Prepayment for vote blocks could fail when brokers did not deliver

Evidence

If votes are a commodity, elections become a transaction in which voters are sellers and politicians buyers. But this market is a cumbersome one in which the buyer is confronted, first, with a question of scale; that s, in any sizable constituency no candidate can realistically negotiate with each individual voter. Next there is the problem of verification (how can the candidate be sure that voter X voted for him?) and hence of trust (that is, should X be paid for his vote before or after the election?). Finally there is the issue of payment: what is the most efficient way to pay all the people who sell their votes? The sellers, too, have their difficulties, for how can they be sure that a candidate will pay up once they have voted for him? A more ideal setting for the mafia can scarcely be imagined. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 471 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Vote markets fail on scale, verification, and trust unless a mafia intermediates — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 471

Related

• Vote markets fail on scale, verification, and trust unless a mafia intermediates (similarity 0.90)
• Selling votes required verifiable mechanisms tying payment to actual balloting (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Vote markets fail on scale, verification, and trust unless a mafia intermediates #expands (0.82) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 471