Then you haven’t lived under a dictatorship. It might not be a sledgehammer, but breaking voter secrecy and pressuring people to vote the “right” way is very much a thing.
As far as I know, these votes have gone mostly unchecked before electronic voting, but after that, they’ve started voting straight from the workplace computers. There were, of course, a lot of straight-up falsifications as well.
That said, our pen-on-paper voting isn’t too legit either :’)
I encourage everyone to look up the relevant sources, easy to find.
The closest I can think of is rare cases like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushel%27s_Case
You can try to google-translate [this, for example](https://holod.media/2024/03/08/soprotivlenie-putinu/#h-3-%D0...)
Vote for me and I'll increase your pensions, the other guy wants to decrease your pensions.
Vote for me and I'll increase wages of gov workers and civil servants, the other guy wants to fire gov workers.
VOte for me and I'll increase your welfare and give you free* housing.
The gov has masses of people that depend on the gov's generosity that they can leverage with a carrot on a stick to swing the majority in their favor. You don't need to put a gun to their head. The gun to their head is the threat of losing those government provided perks.
That's how elections are won in Europe, just promise the boomers(largest voter base) higher pensions. That's why nobody who campaigns on reforming the pension system will ever win an election.
Party A) Keep the 80% discount in the electricity and gas bills
Party B) Reduce inflation from 200% y.o.y. to 50% y.o.y.
Party C) [I don't remember]
Party D) "A normal country"
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PS: D was a slogan, they got less than 5% of the votes.