Buying and selling votes

The frontpage of today's El Universal on the web includes a poll:

"Do you know anyone who has sold his vote?"

At 9 a.m. the result is 100% yes, 0% no.
At 11 a.m. still 100% yes.
At 2 p.m. 97% yes.
And at the end of the day: 93% yes.

Admittedly this poll does not meet any scientific criteria for methodological rigour. Still, I believe that a real poll would give quite similar results.

I imagine that putting the question in Sweden would cause smiles and disbelief, "what do you mean, really?" Not so in Colombia. In fact people speak quite openly about it, and also about the current price. We can learn that one of the country's well-known crooks, Enilce "La Gata" Lopez is now offering 10-25 USD (20-50,000 pesos) for a vote on her son who wants to become senator. That is the current, flexible rate, which may of change closer to election date 14 March. At the moment you can also get paid in kind: a large bottle of rhum, clothes, phone cards.

You may ask how they control that the vote is cast, and as agreed? Well, one method is pure fear. Or "bad environment" as the parable might be, armed hitmen close to the polling stations. It is also common practice to take note of the civil register number of the seller, so that it may be checked against the list of voters. This of course requires that the crooks are represented at the voting table ...

There are many other ways to commit fraud. The government's anti-corruption office has produced a "Manual of electoral tricks" [Manual de tramparencia electoral] in an attempt to use humor in combatting fraud.

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P.S. A day later [9 February 2010] El Espectador brings a very well documented article on the same theme. The current price for a vote in Barranquilla is 40,000 pesos and an ekstra 3,000 for the bus.