Also, bribing voters is a thing. It would be far cheaper to pay 2X to buy X votes where each of the bribed voters keep half the money and buy a vote with other half.
Yes, in post-soviet countries it's pretty common to bribe large number of people from elderly and poor population with food or alcohol. It's literally trucks with food or vodka and name of the party/politian that head to the semi-forgotten villages, where some decent amount of electorate lives. Needless to say those people had grown up in Soviet Union and have zero trust in elections or democracy, so they happy to vote for whoever bribes them more.
In my country, elections are fair. If you ask people on the street -- they will say they believe in democracy. Which is reasonable since the concept of voting is easy to understand.
Offering free food for in exchange for votes is still a thing though, since voters know that everyone on the ballot is a corrupt sack of shit. They're going to end up equally fucked either way -- might as well pick up some free food along with it.
Depending on the location, oh yes it is. In the recent Serbian elections there were photos of "gift baskets" from a party if you voted for them ( of course they can't know for sure if the election is properly held, but afaik it isn't).
One issue in the US is how certain communities organize to stack members in districts until they can affect elections, then bribe and extort politicians for concessions, to stop them from expanding into other districts, or to vote a certain way.
It's an incredible racket because it's also the system "working as intended".
Is it though?