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the ruling party’s dominance. But in other settings, elections are held under conditions that are relatively free but effectively unfair. That is, the electoral playing field is tilted to favor the incumbents, though the balloting itself is not fixed and remains somewhat unpredictable. In illiberal environments like Hungary and Turkey over the past five years, prospects for an opposition victory are remote, but not out of the question. Even in a quasi-dictatorship like Venezuela, the opposition can score impressive victories in parliamentary elections and mobilize competitive campaigns for the presidency.

A display of supremacy
In December 2011, members of the Russian opposition obtained video evidence of ballot stuffing committed by operatives from Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party in that month’s parliamentary elections. A series of unusually large protests ensued. Putin weathered the furor and went on to win a presidential poll the following year. But for a brief period, Putin lost control of Russia’s political narrative and was placed on the defensive. He seemed angry and rattled, and subsequently blamed the turmoil on the United States, claiming that statements by then secretary of state Hillary Clinton were meant as a signal to the opposition to launch a color revolution in Russia. (The theme of Clinton as the puppet master behind a plot aimed at regime change in Russia was revived during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, when the Russian media displayed a clear preference for Republican candidate Donald Trump and disdain for Clinton.³)

For Putin, the events of late 2011 and early 2012 were evidence of weakness and political incompetence. A ruling party whose triumph requires that party members be ferried by bus from one voting district to another to cast multiple ballots is, by today’s authoritarian standards, a party that has grown careless and lazy. Authoritarian rulers today seek to fix outcomes well before election day through laws and policies that embed unfairness at every level.

These leaders take a measure of pride in election victories, even if the results were secured through dishonest methods. They are held up as demonstrations of political mastery rather than neutral measurements of public preference. Putin’s victories at the polls enable him to reject comparisons with Leonid Brezhnev and other doddering, defensive Soviet-era leaders. Likewise, Hugo Chávez boasted that unlike the colonels and generals who ruled over South American dictatorships during the 20th century, his tenure as president of Venezuela was sanctified by no fewer than 17 elections, including a number of referendums. Chávez won all but one.⁴

There are, of course, examples of elections whose outcome resembles the obviously rigged results in totalitarian or junta-like settings. Eurasian presidents such as Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev and Belarus’s Alyaksandr Lukashenka have repeatedly won elections with over 80 percent of the vote, and others have easily broken the 90 percent barrier. The ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) won every seat in the most recent parliamentary polling.⁵

However, more sophisticated autocracies try to manage elections so as to maintain a pluralist façade and hide evidence of systematic fraud or intimidation. In Russia, nominal opposition parties usually garner a significant share of parliamentary seats. But all defer to Putin as the country’s unchallenged leader and typically vote according to his wishes on key issues.⁶ Genuine opposition forces that seek to win political power are not tolerated, particularly if they champion liberal values. Putin has long sought to prevent the rise of a democratic opposition that could raise embarrassing questions about systemic corruption, foreign interventions, or economic stagnation.

State media and state resources
Predetermining ballot results depends both on the rules and regulations that govern the administration of elections and on the regime’s control of other assets that can influence the outcome.

Control of the media is crucial. The methods of modern censorship are examined in more detail in another section of this report. But when a would-be authoritarian leader assumes power, one of the first goals is to secure domination over whichever sector of the media has the greatest impact on public opinion and therefore on voting behavior.

The first clear indicator of Putin’s authoritarian bent was his aggressive move to eliminate independent ownership of Russia’s major television stations. Through various forms of intimidation, the new president persuaded private media moguls to surrender ownership to the state, state-owned corporations, or political cronies. Television thus became a propaganda vehicle for Putin and a potent weapon against his critics, who have since been mocked, vilified, or ignored on the nation’s most important medium. All this occurred within a few years after his election as president in 2000.

In Venezuela, Chávez used his authority over media licensing to destroy Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), a popular broadcast station that was aligned with the

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