India, many cases: https://factly.in/analysis-do-dummy-candidates-with-similar-names-affect-election-results/

Russia, because of course: https://news.sky.com/story/russia-opposition-politician-boris-vishnevsky-says-two-lookalikes-with-same-name-as-him-running-in-st-petersburg-election-in-bid-to-confuse-voters-12402116

that’s just the first two that came up on a web search, I’m sure I could find others on the second page of results

…and to those who claim that US voters are too smart to get tricked by ghost candidates, this guy got 6,000 votes in Florida - enough to tip the win to the Republican candidate - despite not running any kind of campaign: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/frank-artiles-ileana-garcia-florida-election-b1820020.html

I think you’re letting what you want to be true override what you deep down know to actually be the case. But I guess I should know by now not to attempt injecting reality into an old fashioned partisan pile-on thread.

Trump’s approach is definitely corrupt and yet another of the hundred reasons he should be in jail.

But… recent years have seen other flawed democracies where unknown candidates with no previous track record in politics and no party affiliation but who just so happen to have the same name as a major party’s candidate show up. There clearly needs to be something in place to mitigate these shenanigans, but it seems more like a fix that’s needed in the ballot design, rather than the insanity that Trump’s pushing.