Election Security in a D&D/PF world

[JMS]

If I was in D&D and trying to interfere in an election in a way that would either go largely unquestioned or would be difficult to stop without attacking a different step of the democratic process, I've got a couple basic ideas that can really add up:

1) Leadership

Okay so the obvious benefit here is that you can have a small group of people vote how you tell them to, but the greater power here is making them a campaigning force - either their bard-wannabes spreading the gospel of the candidates you like, or their objectively uncharismatic unconvincing folk that embody the worst stereotypes of the candidates you don't like. Release them into a community large enough that their presence doesn't cause suspicion, and you end up tipping the scales in that area.

Additionally, even if you learn for sure that this is being done, what can be done about it that isn't even more undemocratic? Stopping false flag campaigning for the enemy is probably an ethical move, but stopping people from campaigning for candidates they support? That's gonna be sketchier.

2) Weather Magic

Screw with the weather somehow; praying to a deity for assistance, buying a scroll of Control Weather the day before the election, or (if you really wanna swing your adventurer **** around but don't want to spend more than a single spell slot on it, cast Fimbulwinter like a week before Election day. Especially if it's already a wintery locale, you might well be able to go unquestioned or opposed save for some occasional pockets where the election folk scraped together enough cash for the Control Weather scrolls to keep their locations calm for one day.

3) Zombie Plague

(Snip)

I feel like the leadership is akin to the campaign staff of your standard political campaign, and so, anyone with a chance to win would effectively already have it. Second, Weather is brilliant, as is the Whight fear strategy. Those would be the real tools to influence an election, since they are harder to spot.

I would equip all voting places with some item that can continuously detect magic (sort of like a metal detector), and a ring/amulet/whatever of protection from evil.
The voters would be scanned for magic, then they would be given the ring to ensure that they would be free from mind control.

Those two items should cost a few thousands gp, so they are affordable. There are ways to fool both, but they require high level magic, so it would be highly unlikely to tamper with elections on a large scale.
If your nation has access to powerful divination, use it on a few random places, just to ensure that high level tampering would have a chance of being detected.

Votes are to be counted directly on the location, by a large number of people, and still looking for magic. It's possible to tamper with the mind of a large number of people, but it's impossible to kep it under cover. You either kill all people involved, which will be a major tip that something is amiss, or the moment they put on the ring of protection from evil (or they roll a 20 on their saving throw) they can tell evereryone that they were dominated.
I guess mind rape would be effective, but if you have the resources to mind rape thousands of people across the country in a single day, then I doubt you can be stopped anyway.

Cool, this seems very effective as a method. Seems good. (Protection from Chaos may be more appropriate for voting.)

If you're in the right sort of setting to go for the deity option, that's probably your best choice.

For other settings, if your hustings and/or polling stations are within areas protected by Hallow, then most forms of mind control and possession simply won't work (since everyone in the area is automatically under Protection from Evil while they're there). Hallow can also have a Detect Magic effect attached to it, although I'm not sure how it's intended to work. That should defeat most 'easy' options for a mage looking to cheat. I suppose you might also want True Seeing and Arcane Sight or Greater Arcane Sight in play, if you can get them.

While this wouldn't be a perfect approach, it might be judged 'good enough' by a government or society.

This seems to be one of the most comprehensive! Well done.

A) The OP has explicitly said this doesn't work that way for this exercise.

B) The diplomacy skill represents talking to people to sway them to your way of thinking and political speeches are nothing if not performances. This is exactly how you're supposed to win a fair and balanced election.

Yeah, everyone knows about how bad diplomacy is. I felt like the debate would be better if we just acknowledged it and moved on.

Regarding the "make a spell to do it" solution, Towers of High Sorcery has a bunch of specific purpose spells including one that. . . sends a message to all the wizards of high sorcery for a vote and gives you the result. They made it a 9th level spell (not inappropriate when compared to Sending after all), so it's even more restricted than Commune, but for people that want a precedent there is a published book with a vote spell.

Cool spell! What scale?