It isn't a theoretical threat. Before 1932, the vote in Brazil was not secret. It resulted in widespread voter coercion and bribery, a system we used to call "

It isn't a theoretical threat. Before 1932, the vote in Brazil was not secret. It resulted in widespread voter coercion and bribery, a system we used to call "halter voting". The "colonel" (powerful landowner or authority figure) would use the threat of violence to force those in his electoral "corral" to vote as he pleased.