Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition-1742-2004 [Reprint ed.] 0786718439, 9780786718436

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eiiver THE \/ote A

History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition 1742-2004

—

Tracy Campbell

16.00

/

In the first comprehensive history of election fraud in

America, Tracy Campbell reveals

how our

political

culture has been diminished

and eroded by centuries-long corruption in local, state, and national elections If

elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,

then the United States of America

body

From

politic.

a sorely ailing

is

ballot stuffing

and intimidat-

ing voters to suppressing turnout, vote buying,

and manipulating returns, Deliver

the Vote

is

an

intensive examination of the corrupt underbelly

of American

politics, a

casts a provocative

power

often

is

won

groundbreaking book that

new in

on how electoral

light

America.

Drawing on records of hundreds of

elections

from the pre-colonial era through the 2004 tion,

Tracy Campbell reveals

how

elec-

a persistent

culture of corruption has long thrived in American elections.

Among

the pubhc figures

are central to his chronicle are

whose

stories

George Washington,

Boss Tweed, William Randolph Hearst, Huey Long,

Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter,

and George

W Bush,

as

well as countless local and

state politicians.

Combining

social

and

pofitical history in a

vivid narrative, Deliver the Vote reveals

how

fraud

has been a persistent and corrosive presence in

American history one

period.

Through primary sources, Campbell

explores felt

been confined to

that has not

party, a single location, or a specific time

how Americans throughout

also

history have

about the franchise, and the fact that their vote

has often not been fairly reco^ K

^

or counted.

(contir.iied

•:!:

haclijiap)

Civic Center HB Booka^ ^^^^ 364. 132 Campbell 1962Tracy, Campbell, a Deliver the vote history of election fraud, an American political tradition-- 1742-2004 :

DATE DUE :1l(Q^An^

DEMCO.

INC. 38-2931

2coi^

Deliiver THE

Vote

D eliver THE

Vote

A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition 1742-2004

—

Tracy Campbell

Carroll

&

Graf Publishers

New York

Deuver the Vote

A History ofElection Fraud, an American Political Tradition —1 742-2004 Carroll

& Graf Publishers

An Imprint of Avalon

Publishing

Group

Inc.

245 West 17th Street

Uth NewYork,

Floor

NY 10011

AVALON

Copyright

© 2005 by Tracy Campbell

First Carroll &.

All rights reserved.

No

part of this

Graf edition 2005

book may be reproduced in whole or in by reviewers who

part without written permission from the publisher, except

may

quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine,

or electronic publication; nor

may any part of this book be

in a retrieval system, or transmitted in

reproduced, stored

any form or by any means electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PubUcation Data

ISBN-13: 978-0-78671-591-6 ISBN-10: 0-7867-1591-X

987654321 Interior Design by

Maria

Elias

Printed in the United States of America Distributed by Publishers

Group West

is

available.

To

Leslie, Alex,

and Drew

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2010

http://www.archive.org/details/delivervotehistoOOcamp

Contents

Introduction

xv

^^The Inclination to Injustice^^

Part One

The Failure

of a Democratic Experiment

Chapter One

Saw Such Havock"

"I Never

A

First Wheel" •

Afraid •

3

The Rise of Parties • "The Pivot on Which Turns the "Let Dogs Be Registered!" • "We Ought to Be the Last People

"Corrupting Influence" to Vote" •

•

Tammany Hall

Defining the Problem

•

• "The Embodiment of All That Freedom or Slavery

Is

Fraudulent"

Chapter Two

The Limits

of Popular Sovereignty

Kansas Dirt

Federal Complicity

•

Regulating the Election

•

31

"Wfiat Is Popular

•

Government Worth?"

•

1860

Chapter Three

"Can You Hold Your State?" "Without Restraint or Regulation"

•

"You

51 Can

Fill

Them Up

as Well as

We Can

Black Suffrage • "We Intend to Succeed by Intimidation" • The Thefts of 1876 • Who Decides? • The Greatest Danger to Free Government

Here"

•

Chapter Four ^^The Holiest Institution of the American People^'

83

Shaving Moustaches • Social Darwinism and Elections • "Men of the Strictest Integrity" • Approaching the Gates of the Penitentiary • Voting in Secret • "The People Are Demoralized" • "We Have Taken a City. To God Be the Praise" • The Agents of Democracy Self- Preservation •

Challenges

•

Part Two

The Struggle

Democracy

to Reclaim

Chapter Five

How

to Steal

an Election

"The Political Filth of Louisville" Short of Revolutionary Tactics •

That Stole Our Rights" racy

•

A

•

113 "We Were Cheated on Every Side"

•

"All Elections

Require Money"

"Frauds Open and Brazen"

City of White People • "Louisville Is

•

•

Nothing

"The Wagon

The Triumph of DemocNot a Hardened Sinner" •

Chapter Six

"The Lowest Layer

136

of Corruption"

Just a Condition Down There" • "Worse Than Dynamite" • "Next More Careful" • The Suffrage Issue • Congressional Remedies • Less Than a One-in-Eight Chance • "Accept Defeat Like a Man"

Hearst

• "It's

Time, Be

Chapter Seven

The Real Foundations The

St.

Louis Tradition

the Vote

•

•

of the

Gateway Arch

Developing the Riverfront

"Voted 'Em Like Soldiers"

•"The Greatest Memorial Since the

•

The Dictator

•

"A Miscarriage of Justice"

Eiffel

160 •

Delivering

• "It

Stinks"

Tower"

Chapter Eight

"Consistency, Pendergast

•

Women and

Thou Art a Jewel"

Stealing Second Base the Honest Election

Square, and Honest"

•

192

Outdummied

League

•

EPIC

•

•

The Proper Protection

Bloody Harlan

•

•

"Sober,

Part Three

The Path

to Popular Resignation

Chapter Nine

215

Uncomfortable Majorities

"God Almighty, Sears Roebuck, and Gene Talmadge" • "These are the Same Old • "We Didn't Steal as Many Counties as You Think" • The Duke of Duval • "As Clean an Election As Ever Has Been Held" • Ballot Box 13 • "Yes, It's True" • "The Good, the True, and the Beautiful" • "One Person, One Vote" • "You Haven't Learned Anything About Voting My Way" Cracker Tactics"

Chapter Ten "Elections Are Like

Cement"

242

• "It Was Going to Be All Right" • "Be Held for Naught" • "A Sad Day in American Politics" • Hawaii • Set in Concrete • "Substantial NonComplementary Miscounts" • The Cold Light of the Next Dawn • Uncovering the Daley Machine

Legalized Bribery

Chapter Eleven

Thieves

Who

The Freedom Ballot We've It" • •

•

268

Democracy

Steal

Protective Zones

Had an Open Election" •

Plaquemines— "This

•

Is the First

Time

Buy Phantom Voters "Democracy Is Dispensable in Miami"

"To Get 50 Percent of the Vote, You've Got to

Absentee Ballots and Bullets

•

"A Successful Flea Market"

The Paradox of Modem Civic Life

•

•

Chapter Twelve

A Hidden

Time Bomb

292

Dead Man Running

"From the Comfort of Your

Suspicious Activity

•

Count Till You Win

Hyper-Technical Reliances

•

•

"Widespread Voter Disfranchisement"

Combustion

•

537 Votes

•

Bush

v.

Gore

•

•

•

•

Home"

•

Speak Again" Semi-Spontaneous

"Until Voters Get to

"Count Every Vote"

•

"Our Votes Are Not Sacrosanct"

Conclusion

"Something Very Personal" 2004 • "Have a Nice Day" • New Machines Reclaiming Democracy

•

325 •

"The Long and Ugly Tradition"

"Something Very Personal"


DL\NT

Like so

as Lincoln's Secretarv

ticket.

William Seward

would culminate

in

of State twent}'-two years

later.

the nineteenth century,

New

R\LL

manv

other American

York underwent another itics:

Whig

New York governorship over William Alarcy by 20,179 to 19,377,

thus elevating Seward to national prominence that his

who voted more

ballots to unwitting voters. Police officers loyal to the

Such methods were ultimately to the

if

"toughs" each

cities in

significant

development

in antebellum pol-

the rise of the city machine. In fact, the ver\^ location of this

machine produced and election fraud

a

term that became synonvmous with boss rule

—Tammany

Hall.

Few

the dynamics of the culture of corruption.

power, and later of that of

Tweed, was located

in

its

its

places better understood

The

source of Tammany's

legendarv leader William

M.

