How do central politicians in young democracies secure electoral support at grassroots level? I show that alignment with local governments is instrumental in swaying national elections through, inter alia, electoral fraud. A regression discontinuity design with Romanian local elections and a president impeachment referendum in 2012 uncovers higher referendum turnouts in localities aligned with the government coalition—the impeachment initiators. Electoral forensics tests present abnormal vote count distributions across polling stations, consistent with ballot stuffing. The alignment effect, driven by rural localities, may explain the clientelistic government transfers found in this context and documented worldwide. (JEL D72, D73, H77)

中文翻译：

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全国大选中地方政党联合的非法利益

年轻民主国家的中央政客如何确保基层的选举支持？我表明，与地方政府保持一致有助于通过选举欺诈等手段影响全国大选。带有罗马尼亚地方选举和2012年总统弹each公民投票的回归不连续性设计揭示了与政府联盟（弹coal发起者）一致的地方更高的公民投票率。选举取证测试显示投票站之间的投票计数分布异常，与选票填塞一致。由农村地区驱动的统一效应可能解释了在这种情况下发现并在全球范围内有记录的政府化政府转移支付。（JEL D72，D73，H77）