany, the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, etc.), and Baathist Iraq. A predetermined conclusion is always established by the regime, either through suppression of the opposition, coercion of voters, vote rigging, a forged number of "votes received" (e.g. the State of Vietnam referendum, 1955), outright lying, or some combination. In an extreme example, Charles D. B. King of Liberia claimed he received 243,000 votes in the 1927 general election, which exceeded the number of eligible voters over 15 times.

Coercion

A ballot from the 1936 elections in Nazi Germany. Voters had no options other than Adolf Hitler.

Ballots in a show election may contain only one "yes" option. In the case of a simple "yes or no" question, people who pick "no" are often persecuted, thus making the "yes" choice the only option. An example of this is the elections of the People's Parliaments in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940 shortly after the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states; where those who voted received stamps in their passport for voting and those who did not vote did not receive stamps and were persecuted as enemies of the people. Another example is in contemporary North Korea.

In some cases, show elections can backfire against the party in power, especially if the regime believes they are popular enough to win without coercion or fraud. The most famous example of this was the 1990 Myanmar general election.