"Boss"

abHitv to corral armies of immigrants into

quick naturaUzation mills and then the voting booths. used pohtical gangs, sometimes called "shoulder

Tammany also

hitters,"

whose

"I

Never Saw Such Havogk"

19

intimidating tactics kept scores of anti-Tammany voters away from the polls. Yet

Tammany

did not always have to resort to fraud to

maintain their power. Often the rewards of cooperating with the

machine were enough in

to persuade

enough people

power on Election Day. Yet not wishing

to keep the

machine

to take any chances

and

with considerable opposition, machines always had an assortment of election tricks at their disposal.

Tammany employed the

full

spectrum of election fraud. In addition

to repeaters, "thugs" intimidated voters; "floaters" voted several times,

usually going from one precinct to another; or "colonizers," illegal

who

voters residing in another city or state tion rolls at the last minute

used. Before an election, for aliens,

and

who were brought

to properly

a close election,

were

agents scoured the city looking

to party headquarters,

applications were promptly filled out.

how

sway

easily

Tammany

could swell the registra-

The

where blank

were prompted in

aliens

answer a judge's questions concerning their

resi-

dency. Witnesses were also crucial to the process, and paid witnesses

names and

their

addresses. Squads of these aliens were then taken to Superior

Court

were coached into remembering the

or the Court of

Common

Pleas,

aliens'

where they were brought before a

judge. Answering the judge's questions correctly at all), the witnesses

would do

(if

they were asked

their duty (usually swearing to the

legitimacy of scores of aliens at a time), and the judge would sign the

necessary documents to

make

then be able to vote for

Tammany

was not unusual one

the alien a proper citizen,

who would

candidates at the next election.

for a judge to process eight

hundred such

It

aliens in

day.

In an 1843 election, Tammany's

men imported

inmates from the

Blackwell's Island Penitentiary to vote in Democratic wards.

many

also

employed paupers from the

city

Tam-

almshouse, giving them

clean clothing, money, and tickets for grog after they had cast their

vote for

Tammany

candidates.

The

use of gangs, violence, and other

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

20

methods of wholesale fraud practiced by Tammany Hall grew

in intensity

plundered the

who

throughout the nineteenth century For Tweed,

involved far

were just another component of

elections

city's treasury,

The

the machine's overall tactics.

Tweed knew,

stalwarts only

element on Election Day,

crucial

more than just "getting out the vote" or win-

ning over skeptics with powerful oratory. "The ballots didn't make the outcome," Tweed admitted, "the counters did."

As

the

Tammany

gangs demonstrated, another effective technique

involved hiring "rowdies" to go into certain precincts and threaten,

push, or assault prospective voters.

known

for the use

of "rowdies" in

New

York City had been long

city elections.

its

As

early as 1769,

Peter Livingston wrote a friend that if his political adversaries used force

on Election Day, "we have by

on our

who

side

Sometimes that tion,

are

determined to use force

if

of the Brusers

New

55,000 votes were recorded in eligible to vote

York

[sic]

they use foul play."

1844

force involved stuffing ballot boxes. In an

41,000 were legally cent.

far the best part

elec-

City, although only

—an impressive turnout of 135 per-

Observers commented that the

dogs and cats must have

city's

been affected by an unusual dose of civic pride. In 1851, thugs the Eighth

known

Ward and

as

"Short Boys" descended upon a

district in

violendy drove out the election inspectors and

inserted "ballots by the handful." In an Irish district, hired rowdies started a fight at

around noon on Election

commotion. Police were one police captain had

Day

his

jaw

fractured. Later that day, election

ward

to sign the official return, which, of course,

primary purposes of those

who had

it

has

and refused

to be illegal

was

one of the

precisely

originally hired the rowdies.

1854, a municipal reform committee

some wards

and

called in but could not contain the fight,

inspectors considered the election in that

claimed, "In

that caused a terrible

become

critical

as

to vote at aU, unless he votes as ordered."

of Tammany

much

as a

man's

The committee

HaU

life is

also

By

pro-

worth

under-

stood the cumulative effect of these hired thugs on legal voters: "The

Never Saw Such Havogk"

"I

21

from

respectable citizens of both parties have retired

abandoned them

disgust and

New York

even bolder form of intimidation.

Cooper decided

A committee

ballots.

When

new and

of Democrats led by

home

in the city,

even

an overt attempt to bypass Tammany Hall,

which prohibited distributing votes city post office, a

City witnessed a

to mail ballots to every

Whig ones. This move was

primaries in

entirely to bullies."

In the 1852 general election,

Peter

all

in areas

it felt

were

hostile.

At

the

gang led by Tammany's Daniel Sickles demanded the

he was refused. Sickles and his

men

attacked the offi-

guarding the boxes, and made off with 36,000 of the 80,000 or so

cials

then returned to

ballots. Sickles

received,

and boasted of his

Tammany's with

its

he was warmly

exploits.

clout, like the

control of the

Tammany Hall, where

city's

machines in so many other

cities,

police force. Since the mayors

and other

local elected officials usually appointed the police chief, the job

chief and those

who worked for him were on the line on

Tammany leaders

also required all

tribute to an "Election Fund."

members of the

Those refusing

to

rested

of the

Election Day.

police force to con-

do so were summarily

punished by losing their jobs or by being forced to work twenty-four-

hour

shifts.

Consequently, the fiind reached $10,000 for any given

election in the 1850s. to for

On

pay those very same

Tammany

Election Day,

officers

candidates.

who

took the day off to "electioneer"

These off-duty

clothes, could threaten or bribe voters officers

looked the other way as

tols to the

some of this money was used

officers,

even in plain

with blatant impunity. On-duty

Tammany men

brought axes and pis-

poUing places to destroy ballot boxes and threaten

voters.

In the 1856 general election, a scene of intense violence, a conservative estimate placed the

City

at 10,000,

Tammany model

votes in

New

York

which provided the necessary margin of victory

for

candidates. Utilizing the police as an active agent to steal

votes or intimidate voters. a

number of fraudulent

for a

New York City's political machine provided

number of other

city

machines to emulate. Reformers

all

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

22

over the country devoted a great deal of time over the next century

attempting to remove the police from the control of the mayor and place

in the

it

hands of a commission or other non-partisan board.

"The Embodiment of All Tr\t Violence was not just relegated to

Is

cities

Fraudulent"

on the eastern seaboard. In the

West, voters understood that going to the poUs was often task.

by

One

this

from

St.

a

dangerous

Louis voter lamented in 1840: "Cannot something be done

make

enlightened city to

terror?" Besides the usual

the passage to the polls safe, and free

problems of waiting for well over two

hours to cast his vote, this individual also noted that he was subjected to various threats and physical assaults throughout the day.

approach [the

polls] at the price

Throughout the 1850s,

of loss of apparel,

as the sectional crisis

more episodes of election fraud began newspapers. Although

many of these

"Must we

hfe, or limb?"

worsened, more and

to appear in the pages of local

papers had a particular partisan

bent that could offer a convenient and misleading excuse to account for an election defeat,

on the

election

competing partisan papers

methods of their rivals. In

tions were the subject of scrutiny

and the

Bee.

Most of their

also kept close tabs

New Orleans, the

1852

from both the Commercial Bulletin

attention

was devoted

to the

Plaquemines

Parish of Louisiana, from where observers noticed that a large

of

illegal

voters were

elec-

imported to

New

number

Orleans on steamboats.

Plaquemines became one of the focal points of the culture of corruption well

into

the twentieth century.

according to the Bulletin, referred

The term

"plaquemining,"

to:

—of aU

The embodiment of all that is fraudulent in elections to degrade the ballot box,

through which freemen

and make

it

may honesdy

that tends

instead of being the

medium

express their preferences, the

"INeverSawSuchHavock"

23

means whereby moneyed demagogues may purchase

their way to place

and power, to say nothing of the winning of wagers.

"If the

Whig

fixed," the

Bee claimed, the Democrats might "convert

and oysters since the

Party did not keep both eyes wide open and steadily

in

Plaquemines into

mid- 1840s

legal voters." It

from Plaquemines

for voters

all

had been customary to be ferried to

New

The

was

Orleans in order to swell the ranks of the electorate.

becoming

all

the term was

too

common

known

throughout the nation. In

as "pipe-laying,"

which

the alligators

tactic

New York

City,

referred to the practice of

importing voters from outlying areas into the city under the pretense

of laying pipe for the late 1830s,

city's

aqueduct. This practice, which dated to the

had only one purpose:

to swell the

number of illegal voters.

After the election, the "pipe-layers" simply went back home. In an

1840

Illinois election, illegal voters

where they served

were ferried up the Wabash River

as "repeaters" in riverfront towns.

The

allegations

even invoked a reaction in the state house, where Representative

Abraham Lincoln

offered a resolution

condemning the

frauds, pro-

posing "to provide any punishment within the bounds of humanity, for those

who

could abuse such a right."

