Spoilt Ballots: The Elections that Shaped South Africa, from Shaka to Cyril by Michael Blackman and Nick Dall

One lazy way to explain the prevalence of clean and fair elections in today's South Africa is to suggest that both electoral managers and political organisers can draw upon conventions and habits shaped by two centuries of orderly electoral contests. Spoilt Ballots is an effective antidote to such beliefs. As Blackman and Dall show, even within the restricted racist democracy of white minority rule there was plenty of cheating.