Election Fraud or Strategic Voting?∗

I simulate a mixture process that generates individual preferences that, when aggregated into precincts, have counts whose second significant digits approximately satisfy Benford’s Law. By deriving sincere, strategic and coerced votes from these preferences under a plurality voting rule, I find that tests based on the second digits of the precinct counts are sensitive to differences in how the counts are derived. The tests can distinguish coercion from strategic voting, and can even detect roll-off. With a very large number of precincts the tests may be able to distinguish strategic from nonstrategic voting. These simulation findings are supported by data from federal and state elections in the United States during the 1980s and 2000s, from th