In

New

Orleans, the recipient of Plaquemines's electoral bounties,

abusing such a right became an exercise in audacity.

epidemic that hit the

20,000

lives.

city shortly before the

A

yellow-fever

1853 election took over

Although no more than 10,500 votes had ever been

in the city before, over 13,000 votes

were cast

in 1853.

cast

Responding

to

swelling Democratic numbers after the contagion had wrecked the city,

party leaders pathetically claimed that the epidemic simply spared

the lives of their partisans. editorialized that

dence's leanings

A

newcomers

when

to the city should take notice

voting.

demon of fraud himself could

thoroughly disgusted local newspaper

One

of Provi-

outraged observer noted: "The

not, therefore,

on

this occasion,

have the

human

affairs!"

supernatural effrontery of denying his intervention in

Tracy Campbell

24

A

general rule about election fraud

smaller the election, the easier

it is

is

/

Deliver the Vote

a rather simple one:

The

to steal. Local elections are easier

to corrupt than state elections; state elections are easier to corrupt than

national ones. Yet even presidential elections presented opportunities for larceny. In 1844,

Henry

Clay, the

James K. Polk, the Democrat, narrowly defeated

Whig, by 38,367

votes out of 2,700,560 cast nation-

wide. Polk's victory in the Electoral College was wider, 170 to 105. Yet

within some of the states that Polk carried, the margins were very narrow, and suspicious.

New York, whose electoral votes alone had been enough to swing the balance (if New York's 36 votes had gone to Clay, Clay would have In

won the

tended that the election

padding voter cash;

won by just 5,106 votes. Whigs conhad been stolen. The charges were not new:

election, 141-134),

and

lists

with

Polk

illegal

immigrants; buying votes with liquor or

stuffing ballot boxes with impunity.

New York

City that "we

by the foreign votes

feel

One Whig wrote from

here the whole result has been changed

in this city."

Over 5,500 immigrants had been

nat-

New York City, and twice that amount throughout the state in the same period. On election eve alone, 497 new voters had been naturalized in New York

urahzed in the three months preceding the election in

City.

These

charges

votes, everyone understood,

were cast for Polk. Similar

came from Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore.

In Louisiana, Clay had even more reason to feel cheated.

Louisiana voter consoled the

Whig leader: "You

have

the most unprecedented frauds and rascahty." Polk officially

Louisiana by just 699 votes. In

New Orleans, where

One

lost this state

by

won

Polk racked up a

majority of 414 votes, John SlideU had organized the Democratic vote effort

by bringing

used in

many

New

in voters

from other parishes. The methods

Orleans were varied: "Parishes giving more votes or

as there are

as

white inhabitants of aU sexes and ages being in

them. Steamboats chartered to convey voters in the same day ferent Polls,

Slidell

at dif-

and every other species of fraud that could be imagined."

"I

Never Saw Such Havock"

While Democrats that Louisiana

where

25

cried "poor loser" at such charges,

it

was obvious

was carried by Polk because of Plaquemines

total votes

had jumped from 250

in

1840

to 1,007

Parish,

Democratic

votes alone in 1844, although the 1840 Census indicated only 538

white males over twenty years old lived there. Polk's vote margin in Plaquemines essentially

won him

990-

fictitious

Louisiana's six elec-

toral votes.

Twenty

House

years after the tumultuous

give the presidency to

had been

installed

crowds or Instead,

calls

more fraud

John Quincy Adams, now

by fraud. Yet

Polk's ascension did not

for President

Whigs concluded

1824 election had seen the

Clay to assume

his

a president

produce angry

rightful office.

that registry laws were necessary to prevent

Democrats casually dismissed

in future elections, while

claims of a stolen election. Despite the collective resignation, no one

could deny that the methods used in hijack the election for Polk

him

to

York and Louisiana

had enormous consequences

nation. After President Polk

that brought

New

went

to

for the

to

young

war with Mexico, the methods

power took on an even more profound meaning.

Defining the Problem

How

widespread was fraud in the early republic? Scholars have

engaged in an extended debate concerning the extent of election fraud in early

American

may have

elections.

While

a

few have suggested that fraud

affected five percent of the vote in every election, others dis-

miss these claims. Complicating the matter was the ubiquitous cry of "fraud"

by the

explain

why

One

losers

of a given election or partisan newspapers to

their views did not

win over

a majority of the electorate.

scholar states that illegal voting in antebellum

America "was

nei-

ther widespread nor significant" since even the best-known examples

of fraud constituted

less

than

five

percent of the electorate.

To

prove

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

26

widespread fraud, a rather virtually every

strict

standard

is

utilized:

county for every election must

In other words, the only real proof of fraud

when

voting, such as

Whig,

a

say,

"The turnouts

in

reflect substantial fraud." is

to see unusual shifts in

received 10,000 votes in one elec-

tion and 20,000 the very next year.

By

focusing solely on returns and

other raw data, these studies neglect the social reaHties of American elections,

and

how

statistically

small numbers can have huge conse-

quences on Election Day.

Such standards, frightening

away

cannot measure the role of violence in

voters, or the role

simply measuring figure or

for example,

how

of bribing voters not to vote, or in

a corrupt election judge could transpose a

X to candidate Y's column. It also regularly, such as when candidate X

award votes for candidate

ignores the fraud that can occur

buys ten percent of the vote in successive years and thus, under scholarly analysis, there

would be no fraud

since there were

no variations

in

the aggregate. Fraud certainly did not play a significant role in every

antebellum American election. Yet claiming that fraud did not occur in every local race

and

is,

therefore,

minimized

nationally, understates

the corrosive nature of the problem. Simply put, inflating voter

rolls,

intimidating voters, buying votes, and stuffing ballot boxes was a part

of the game one necessarily played in American these

methods gave the

election to the

politics.

wrong

In some races,

candidate. In others,

these practices did not determine the winner, but over time produced

some cumulative Playing that

results that did

game sometimes took

Mexico

election, a

against

Don Miguel

official returns,

not bode well for the republic. bizarre turns. In an

suspended CathoHc

priest.

locality,

New

Padre Gallegos, ran

Otero, for a seat as a delegate to Congress. In the

GaUegos won by 99

votes.

Upon

closer inspection,

was evident that the voting had been unorthodox one

1855

in the extreme. In

one hundred more votes were cast than there were

registered voters. In the

town of Socorro, Gallegos

it

allegedly

legally

rounded

up nearly two dozen underage boys to vote, and admonished them to

"I

Never Saw Such Havogk"

27

swear they were of age. If they did

Father Gallegos promised the

so,

boys he would absolve them of the sin of false swearing.

An

even more revealing episode occurred in Rhode Island, where

Whigs and Temperance town council a

were waging a

forces

seat against a

pro-rum

wagonload of voters appeared,

drunk.

One

of the

Whigs

that if they voted for the receive a gallon of gin.

In such a way, the

Near the end of the

demanding

to vote

and

all

day,

clearly

present promised the inebriated voters

Whig-Temperance

They

"Rum

all

slate.

bitter struggle for a

candidates, each

would

quickly agreed and voted accordingly.

Cabal" was turned out of

office.

Freedom or Slavery By the

1850s, the culture of corruption had

ponent of American hallmark was a violence.

A

nativist,

new

political life that a

fierce desire to

become such

combat

major com-

party was formed

whose

this culture, if necessary,

anti-Catholic party

known

as the

with

"Know-Noth-

"American" party, had a determined approach: "Ameri-

ings," or the

canism against foreigners

—the people

against the government."

party itself sprang from elements within the elections

a

Whigs who

felt

The

that their

had been thoroughly corrupted by fraudulent immigrant

votes. Fired

by almost

a religious zealotry, the

convinced that they should fight

In Louisville, the party hit

fire

with

fertile soil.

Know-Nothings were

fire.

Over half of the foreign-born

population in Kentucky in 1850 resided in Louisville, particularly

German and

Irish immigrants. Native Louisvillians deeply resented

the presence of these populations, and were obsessed with keeping

such "undesirables" from the

polls.

In Louisville elections in

May

1855, Know-Nothings used widespread violence to capture City Hall.

Due

to their

newly-won power, the Know-Nothings oversaw the

appointment of election officials.

