In this game, I often find Charles Dickens distinctly useful. In 1835, he was in Kettering as a young newspaper reporter, covering an election there. He watched aghast, as a supporter of one party almost committed murder (he was restrained just in time) on a personage of the other party; there ensued an ugly riot between Whig and Tory supporters. Per Wiki, this "led Dickens...to form various opinions of Kettering and its voters, none of them complimentary". I've used the following, before in the game -- anyhow -- a better-known thing re Charles D. and elections: the famous passage in Pickwick Papers, about the by-election in the fictional town of Eatanswill (from, candidates bribing people with free food and booze, to vote for them)... this long thought to be a fictionalisation of Towcester, Northamptonshire, and events thereat -- but nowadays, thought likelier to apply to Sudbury, Suffolk. The "Eatanswill" stuff -- highly corrupt, but essentially non-violent and kind-of benign -- is in a different league from the nasty doings at Kettering.