How Criminal Governance Undermines Elections

How does criminal governance affect elections? Existing accounts explore the consequences of criminal involvement in politics, but have not thoroughly examined how such groups exert their influence. I argue that criminal groups undermine elections through two mechanisms: (1) gatekeeping prevents rival candidates from accessing voters and (2) corralling influences voter choice. I use a natural experiment that leverages exogenous variation in voter assignment to voting booths and a novel dataset on criminal governance to test my theory in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I show that gatekeeping restricts the candidate pool while corralling yields more votes for the local leading candidate. Together, these mechanisms decrease electoral competition. I illustrate the logic underpinning the mechanisms using qualitative data based on interviews and voter complaints. These findings bring together the literatures on clientelism and criminal governance by demonstrating that criminal groups leverage the power they derive from governing to sway elections.