Of the 68 election judges in Louisville,

Tracy Campbell

28

Deliver the Vote

/

64 were Know-Nothings. These judges required each voter

to read his

vote aloud, and marked the vote opposite the candidate's

name

book. This technique was votes of immigrants,

employed

skillfully

many of whom

to spot

and

in a

reject the

could not read English or spoke

with a heavy accent. If that were not enough, violence was always an

Know-Nothing

effective

As another

Louisville election, in

Know-Nothings worked their vote at

all.

local

First

more

Napoleon

farcical

Ward, only one voting booth would

in France

thousand voters and concluded: "The

and Santa Anna

than the election in Louisville

German-oriented paper published that

"The day of decision

freedom or

A

cast

Democratic paper claimed that such a move

essentially disfranchised nearly a

election of

none of the undesirables

Council, dominated by the nativists, ruled

immigrant

One

August 1855, approached, the

to ensure that

The City

that in the heavily

be established.

tool.

is

far away,

Mexico was no

to be next

is

in Louisville

not

in

and

Monday."

A

meanwhile claimed it

brings us either

slavery."

former

Whig

and outspoken Know-Nothing

editor,

George D.

weeks leading up to the

Prentice,

whipped the

election

with highly suggestive rhetoric. "Our friends must so

nativist flames in the

organize," Prentice wrote, to "exclude every fraudulent voter,

who

he

may be and under what

pretext his vote

may be

no matter offered."

Before the polls opened on Election Day, the Know-Nothings forcibly

took control of each of Louisville's eight wards, and allowed only those

who

openly displayed yellow ballots (distributed by the party) to vote.

Immigrants had to bring

their citizenship papers

and often waited

hours in the hot August sun to vote, usually with no success, while officials

allowed those with yellow tickets in the back door. In the First

Ward, where the

voters

had just one polling

place, only ten percent

of

the potential electorate cast votes, disfranchising hundreds of voters, just as the

Democrats had predicted.

By midday,

gunfire had erupted.

By

late afternoon, the city

was

in

"I

Never Saw Such Havogk"

the midst of a fliU-scale

29

riot,

and

a

By evening,

a nativist

mob,

the

tenement houses, where

city's

killing ten.

the polls closed, the city

had trouble

German brewery was the

fifteen

mob had

set

on

spread to

fire

by

some of

homes were burned.

When

Know-Nothings scored major victories, while the

number of casualties. All

totaling the

ably two dozen people died and

together, prob-

many more were wounded,

while the

property damage was estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The

election

was the culmination of a half-decade of anti-immi-

grant rage and resulted in an election where violence and murder ruled.

As

the

German

Louisville Anzieger declared after the election,

Louisville "should decide if

mannered and In

New

it

still

count

itself

among

the well-

of the world."

civilized cities

Orleans, the Know-Nothings suspected that Democrats

would use armies of repeaters nativists

may

to steal a

deployed dozens of armed

March 1854

men

to

watch suspicious voters

selected precincts. Before long, fights broke out

and the

subsequently closed in order to stave off a city-wide

1855, the violence in

New

Orleans increased,

from Mobile and Memphis intimidated

The

shot and killed one Irishman.

The

city election.

as

riot.

more

In

polls

at

were

November

nativist thugs

and

voters, stole ballot boxes,

following year, the nativists in

New

Orleans used even more heavy-handed methods. In one precinct

where

Democratic challenger was bayoneted

a

in that precinct

was 90-0

many Know-Nothing

to death, the final tally

in favor of the nativists, a typical result in

strongholds.

The governor of

mated that between 1854 and 1856, one

Louisiana

third of aU legal

esti-

New Orleans

voters were denied their right to vote due to nativist intimidation. culture of

trend—

^was

New

Orleans elections

becoming increasingly

The Know-Nothings were

—

as part

The

of a growing national

brutal.

certainly not a party that has received

widespread acclaim, either from their contemporaries or from historians.

This

resented

is

not surprising.

many of

They were bigoted and

the uglier undercurrents of

violent,

American

and rep-

politics.

Yet

Tracy Campbell

30

/

Deliver the Vote

the Know-Nothings' zealotry was fired, in part, by the understanding that the nation's election system

was

essentially broken.

They saw var-

ious "undesirables" helping corrupt politicians to steal elections, felt

and

completely justified in using force to fight their righteous war at

the polls.

The

perception that they were taking election fraud to

heights did not bother

playing the

game

that

them

—they

new

rationalized that they were simply

Democrats and Whigs had

started,

and they

were right about that point.

Once

a poHtical

group or party

feels a

revolutionary methods immediately

considering the

America,

it

manner

in

way

become

it

loudly to the latent frustrations

illegitimate,

legitimate. In a sense,

did.

a party such as the

in early

BCnow-Noth-

Their ominous emergence spoke

many Americans were

seeing elections stolen on a regular basis. cally

is

which voting was conducted

was not surprising that

ings responded in the

government

The

experiencing in

surfacing of guns tragi-

underscored what a short distance the young nation had come

since the days of monarchy.

"

Chapter Two

The Limits

of Popular

Sovereignty

'We are playing for a mighty stake

must be played

When

and

the

game

boldly.

Alexis de Tocqueville traveled throughout the United

commented on

States in 1831, he elections: "I

may

here be

the character of

American

met by an objection derived from

election-

eering intriques, the meanness of candidates, and the calumnies of their opponents." These "evils," Tocqueville noted, are "doubtless great,

but they are transient." elected

same

may

lead

this

some men

desire leads all

ability

To

men

French observer, the "desire of being

for a time to violent hostility; but this

in the long run to support each other."

of elections to bring enemies together,

— was profound

"if

it

at least to Tocqueville,

happens that an election accidentally severs two

friends, the electoral system brings a multitude of citizens

together

who would

otherwise always have remained

permanently

unknown

to

one

Midwest

Territories

Tocqueville's faith that elections could solve a

wrenching

another." In time, a series of elections in the

would put

The

national crisis to the

test.

Tracy Campbell

32

By

/

Deliver the Vote

the 1850s, the country struggled mightily over

how

to resolve

the festering sectional division over slavery. Every possible answer offered by Northerner or Southerner, abolitionist or slaveholder,

greeted with immediate suspicion by the other. litionists

where

it

While even many abo-

were content to allow slavery to remain

was already entrenched

Territories

in the

was

(for the

time being)

deep South, the question of the

was another matter. The Compromise of 1820 had drawn

a geographical line within the Louisiana Purchase that declared the territory north

of the 36-30 parallel "forever

Yet the line could

free."

not resolve the widening gulf that separated various factions migrating to the territories. Steadfast slaveholders objected to

on

any infringement

their perceived "rights" to bring their "property" into another state

and wanted the compromise repealed, while allowing any possible expansion of slavery at

At

this crucial

satisfactory

moment,

"free-soilers"

opposed

all.

some

the need was greater than ever to find

answer to the issue of slavery in the

taking up arms, the ballot box was seized

upon by

territories.

a

Short of

number of politi-

way

to determine the future course of

slavery. Unfortunately, elections in

Kansas would only serve to increase

cians as the only legitimate

the sectional hostility and exacerbate the native

never ritory

boxes,

crisis.

In time, hundreds of

Kansans discovered they had thousands of neighbors they had

who had never stepped foot in the terexcept to intimidate those who opposed slavery, stuff ballot kill a few people, and rig a new state constitution.

known before,

neighbors

Kansas Dirt For some members of Congress, the easiest and

with the "impending

crisis"

will

of those residing in the

glas

had espoused

was by allowing

fairest

way

to deal

elections to determine the

territories. Illinois

Senator Stephen

Dou-

this very notion, "popular sovereignty," as the

only

The Limits of Popular Sovereignty

fair

and democratic way to

free.

To Douglas, popular

control,

settle

33

whether a

territory

would be

slave or

sovereignty embodied the very ideal of local

whereby "the people of every separate

community

political

have an inalienable right to govern themselves in respect to their

With

internal polity."

1854, he sought to

hoped

the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in

make

national policy. If successful, Douglas

it

to ride popular sovereignty to the

dent Franklin Pierce signed

into law

it

White House. After

on

May

30,

all

Presi-

eyes quickly

turned to the approaching elections in Kansas to observe whether

popular sovereignty could work.

The

rightful inhabitants of the territory, as the notion held,

would

decide for themselves whether to allow or prohibit slavery. If a

majority of the residents of the territory voted to prohibit slavery,

would be codified

in the state constitution

it

and be respected by North-

erner and Southerner alike. Yet even this seemingly democratic refer-

endum proved problematic. How would such an election be conducted? By what standard would a resident of a territory be determined? Would they vote on slavery per se, or on members to a constitutional convention who would then take up the issue? What would happen in the near fature when more residents came to the area, and perhaps, a new majority was ready to overturn the original election results? Already, it

popular sovereignty was not as easy a proposition as

seemed.

The mine

first test

case

came

in

November 1854,

a delegate to Congress.

