Introduction
The sorts of offences that constitute electoral fraud in Britain are set out in the
Representation of the People Act 1983 (White and Johnston, 2017). These include: undue influence (pressuring someone into voting or not voting); impersonation; bribery; treating (non-monetary bribery); and supplying false information (e.g., falsely registering on the electoral roll, or submitting fraudulent postal votes). Over the last few years, several official reports have highlighted that allegations of electoral fraud tend to be more common in areas with large Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities (Electoral Commission, 2014, Pickles and Eric, 2016, White and Johnston, 2017). In his 2016 review into electoral fraud, Sir Eric Pickles identified a number of incidents involving Britons of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin.1 First, he noted (p. 22),
Evidence was presented of pressure being put on vulnerable members of some ethnic minority communities, particularly women and young people, to vote according to the will of the elders, especially in communities of Pakistani and Bangladeshi background
Second, he noted (p. 2
The review considered evidence of voters in Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities reporting concerns that the secrecy of the ballot was undermined by party activists' knowledge about their choice to vote by post
Third, he noted (p. 45),
In the Tower Hamlets case, the Election Court heard how a voter was seen crying outside a polling station after allegedly being told by a supporter of Lutfur Rahman that it was “un-Islamic” not to vote for Rahman, and that you were “not a good Muslim” if you did not vote for him. The court found that Muslim clerics had participated in Lutfur Rahman's campaign to persuade Muslim voters that it was their religious duty to vote for him
Indeed, the finding by the Electoral Commission in it's 2014 report that allegations of electoral fraud are particularly common in some Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities inspired at least two subsequent academic studies. Gill et al. (2015) carried out qualitative interviews in eight electoral wards with large Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities: four that had been identified as having a high risk of electoral fraud, and four that had not. They concluded that individuals in these communities were often put under pressured by elders, and sometimes did not understand proper electoral protocol due to low literacy. The authors identified social deprivation, high housing density and close-knit family relations as among the ultimate explanatory factors. Sobolewska et al. (2015) conducted a very similar study: they interviewed political activists of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Asian extraction in four high risk electoral wards and four low risk wards. Their conclusions were very similar to those of Gill et al. (2015), namely that the main factors contributing to the prevalence of electoral fraud in Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities are pressures from elders, language and knowledge barriers, strong kinship networks, and social deprivation.
Both Gill et al. (2015) and Sobolewska et al. (2015) highlighted the importance of
biraderi within the British Pakistani community and, to a lesser extent,
brath-thitho within the British Bangladeshi community.
Biraderi is the name given to the family system that prevails among individuals from the Punjab and Kashmir regions of Pakistan. Each
biraderi constitutes a clan of extended families that are linked to one another through ancestral ties. These clans are both hierarchical and patriarchal in nature; male community leaders exert strict control over them. Indeed, the term
biraderi translates literally as
male kin. They serve a number of key social functions, such as furnishing individuals with a sense of identity, assisting families during the process of migration, and providing new immigrants with an established support network upon arrival.
Brath-thitho refers to the system of social relations that prevails among individuals from the
Sylhet region of Bangaldesh. These are somewhat looser social structures, based on regional affinities and shared migration experiences, rather than kinship and ancestry. The term
brath-thitho translates literally as
brotherly relationships. (For further details, see Gill et al., 2015, Sobolewska et al., 2015; see also Bittles and Small, 2016).
To the author's knowledge, the extent of the association between allegations of electoral fraud and the presence of Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities has not yet been quantified. Using data at the local authority level,2 Section 2 confirms that percentage Pakistani and Bangladeshi (logged) is a moderate-to-strong predictor of electoral fraud allegations. Moreover, it shows that the association persists after controlling for a host of local authority characteristics, including the Indian and Afro-Caribbean shares, socio-economic deprivation, and anti-immigration attitudes. In Section 3, this finding is interpreted with reference to the growing literature on consanguinity (cousin marriage) and corruption. Rates of cousin marriage tend to be high in countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, which may have fostered norms of nepotism and in-group favoritism that persist over time. Consistent with this interpretation, an analysis of individual level data in Section 4 indicates that, within Europe, immigrants from countries with high rates of cousin marriage are more likely to say family should be one's main priority in life, and are less likely to say it is wrong for a public official to request a bribe. Finally, Section 5 summarizes the paper's argument, and outlines several important limitations.
