A lot of people are quick to rip Kansas City fans for the preponderance of Royals (seven) currently leading in the balloting for the American League All-Star team.

Maybe they should be pointing their fingers at Latvia — assuming they can locate it on a map.

Because the tiny Baltic country of just two million, wedged in among Russia, Estonia, Lithuania and Belarus, has become a shaper of modern sports voting. Never mind that their country broke free of Communism less than 25 years ago, the enterprising Latvians were fast learners, grasping the art of ballot box stuffing that had taken Chicago politicians decades to master and advancing it into the electronic age.

Which was how Zemgus Girgensons, a run-of-the mill center for the down and out Buffalo Sabres, came to be in the NHL All-Star Game this year. He easily out-polled all the big names on the strength of the so-called “Latvian Landside” emailed from his homeland.

Royals fans have just followed Latvia’s example, thanks to a door that Major League Baseball grandly left ajar.

This is the first year that MLB has gone entirely to electronic voting, finally joining the 21st Century and abandoning the old punch cards. It has invited voting — early and often — by permitting fans to vote as many as 35 times per e-mail address.

So it probably shouldn’t be too surprised that somebody followed Latvia’s lead. Or that it was the formerly long-suffering Royals fans. After last season’s remarkable rise, attendance is up, on average, more than 10,000 per game. Now their exuberance extends from packing the ballpark to packing the ballot box.

Baseball tells us the All-Star Game is the fan’s event and, over the years, some have just embraced it more enthusiastically than others. In 1957 Cincinnati fans mailed in so many ballots for Reds’ players, the commissioner stepped in. UH athletic director David Matlin tells of his time with the Astros when punch cards would be stacked thick so a drill or nail could marks dozens at once.

The modern-day version is how KC’s light-hitting Omar Infante has come to be the leading vote-getter among AL second basemen when Houston’s Jose Altuve or Cleveland’s Jason Kipnis should be.

But if Altuve or Kipnis aren’t on the team it will be MLB’s fault. With a 34-man roster for each league, there is plenty of room to compensate for fanaticism. MLB has to start the leading vote-getter, but it doesn’t have to play him for more than an inning.

In some other races reason has already begun to prevail, such as the balloting for first base, where Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera has finally surged past the Royals’ Eric Hosmer.

Meanwhile, as partisans fume over the disparities, MLB has got to be loving it, for now, anyway. The resulting controversy has made voting meaningful, something not always the case where the game is concerned.

If baseball wants to take ballot stuffing out of the mix it need only do what the NFL has done and apportion the choice equally among fans, players and coaches.

Baseball’s biggest fear shouldn’t be that the Royals dominate the AL lineup. It should shudder to think what might someday happen if a bunch of Latvians ever reach the big leagues.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.