Kansas was soon flooded with groups

whose only expressed wish was regardless of

in an election to deter-

to increase their

whether these people would ever

the northeast, bands of

came

to the

Emigrant Aid

live

at

any

cost,

a day in Kansas.

men opposed to slavery, "free-staters," Territory. Many of these men belonged to the

From

Kansas

numbers

Society,

which had sponsors such

as

William CuUen

Bryant and John Carter Brown.

The

very notion of Northern outsiders flocking to the territory in

Tracy Campbell

34

/

Deliver the Vote

order to prohibit slavery angered pro-Southerners, including a large

number

might outlaw

names such that

Resenting the possibility that Kansas

living in Missouri.

Missourians formed secret societies with

slavery, these

as the

"Sons of the South" and the "Blue Lodge." In ways

would resemble the Ku Klux Klan

after the Civil

War, these

groups had secret handshakes and passwords, and were oath-bound to protect each other's identities. Their slavery,

by force

if necessary,

and

their

elections in Kansas. In the village of

on horseback came surrounded the

date,

on the day before the

cast, all

registered

election,

who

dared

names on the

official poll

but 26 votes for the pro-slavery candi-

John M. Whitfield. Similar episodes occurred

wards in Kansas, but none were quite trict,

rig the

the abolitionists," they cried. "Kill them!"

Although there were only 35 books, 261 votes were

immediate aim was to

and threatened anyone with death

"Damn

to protect

Douglas large companies of men

across the border

polls,

challenge them.

avowed purpose was

as

brazen

in various other

as the

Seventh Dis-

located about 75 miles from the Missouri border. Although the

Seventh District had only 53 qualified voters, 604 voted in the election, all

but seven for Whitfield.

Although Whitfield defeated votes, the

numbers of illegal

his nearest

voters

opponent by almost 2,000

was daunting. Out of 2,833

1,729, or 61 percent, were fraudulent votes.

A

votes,

Congressional com-

mittee found that the election was "a crime of great magnitude.

immediate States,

effect

was

to further excite the people

and exasperate the actual

Its

of the northern

settlers against their

neighbors in

Missouri." After conducting a survey of Kansas, the committee further

concluded that "in the present condition of the Territory a could not be held."

The

The House voted

fair election

to vacate the seat.

outcry against the tactics of the Missourians provoked Kansas

Governor Andrew Reeder determined that 2,905 residents. Yet

to order a census of the territory,

eligible voters lived in a

which

population of 8,601

Kansas permitted any "resident" male to vote, and that

The Limits of Popular Sovereignty

35

term was loosely defined. Pro- slavery Missourians were more than ready to stretch that term to any limits. "The pro-slavery party generally

contended that

if a

man was

here but half an hour he was entitled

commented one Leavenworth

to vote,"

resident,

made them

sourians considered their "mere presence here

Upon completion of the census, Reeder ordered March 1855

to determine the

members of the

pany helped more emigrants fmd

—

dentials.

another election for

legislative assembly.

way

pistols

on any

election judge

who

to Kansas, while "border

—

reacted to this devel-

his desire to protect

R. Atchison,

they "would

kill

who

Kansas for pro-slavery

According to one observer, Atchison stated he and else

and

dared challenge their cre-

The ruffians were lead by ex-Senator David

were going to vote, or

In

Com-

across the border to vote illegally in Kansas,

had publicly proclaimed forces.

their

pro-slavery zealots from Missouri

opment by pouring drew their

voters."

same dynamics occurred. The Emigrant Aid

this contest, the

ruffians"

adding that Mis-

every

his followers

God damned

aboli-

tionist in the district."

When George Dietzler, a citizen of Lawrence, spoke to some of the men

Missouri

his shoe to

in his

before the election about their residency, one took off

show

mind was

episodes, there sourians.

One

Dietzler the dirt in his socks was Kansas dirt, which all

was no masking the sheer

terror created

in

Lawrence when he attempted

my hand

stepped forward, put

name; when,

at a

and dragged from the

inside the

to vote:

window, and gave

I

was seized by the people

polls

me

I

my

in the crowd,

through the entire crowd. They made

shouts of "Kill the nigger- thief," "Cut his throat," and

around

by the Mis-

word from one of the two men who stood one on

each side of the window,

that kind.

Beyond such

Kansan, J. N. Mace, described an encounter he had with

some Missourians

I

the proof of residency he needed.

many cries of

saw revolvers cocked and bowie knives drawn,

at that time.

After

I

all

had been dragged out of the crowd

Tracy Campbell

36

I

my

regained

had

feet. I

When I got to my feet, I them we had no law to American

Mace's

life

One

a small

unfiirled

to

American

flag

and held

over

protect us, and

men who had

traveled

and "that

When

a slave state. Jones if

Jones,

S. J.

my head. I

who

fully

candidly admitted to

intended to vote in order

fair

his

men would

means, they would by

election judges at first refused to allow Jones

and

Missourian threatened to

fire

shots into the

room and

the ballot box by force,

kill

all

won

in the territory

where the

total vote

illegal.

M. T. Hunter of Virginia, although he exagfraud: "We had at least 7,000 [Missouri] men

on the day of

election,"

wrote Atchison, adding can-

mighty stake and the game must be played

boldly."

are playing for a

David M. Potter concluded that what the pro-slavery an election."

Had

a free

and

The fair

first

historian

forces

had done

vote been taken of legal voters, a

The committee

and only one

The

audacity of the fraud stung

gressional committee concluded that free-staters

majority of seats.

hundred

Atchison boasted of

"We

observers.

to

was 6,307, with

didly the reason behind the cooked numbers:

steal

men

scope of the fraud: the pro-

nearly 5,000 of those votes being clearly

gerated the extent of the

a

foul."

with a "Hurrah! For Missouri!"

in an election

the results to Senator R.

his

vote,

everyone there. Soon, the marauders stole

final election tally revealed the

slavery forces

"was

told

to vote.

added that he and

they could not vote by

vote, another pro-slavery

The

arm.

from Missouri to the Bloom-

he had just arrived in Kansas and it

my

sought protection under the

I

was spared, but he was not allowed

of the

make

it

under

flag.

ington district of Kansas was locals

it

Deliver the Vote

/

Con-

would have won

also concluded: "This invasion

in the history

many

is

a

the

of our government, by which an

organized force from one State has elected a legislature for another."

The

free-staters, repulsed

by the methods used

simply refused to recognize the legitimacy of the

in the election,

new government and

The Limits OF Popular Sovereignty

formed

their

elections

own. The pro-slavery

and formed a

state "revolutionaries."

the

37

legislature passed laws to rig future

territorial militia that

In

May

vowed

to attack

any free-

1856, the pro-slavery militia "sacked"

town of Lawrence, burning the

free-state governor's residence,

looting numerous stores. In retaliation, anti-slavery zealots like

Brown went

to

Kansas and with his sons brutally murdered

slavery supporters.

The bloodshed

in Kansas,

which served

of opening of the Civil War, was grounded in the rial it

John

five

pro-

as a

kind

no

territo-

government existed that had the legitimacy of power conferred on

by a democratic

and

fact that

and

fair elections

election. Popular sovereignty could

did not

not work

if free

exist.

Federal Complicity

When word of the massive fraud reached Governor Reeder, he the support of President Franklin Pierce,

who

sought

refused to intercede.

Pierce's reaction gave cues to the Territories that, for all intents

purposes, the legality of elections really ular sovereignty

was an

irrelevant policy. Considering the

used by the 1850s to pad registration

and

did not matter and that pop-

lists

methods

or steal votes, the actions of

the border ruffians were not unexpected. But the federal government essentially

looked the other way and rubber-stamped the methods of

the ruffians in ways that had far eral

more

significance. After aU, the fed-

government had complete authority

elections in the Territories.

federal

With

government abdicated

precisely

its

to

determine the validity of

the passivity of President Pierce, the responsibilities in Kansas.

what Senator Charles Sumner had

when he proclaimed

in

mind

in

This was

May

1856

that Pierce's actions constituted the real "crime

against Kansas."

The new

pro-slavery legislature

met

in

Shawnee Mission, near the

Missouri border, and put through the laws of Missouri without

Tracy Campbell

38

changing hardly held their

ture,

islature.

a

Deliver the Vote

/

word. Free-soilers disparaged the "bogus"

own

elections,

and chose a

The two governments

free-state

governor and leg-

simultaneously claimed legitimacy,

decried the tactics of their opponents, and prepared for

The

shed.

