The largest democracy in the World

[Michael]

  I have just read that in the run up to elections in India candidates have been shot by their rivals in some distant states.
   I just thought forum readers might be interested by experiences I had of elections in India a couple of years ago.
   This was in Goa, a part of India. But not typical of India at all. Since mining was stopped completely tourism is surprisingly the major source of income to the whole state.
   Also, apparently, it was a regular occurrence for candidates to arrive in a town and buy everyone they could find with a substantial amount of alcohol on the promise of a vote. No joking. How much it cost is anyones quess, how they were sure the intoxicated citizens would actually vote for the free beer provider is anyones guess. But it did happen.
   So, in Goa anyway (I'm not sure of the other Indian states) the official answer to stop this practice was to prohibit any sale of alcohol by anyone in any hotel,club, bar you name it after 8.30 every night. Enforced by the police, every police, traffic cops, tourist cops one and all.
   You can imagine this went down a bundle with the tourist hotels. Most of them would have just been thinking of OPENING at 8.30

[born2run]

The same thing happened in America hundreds of years ago - it was common to get the people drunk and then dress them up in various outfits and send them back through the polling gates multiple times

[born2run]

Here is an interesting dramitasation of such a thing happening

http://thetruthpodcast.com/Story/Entries/2012/10/18_The_Death_of_Poe.html

[Cambrian]

As an aside, Goa was a Portuguese territory until 1961 when the Indian army moved in and annexed it.

[Blongb]

As an aside, Goa was a Portuguese territory until 1961 when the Indian army moved in and annexed it.

Some Democracy then or even a bit like Russia coveting Eastern Ukraine maybe.