Electoral fraud and democratic election: a comparison of Nigeria 2019 elections and United States 2020 elections

Abstract

The 2020 elections in the United States’ 2020 elections were full of controversies despite recording the highest voters turnout since 1900. These electoral disputes are due to claims made by the then President, Donald Trump. Though the supreme court dismissed the claims of electoral fraud, the impact has left the American citizens more polarised at the national, state, and congressional levels. Scholars have argued that electoral fraud has existed since modern democratic development in the mid and late 19th century and is still occasionally an issue in some well-established democracies, while other scholars are not in support of such claims.  Compared to the 2019 elections conducted in Nigeria, reports of electoral frauds have been on the front burner right from 1999. Its impact had made citizens have voters apathy and no trust in the democratic system in Nigeria.  This paper used the qualitative research method to analyse the United States 2020 election cases of electoral fraud in an advanced democracy and diagnosed Nigeria’s 2019 and the United States 2020 elections. First, the study looked at the issues and challenges that have affected elections in both countries. Second, the paper used Game theory and the Conspiracy theory to assess the impact of a more proximate determinant of Election Day fraud; it examines Nigeria’s strategic efforts to combat electoral fraud using card reader technology. Finally, the paper concluded that there is no basis for comparison regarding elections in Nigeria and United States despite the hitches observed by the world in the United States elections. Electoral fraud will be inevitable regardless of how democratic a country claims to be if certain democratic tenets are not in place.