If a campaign worker slips you a 10 or a 50 as you head into a polling place or promises you a week at the beach, that is a crime — election fraud.

Another way, a legal way, of encouraging folks to vote the right way is through campaign promises to deliver free stuff to people through government programs if that candidate wins the election.

As it turns out, such techniques fit neatly into the goals of far-left Democrats who openly advocate socialist ideals.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to cancel the student debt of most of those who still owe money. She proposes canceling up to $50,000 each for some 42 million former students. And then make two- and four-year college tuition free.

Along with a cadre of other Democrat hopefuls, Warren supports Medicare for All. This would cancel out private health insurance and provide free health care to all U.S. residents, courtesy of the federal government, which would control prices and everything else related to health care.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont wants to provide a living wage to everyone, regardless of whether they have any skills or whether they have ever had a paying job before, by mandating that employers must pay all workers $15 an hour, or $31,200 in gross pay for a year of 40-hour workweeks.

Free health care for all is, he believes, necessary, as is a tuition-free college education. And for those who have student debt, ol’ Bernie would cut their debt in half and slash interest rates on refinanced loans on what’s left to pay.

Other candidates — Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — have co-sponsored the Debt-Free College Act. 

And Harris has an even better idea: Just give away cash. She proposes that families making less than $100,000 a year receive up to $6,000 a year ($500 a month). Individuals making less than $50,000 a year could get up to $3,000 a year ($250 a month).

Warren also wants to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves. Slavery has not existed in the U.S. since 1865, roughly five generations ago.

Some candidates also want to give away things to immigrants, legal and illegal alike, all paid for by higher taxes.

Democrats are notorious for their dangerous degree of compassion for immigrants in general. And the more free stuff we offer, the more appealing is the idea of coming to America, legally or not.

While the actual number of illegals in the country is debated, a conservative estimate is between 10 and 12 million, and by far the largest group — about 55% of the illegal population — comes from Mexico.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated the cost of illegal immigration on the country in 2017 was $116 billion. That figure is likely higher this year than in 2017.

FAIR estimates that $59.8 billion goes to educate children of illegal immigrants, the vast majority of which is paid for from property taxes at the local and state level.

Another $18.5 billion goes to health care, according to Chris Conover of the American Enterprise Institute. It includes “about $4.6 billion in health services paid for by federal taxes, $2.8 billion in health services financed by state and local taxpayers, and another $3 billion bankrolled through ‘cost-shifting,’ i.e. higher payments by insured patients to cover hospital uncompensated care losses, and roughly $1.5 billion in physician charity care.”

Some cities and states even allow illegals to vote in elections, which devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens. So far, illegals are forbidden from voting in federal elections.

Under the best of circumstances, which is that these candidates actually believe these ideas will work as advertised, history and present-day reality show us that socialism and socialist ideas like these most often fail miserably. And the evidence is there for all who care to see it.

The increasingly socialistic Left points with pride to various countries that have instituted government control over systems that are privately controlled in the U.S. The health-care system in countries like Canada, Great Britain, and Scandinavia is often held up as an example.

These are not true socialist countries, of course. They just dabble in select aspects of socialism and charge the necessary sky-high taxes to fund them. For all the supposed wonders of government health care, however, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark — three of the most frequently cited countries — are moving toward private health insurance.

America was designed to allow great freedom for its citizens with a small and restricted government that would guarantee individual freedom, not interfere with it. After all, the truth is that the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

Our federal government has grown to dangerous proportions, and the idea of imposing socialist methods on the people will further destroy what was and is the most unique and successful government system ever conceived.

We should not forget Margaret Thatcher’s brilliant point: "The great problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.“