Learn English – What does “stealing an election” mean

expressions

what does "stole an election" mean in:

Marcos stole an election in the Philippines.

Does it mean:

Marcos won an election in the Philippines.

or

Marcos won illegally an election in the Philippines.

?

Best Answer

It depends on the context.

He stole the election

could mean:

  • he won the election by some kind of unscrupulous means (that might include voter fraud, a dirty campaign, the miscounting of ballots, etc.)

or, it could mean:

  • he won the election by a razor-thin margin (particularly if he was not projected to win, but made an 11th-hour comeback)

When an election is close, it probably means a combination of those two, because, the closer an election, the more people start to think about how the result might have been altered had one or two factors gone differently.

When an election is a landslide, though, stealing an election would generally imply that some kind of dirty tactics were used, either on election day, or during the campaign.

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