What does the word "padded" mean in this sentence?
Expensive electronic equipment was used to check voters against a biometric database and to stop vote totals from being padded.

(It is from an article of The Economics, maybe it concerns some political knowledge that I am not familiar with...)

Question

What does the word "padded" mean in this sentence?
Expensive electronic equipment was used to check voters against a biometric database and to stop vote totals from being padded.

(It is from an article of The Economics,  maybe it concerns some political knowledge that I am not familiar with...)

Answer

In this context it means falsifying the vote count by adding extra numbers.  Padding means to add something to fill it out.

Answer

In this context the word "padded" is used to express a slight inflation of numbers. The word is most commonly used in relation to clothing or items of furniture. Eg a padded jacket, a well padded chair , the cushion had a lot of padding "etc. Another term in this context could be "stuffing" and both "padding" and "stuffing" mean to add content , to "bolster" to add filling , or in the case you highlight, to falsify extra votes. 
Hope that helps!

Answer

I think that 'padded' is a euphemism here. The idea is that the vote counts are being added to, or increased. Since that is usually highly illegal, and immoral, I think that the writer using 'padded', rather than 'fraudulently inflated' is a bit dishonest.