Kenneth M. Stampp

historian

Kansas government was

legisla-

more blood-

aptly concludes that the

of Douglas's great principle' of

"a travesty

popular sovereignty." In the early 1850s, even as the

new

Know-Nothing movement

flared, a

Whigs with some

party emerged that combined segments of the

disgruntled northern Democrats. Calling themselves Republicans, the

new

party soon grew to be the main competitor of the Democratic

party. Its essential ideology

labor, free

slavery

was contained

men." Republicans were staunchly opposed to the spread of

and to the notion of popular sovereignty, since

in the territories to conceivably enact licans, the trol,

in the phrase, "Free soil, free

and legaUze

elections in

allowed voters

slavery.

matter of slavery was too significant to be

and the

it

To Repub-

left to local

con-

Kansas had revealed the latent fraud behind

popular sovereignty. Ironically, what Senator Douglas had hoped

would

ease sectional divisions and

smooth the way

suddenly became a rallying cry for those

for his presidency

who opposed

him.

The

sudden strength of the Republicans and the threat they posed gave

Democrats

—

especially

Southerners

—

a

new

rationale

for

stealing

elections.

The will

fact that the

Kansas elections had nothing to do with popular

pervaded national discussion of the Territories. In his inaugural

address in 1857, President James Buchanan, a Democrat, highUghted

the vote fraud in Kansas, and stated "the imperative and indispensable

duty of the Government of the United States was to secure to every resident inhabitant the free

and independent expression of his opinion

by

of Lecompton, Kansas Governor John

his vote." In the capital

W.

Geary urged the fraudulently

elected legislature to adopt strict resi-

dency requirements

and severe penalties

for voting

for "false voting" in

The Limits OF Popular Sovereignty

39

an effort to bring legitimacy to future elections. His efforts rather, the legislature passed statutes protecting slavery

failed;

and made even

the act of publicly denying the legality of slavery in Kansas a felony.

In Washington, President Buchanan was at a loss as to what to do

He weakly reiterated the bankrupt notion of popular sover-

in Kansas. eignty,

but

now both

sides of the slavery issue

were reluctant

to such a plan considering the widespread election fraud.

chose Robert Walker to be the arrival in the territory

tional election this

to

Buchanan

new governor of Kansas, and upon

Walker proclaimed that the upcoming

would be

free

submit

constitu-

from fraud and violence, although

would be achieved he did not

his

how

say.

In June 1857, another election took place in "Bleeding Kansas" for delegates to a constitutional convention. Anti-slavery forces in Kansas

were so thoroughly convinced that sible that

a free

and

was impos-

they boycotted the election altogether. Pro-slavery stalwarts

did not even register voters, since having a intent.

fair election

The

fair election

their

counties that bordered Missouri, which were loaded with

up with two

pro-slavery zealots from both states, ended delegates to the convention. Four

months

Governor Walker appealed

to

another election was

new

territorial legislature.

Washington

to protect the state

Missourians by dispatching two thousand troops to the like his predecessor,

thirds of the

later,

held in Kansas, this time to determine a

Buchanan,

was not

was unwilling

from

territory.

Yet

to support free elections.

In a bizarre move, the president deferred the decision to his cabinet,

which was composed mostly of members wishing a slave state.

The

to

admit Kansas

as

cabinet refused to supply troops, and the rout was on.

The methods used by

the pro-slavery forces in the area had not

changed. In the Oxford precinct, which bordered Missouri and was little

more than

a village

of six houses, the pro-slavery forces received

1,625 votes. Citizens of Oxford later claimed that no more than ninety votes were cast from their area.

from the Kickapoo

When

precinct, they

inspectors examined poll books

found that voters had signed their

Tracy Campbell

40

/

Deliver the Vote

names "William H. Seward, Horace Greeley, John C. Fremont, and

MiUard

Fillmore." In

had been

McGee

County, although only fourteen votes

cast in an election just

months

before, 1,200 votes

were

now

cast.

One

polls

were alarming: "men and boys violently drunk, armed with dirks

and clubs

Kansan, John C. Vaughn,

.

.

.

testified that the scenes

around the

double voting was barefaced." Walker summarily threw

out the results and certified the elections of free-state candidates. election fatal to

won "by frauds

so monstrous,"

Walker

stated,

An

"would be more

our party than any defeat, however disastrous."

Although he won acclaim from many corners of the American political landscape. Walker's actions

Deep South, where he was

were not well received in the

loudly criticized as having usurped his

proper authority. Yet one border- state newspaper understood Walker's actions in a different context. "Southern honor," wrote the LouisviQe

Democrat, "would not permit for the corruption

it

man

denounce a

to

for exposing fraud,

of the ballot box was infinitely more dangerous than

the slavery question ever was." In Kansas, at least, the two items

bined in a

who

politically

com-

potent way. Without a free election to determine

could rightfully decide on the slavery issue in the Territories, the

sectional debate over slavery, as well as the tariff

appointments, reached a point of stand.

One Northern newspaper

only knows the end of the

civil

crisis

qualified electors

provisions."

To

had not

to let

war thus righteously begun?" the issue,

settle

utter: "It is to

all

President

be regretted that

registered themselves

all

and voted under

the its

those on the ground in Kansas, Buchanan's words

belied the reality of the election.

ment, one observer, sheriff nor

any

the voters.

Whether

act, I don't

Buchanan decided

that

wrote in prescient terms: "Heaven

After hoping his cabinet could

Buchanan could do was meekly

dilemma and judicial

M.

officer

Responding

McCaslin, wrote: "In 14 or 15 counties no

made any appearance

there

know." But

to the president's state-

was no

McCasHn

to take the registration of

sheriff or

whether they refused to

understood one essential

fact that

The Limits OF Popular Sovereignty

41

escaped the president: "Those people were disfranchised.

of them to vote was not their not their also

They

fault.

knew

fault;

the failure of

couldn't, even if they

them

The

failure

to register

had wanted

to."

was

McCaslin

the larger implications of the Kansas situation. If the fraud

were allowed to stand, McCaslin wrote, spectacle of a

"It will present the brilliant

Democratic Congress cramming a constitution down

the throats of a large unwilling majority with the point of a bayonet."

For President Buchanan, the dynamics of Kansas were symptomatic of the national

crisis

and

his

own

role in sanctioning election fraud.

Flagrantly fraudulent elections had produced a pro-slavery legislature that called a constitutional convention in elected

by just

a fraction of the

boycotted the election.

The

handiwork and refused

to

the state.

property

is

convention, in turn, wrote slavery into final

document

its

to the people of

constitution claimed that

"The

right of

before and higher than any constitutional sanction, and the

right of the

owner of a

slave to such slave

Additionally, the

new

its

issue

constitution forbade any

would

"affect the rights

while,

Buchanan well knew place,

and

is

the same and

of the owner of any property."

as inviolable as the right

been in

Kansas electorate because free-staters

submit the

The Lecompton

Lecompton, which had been

amendments

that

of property in the ownership of slaves." All the that if the democratic process

Kansas would have prohibited

slavery, yet

had

actually

he placed his

support behind the Lecompton constitution nonetheless. Buchanan

and

his cabinet

saw

this as a

had no trouble

blow

in extending slavery into

Kansas and

to the Republicans.

Events in Kansas were nothing

less

than an open and crass repudi-

ation of the sacred principle of popular sovereignty tation to hasten the culture of corruption

president endorsed the

Lecompton

and an open

on Election Day.

When the

Constitution, wholesale election

fraud had scored a spectacular victory for pro-slavery stalwarts. after the elections

invi-

had been exposed

as a veritable hijacking

Even

of the

democratic process, the president and the federal government used

Tracy Campbell

42

reality that the

powers to verify the sad

their

Deliver the Vote

Kansas elections did not

who had opened

matter. Stephen A. Douglas,

/

the fissure in Kansas

with his act in 1854, came out in opposition to what he termed the

"Lecompton ciples

swindle," primarily because

it

violated the essential prin-

of popular sovereignty.

At an infamous White House showdown between Buchanan and Douglas over Lecompton, the president was said to have made veiled threats concerning the future of a

Democratic senator

who opposed

a

Democratic president. Douglas was thoroughly unimpressed and responded: "Mr. President,

Jackson

is

dead." Although

I

wish you to remember that General

Buchanan may have had the necessary

votes in the Senate, he did not enjoy that advantage in the House. president's promises of lucrative contracts

The

and patronage could not win

the day.

Congress fmally permitted a new Kansas election on the entire constitution,

and

in the first fair election held in the territory, the sover-

eign voters summarily rejected

by 11,300

Lecompton and

to 1,788, as free-staters

won

its

defense of slavery

over 86 percent of the vote.

By

virtue of these results, the enormity of the fraud in the earlier elections

was

finally revealed.

The

defeat of the

Lecompton Constitution exposed Buchanan

as

an incompetent and possibly corrupt chief executive, and Douglas's notion of popular sovereignty as a sham. Perhaps more than anything else,

the ideal of free and fair elections had been utterly repudiated,

either as a

way to

solve the slavery issue or even as a

way

the popular wiU, considering the partisan rivalries that

to determine

now

existed.

