The simplest way to swing an election is to just buy the votes. Prices vary, but the method is nearly always the same. Once candidates strike a deal, they give voters carefully folded pieces of blank paper and carbon paper so they can make a copy of their ballot. The candidates, after all, don't want to be duped. Fay Marie, a Namfrel volunteer, saw it happen during local elections in 1984 in Catmon, a town in Cebu province.
Intimidation is common too.
In 1986, in a town called Asturias in Cebu, the barrio captain was about to accompany a voter into the polling booth. The voter didn't need help, though, and a farmer named Juan Kabasi stopped the local chief. Several days later, Kabasi was ambushed as he was walking home. He was shot, stabbed, hacked and left for dead. But someone found him and took him to a small hospital.