While not quite buying votes elections in the Philippines, at least local elections, have near ubiquitous payments to potential voters by candidate—including forms with the name of the recipient (eligible voter) for each in a household (seems to help ensure that someone doesn’t front-run the payment and keep all payments when they can only cast one vote).
But when talking with people about the whole arrangement no one seems to think it actually changes results or makes anything better in terms or official or policy or effective governance. Just a small bit of extra cash candidates have to payout—and so will then want to recoup in terms of bribes or other forms of political corruption.
Not something I’ve made a study about so all anecdotal but seems to be a real world case that is similar to your thoughts. But also different in that each candidate is making a payment and no real enforcement mechanism to ensure the vote is given to the highest bidder (or whatever the buy structure might be).
While not quite buying votes elections in the Philippines, at least local elections, have near ubiquitous payments to potential voters by candidate—including forms with the name of the recipient (eligible voter) for each in a household (seems to help ensure that someone doesn’t front-run the payment and keep all payments when they can only cast one vote).
But when talking with people about the whole arrangement no one seems to think it actually changes results or makes anything better in terms or official or policy or effective governance. Just a small bit of extra cash candidates have to payout—and so will then want to recoup in terms of bribes or other forms of political corruption.
Not something I’ve made a study about so all anecdotal but seems to be a real world case that is similar to your thoughts. But also different in that each candidate is making a payment and no real enforcement mechanism to ensure the vote is given to the highest bidder (or whatever the buy structure might be).