The stench of the Kansas "elections" and the president's defense of the Lecompton Constitution burdened Northern Democrats. That autumn, Republicans scored major gains

now

held a three-to-one majority.

Buchanan countenancing

With

in the

House, where they

presidents such as Pierce and

election fraud, the confidence

could place in their ballots declined to ever lower depths.

Americans

The Limits OF Popular Sovereignty

The and

elections in Kansas

political animosities.

ment reflised to

43

provoked even more passionate sectional

Yet

it

was

all

avoidable.

The

federal govern-

address the culture that permeated the entire process of

popular sovereignty and gave further license to vote thieves. tions also

The

elec-

demonstrated the ultimate consequences of fraud, which was

By

not just limited to the blood that flowed in Kansas.

1858, the issues

surrounding the Kansas elections had become a dividing line within the

Democratic party so that in the next presidential irrevocably

split.

When

election, the party was

a system that cannot be trusted to register the

popular will goes unchecked, the results can be devastating.

"What

Is

While the gerous

Popular Government Worth?"

events in Kansas took election fraud to

levels,

other areas of the country found that elections had

vaHdity for measuring the people's tion in

new and more dan-

will.

little

In 1855, a gubernatorial elec-

Wisconsin displayed how a statewide election could be

While the president and Congress ignored the fraud

stolen.

in Kansas, a

courageous court in Wisconsin took dramatic actions that demonstrated

how fraud

did not have to be acknowledged and could even be

remedied.

On

Election Day, the incumbent Governor William A. Barstow

defeated the Republican challenger. Coles Bashford, by a mere 157 votes

out of over 72,000

cast.

The

election itself was relatively quiet. The real

action took place afterwards. In

Waupaca

noted that 612 votes had been

cast, all

yet the

town had

Falls, for

example, observers

but 59 for Governor Barstow,

a total population of only

two hundred

citizens.

Republican newspaper congratulated the town for getting out voters,

women,

boys, babies and aU."

When

A

"a// the

investigators looked into

the supplemental returns from the

town of Spring Creek, which gave

Barstow

were shocked to discover that no

a 91-vote majority, they

Tracy Campbell

44

/

Deliver the Vote

such town existed in Wisconsin. Similarly, in Bridge Creek, which gave Barstow a 76-vote majority, investigators learned that no one lived there or

was even

eligible to vote.

In Gilbert's Mills, Wisconsin,

own

the supervising poll worker also happened to

opened the precinct and had no idea how Barstow

that he never

obtained a 39-vote majority from his to

open the

the mill, and swore

polls?

district.

Why did

Gilbert refuse

Because he had learned that his workers were

Bashford men. In

all,

investigators discovered

mental votes cast from

hundreds of supple-

Barstow, and that

fictitious locales for

all

if all

fraudulent votes had been duly thrown out by the state canvassers,

won

Bashford would have

with over a thousand-vote majority.

As Governor Barstow assumed took the case to the

state

office for

another term. Republicans

Supreme Court. In

early 1856, the conclusive

evidence was found. In scrutinizing the returns from Spring Creek and

Bridge Creek, which were supposed to be sixty miles apart, the sheets were not only

same

sheet,

submitted. fraud, the

official

from the same type of paper, but were from the

which had been torn

in half when the forged returns

were

When the two sheets fit neatly together and proved obvious

Barstow administration was plainly

The Wisconsin to hear the case

state

and

rule

government waited

on the

validity

the details of the election were well

growing on Governor Barstow to

in trouble.

for the state's high court

of the election.

known and

By late March,

the pressure was

resign. In his closing statement, the

lead attorney for Bashford spoke in dramatic language of the political culture that surrounded the previous election:

What is

is

popular government worth

if

these things are to be?

What

the condition of public morals in this state if such things are tol-

erated? It terrible

is

a grievous reproach

reproach

—

that any

meanest and lowest

—on such frauds

kiUer

office

upon the whole

man

—even

as these. I

state

—

a bitter

and

could be found to claim the that of fence viewer or

dog

can conceive to what lengths polit-

The Limits OF Popular Sovereignty

ical

madness may carry

consent to

The

roll in

a

man, but

45

I

such corruption as

how men

cannot conceive

can

this.

court apparently agreed with this conclusion, and summarily

overturned the results of the election, proclaiming that the Barstow

government was guilty of "gross mal-administration." William Barstow resigned, saying he did so from

By

civil strife,

An unrepentant

in order to save the state

and Coles Bashford was quickly sworn

giving the voters of Wisconsin the

man who had

in as governor.

actually

won

a

majority of the votes, even four months after the election, the state

Supreme Court court's action

exercised

had

considerable political courage. Yet the

By

far larger ramifications.

carefully perusing the

evidence, and ignoring the Barstow cries that too

how

an independent judiciary can play a

popular sovereignty and democracy side

them without regard

Wisconsin

itself.

time had

vital constitutional role in

overseeing contested elections and can resolve partisan motivations. In the process, the

much

Supreme Court displayed

elapsed since the election, the Wisconsin

to

justices validated

Unfortunately, no one out-

Wisconsin heeded the message.

The

eastern seaboard and even the

Midwest

Territories

were not

the only areas to witness rampant fraud. In San Francisco, investigators looking into a local election

doubt, swayed

many

races. Ballot

found an ingenious device

that,

no

boxes deployed throughout the city

used secret compartments that contained sliding doors. After conducting an otherwise legal election, election judges could then merely slide

open

a secret

door and deposit hundreds of fake ballots and hide

the real ballots. Democrats in San Francisco to hired thugs

some P.

had grown so accustomed

smashing baUot boxes that they deployed

precincts to serve as baUot boxes.

One

steel boilers in

election supervisor, James

Casey, had mysteriously won an election to the Board of Supervisors

even though he had never even been his

name was not on

the ticket.

a candidate for the office

and

Tracy Campbell

46

Angry

recriminations arose over the methods people Hke Casey

used to win elections, but the tion inspector,

Tammany

Deliver the Vote

/

blew off in 1856, when

lid

a former elec-

James "Yankee" Sullivan (who had learned

his trade in

Hall), confessed to participating in widespread election

fraud in San Francisco. After being paid $100 to switch votes for one candidate, Sullivan noted he had been approached by a representative

of the opposing candidate

a

at

saloon. After agreeing

increased fee, Sullivan decided to use his

votes for his

cUent. After reading of Sullivan's expose, thousands of angry

new

Franciscans joined the Vigilance as a

skills in stealing

upon an

Committee

to protect the ballot

San box

"husband would the honor of his wife."

Regulating the Election There was no mistaking the

fact that

and violence had reached new Louisville

by the

levels

late

1850s, election fraud

in America.

The

events in

and "Bleeding Kansas" reappeared with a vengeance in

Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1857, where the Know-Nothings

To

defeat a slate of Democrats vying for offices

made

their last stand.

such

as surveyor, collector,

and

city

alderman, the Know-Nothings

hired approximately fifty "plug-uglies" from Baltimore to intimidate

and severely disrupt the Democratic

had considerable experience, monplace events

vote.

The

thugs from Maryland

since election riots

in Baltimore.

had become com-

Know-Nothings had brought tubs of

bloody water to selected Baltimore precincts to dunk Irish voters in during the presidential election of 1856. In an election where one was killed all

and dozens

injured,

Know-Nothings had no

trouble capturing

of Baltimore's wards and electing a mayor and a majority of the

council.

They were

city

well prepared to take their methods to the nation's

capital.

On June

1,

1857, the trains arrived in the D.C. depot carrying the

The Limits OF Popular Sovereignty

first

47

assortment of the vote thugs with the self-described purpose of

"regulating the election."

One Washington

tigative sources obviously

had

little

connection to the social world of that

"The munic-

we apprehend, be conducted

in other than

morning

local elections, confidently predicted that ipal election

today will not,

and proper manner, such

a quiet

newspaper, whose inves-

as

becomes

intelligent

freemen to

observe." Shortly after the polls opened, that optimism proved shortlived.

Fighting broke out in the First Precinct of the Fourth Ward,

where long

lines

of Irish and

German

voters proved an easy target.

After unsuccessfully trying to bully their

men from and

way through

the line, the

Baltimore retreated, to return soon thereafter with brickbats

revolvers.

Irish voter

Shooting erupted and the violence quickly spread.

was so badly mutilated that he could not be

After a morning of riots, Washington's

Mayor J.

B.

One

identified.

Magruder wrote

a

desperate letter to President Buchanan:

Upon

the representation of credible citizens that a band of lawless

persons,

most of them not

of the polls

.

.

