Original scientific paper
Electoral Fraud – A Criminological and Criminal Analysis in Croatian and Comparative Context
Lucija Sokanović
orcid.org/0000-0003-4274-7789
; Faculty of Law, University of Split, Split, Croatia
Anna-Maria Getoš Kalac
orcid.org/0000-0002-0016-764X
; Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The authors of the paper analyse the offense of electoral fraud as one of the criminal offenses against electoral rights in the Criminal Code of 2011. After a brief comparison to the offence as regulated in the previous Criminal Code, a criminological analysis indicates extremely low incidence in relation to the general incidence of crime in the Republic of Croatia, both in terms of reported perpetrators, as well as in relation to the prosecution and conviction of adult perpetrators. Therefore, the authors accentuate the problem of the dark figure and suggest alternative methods of estimating the prevalence and incidence of electoral fraud. The evaluation of a final judgment before the Municipal Court in Split from 2010 reveals the phenomenology and clues of etiology of the offence. As a result of the research into the offense with a focus on the perpetrators, the concept of elections and acts of committing, electoral fraud is defined as a delictum communium and a criminal offense of counterfeiting, deprived of misleading or keeping in mistaken belief by misrepresentation or concealment of facts, which is inherent to fraud. Aimed at eliminating the identified deficiencies and promoting inevitable changes in the voting procedure in the direction of electronic voting, the authors propose changes to the incrimination de lege ferenda.
Keywords
election; vote; offenses against electoral rights; electoral fraud; counterfeiting of elections
Hrčak ID:
181627
URI
Publication date:
4.5.2017.
Visits: 3.382 *