In Defense of Democracy: The Criminalization of Impersonation

Abstract This article offers a philosophical justification for the criminalization of voting as another person (impersonation or, in English law, personation) in public elections by arguing that it involves wrongdoing in the form of anti-democratic behavior and that the failure to criminalize it will harm the public good of electoral integrity. With regard to harm, the article argues that the failure to criminalize impersonation will eventually result in widespread impersonation, such widespread impersonation undermining electoral integrity, itself instrumental to a number of public goods reflecting the democratic character of any given polity. Finally, the article completes the case for criminalization by arguing that, in any given jurisdiction, it may be neither effective nor desirable for the entire burden of preventing impersonation to fall onto the civil law, with the result that the criminalization of impersonation can serve a useful complementary role to the civil law in maintaining electoral integ...