.

and

after

izens, have driven the

residents of this

city,

have attacked one

maiming some 20 good and peaceable

remainder from the

polls,

cit-

have dispersed the

commissioners of the election, and threaten further violence ... respectfully request

Marines now in

Knowing

that this

I

you order out the company of United States

this city to

maintain the peace.

was not some faraway

territory such as Kansas, the

president responded by dispatching 110 Marines with fixed bayonets to the

Northern markethouse, where the border thugs were located.

Upon

seeing the detachment of Marines, the "plug-uglies" obtained a

cannon and were prepared

named Henderson, front of the muzzle

before you

fire this

still

to fire

on the troops when an army general

dressed in civilian clothes, placed himself in

and implored: "Men, you had best think twice piece at the Marines." After exchanging gunfire.

Tracy Campbell

48

/

Deliver the Vote

the Marines then quickly seized the cannon, and the ruffians from

Baltimore quickly

home

left for their

could "whip the police, but

when

it

city,

came

to

one of them saying they

United States troops they

weren't thar." In just one day, at least eight had died and nearly two

dozen were wounded. That evening, Know-Nothing leaders

in

D.C.

deplored the actions of the president and the Marines as a "cruel, cow-

and bloody massacre of the innocent." Election

ardly,

were not accustomed

it

seems,

to federal intervention.

The Baltimore Sun ington by noting

thieves,

how

Wash-

editorialized about the election riot in

such Election

Day violence had become

all

too

common:

It

cannot have escaped our readers that the violent proceedings in

which these disturbances commenced have become an ordinary ture in the election of our principal towns.

been attracted to their significance that pass almost without

men

So

little

attention has

have suffered them to

comment, while we have been

whole people, on hearing of similar outrages

fea-

in

excited, as a

Kansas ...

all

that

has passed in Kansas can scarce parallel the outrages which marked the history of the last municipal election in the capital of the United States.

On the eve of the

Civil

"regulate" an election

simply did not draw

which been

it

War, the practice of importing armed gangs

had indeed become so commonly

much

utilized that

to it

attention outside the borders of the city in

was used. Although Democrats and Know-Nothings had

in the

vanguard of fraud and violence in the antebellum

era, the

newly created Republican party was not above reproach. In Goodhue County, Minnesota, for example. Republicans racked up remarkable victories in the

November 1857

general election. Yet the election dis-

played some troubling anomaHes. In 1856, the county had had 499

Democrats and 471 Republicans. The next

year,

Democrats had 705,

The Limits OF Popular Sovereignty

49

but the Republicans had swelled to 1,223. that

showed only 1,652

a census that spring

voters in the entire county,

Republicans had been busy registering the fraud was too obvious. In the

level,

With

there were only 33 voters

false

it

was obvious the

names. At the precinct

Kenyon

Precinct, for example,

—

yet the final count resulted in the

Repub-

licans winning, 68-6.

1860 By the time of the secession crisis in the winter of 1860, the young nation had seen

its fair

share of bought voters, intimidation, violence, and out-

right forgery. Fraud

had routinely occurred

local sheriff to the presidency.

without free and

As

fair elections,

in elections ranging

from

the events in the Territories revealed,

the notion of popular sovereignty as a

hoUow shell.

means

to defuse the slavery debate

It also

demonstrated the impact of the federal government's legitimizing

was nothing more than

a

fraudulent tactics and results by looking the other way

With

the threat of secession and war in the

election that

replace

air,

there

was one

last

might help ease the tension, the presidential race

Buchanan

in 1860. Yet just as the

to

Kansas elections had only

deepened the sectional anger and mistrust, the 1860 election would prove again that elections were incapable of stopping the national

hemorrhaging.

During the nominating conventions, the divisions ruptured to near the breaking point.

sectional

and

political

The Democrats,

after

quickly rejecting any notion of renominating the hapless Buchanan,

were so divided over slavery in the aftermath of "Bleeding Kansas" that they broke into three factions

— Stephen

Douglas representing the

northern wing of the party, John C. Breckinridge the southern wing,

and John BeU, who lead

now

a last rallying of old

Whigs and

Unionists,

christened the Constitutional Unionists. After rejecting such

Tracy Campbell

50

well-known anti-slavery leaders

as

After existing as a party for

seemed poised

to claim the

As evidenced

in Kansas,

found that the desire by

Deliver the Vote

William Seward of New York, the

Republicans nominated a relative moderate, nois.

/

less

Abraham Lincoln of Illi-

than a decade, the Republicans

White House. by 1860 the national divisions were so pro-

all

parties to

win

at

any cost presaged an

unprecedented degree of fraud in the upcoming presidential election.

Southern slaveholders were particularly repulsed by Lincoln's antislavery sentiments. After

Douglas had discredited himself with South-

erners over his apparent ambivalence concerning the

Dred

Scott

decision and stubbornly held on to the weary principle of popular sovereignty, Southerners

threw their support behind Breckinridge of

Kentucky.

Yet Southern Democrats did not need to resort to the usual kinds

of fraud to defeat Lincoln. They had already taken care of that in the

most

effective

way: Lincoln was denied even a place on the ballot in

ten Southern states. In the north, where fusion tickets of Douglas and

New York, New Jersey,

Breckinridge were employed in

and Rhode Island, fraud surfaced. In the Twelfth

Ward

City alone, 500 of the 3,500 registered names were

many tered

Pennsylvania,

of New York

fictitious.

Tam-

Hall, in firm opposition to Lincoln and the Republicans, regis-

nearly a thousand false

surprisingly,

Lincoln lost

Tammany was unable coln won the Empire

names

New York

in

the

City by nearly 30,000 votes. But

to deliver the state for the

State

and

Ninth Ward. Not

its critical

Democrats,

as

35 electoral votes. In

although he did not receive even a single vote in ten Southern

Lincoln

won

Linall,

states,

the popular vote by over a half million, and beat his

closest rival in the Electoral

CoUege, Breckinridge, by 180 to 72.

Shortly after his inauguration, as the cannons began shelling Fort

Sumter on April

12, the failure

of popular sovereignty was obvious.

"

Chapter Three

"Can You Hold Your State?" "Dead or

would

alive, they

all

cast a good vote.

1880, Henry Adams wrote Inwhich venerable senator named

a novel, ironically titled Democracy, in

a

recalled

Illinois

Silas Ratcliffe

why he had helped steal a state election during the

candidly

Civil War:

In the worst days of the war there was almost a certainty that State

would be

carried

although, fraud or not, lost then,

with

war

it

to

we should

by the peace

party,

we were bound

by

fraud, as

to save

it.

Had

we

thought,

Illinois

been

certainly have lost the Presidential election,

probably the Union.

depend on the

At any

result. I

rate, I

my

and

believed the fate of the

was then Governor, and upon me the

We had entire control of the northern counties returns. We ordered the returning officers in a certain

responsibility rested.

and of their

number of

counties to

make no

returns until they heard

and when we received the votes of learned the precise

all

from

us,

the southern counties and

number of votes we needed

to give us a majority,

Tracy Campbell

52

we

Deliver the Vote

telegraphed to our northern returning officers to

of their returns

The

/

and giving the State

it

to us.

am

not proud of the transaction, but

I

again."

Although Adams's account was election fraud

was

all

too

real.

As

fictional, Ratchffe's justification

of

the nation turned to bullets over bal-

lots to settle its bitter political divisions, the cliffe

the vote

such and such, thereby overbalancing the adverse

districts

senator concluded, "I

would do

make

methods that

Rat-

Silas

defended would help define American poHtics during the Civil

War and

Reconstruction.

"WiTHOLT RESTR.\r\T OR ReGIXATION" With

the outbreak of war in April 1861, the question of whether any

elections

would be held during the

conflict

seemed obvious.

When

President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, would elections be next?

Other issues complicated the matter further. Since many

state constitutions expHcitly fixed the location

within the

states,

of voting to be confined

could soldiers even vote and would they cast their

vote from the frontlines?

How

would an already broken

electoral

system cope with the demands of war? In 1862, a report from a select committee of the

New

York City

Board of Aldermen described the conditions that had dominated the recent city elections.

From

the outset,

have been written in 1842 or 1822. proverbially the scenes of the violence," the report claimed.

sounded

as if the report

The poUs were

most disgraceful

"They

ulation," adding that "peaceable

it

are

could

"notoriously and

fraud, chicanery,

and

without legal restraint or reg-

and orderly citizens" held the

elections

in contempt.

The 1862

elections

were the

first

national contests conducted

"Can You Hold Your State?"

53

during the Civil War. Selecting members of Congress,

who

could then

vote for military appropriations or impeach the commander-in-chief,

allowed citizens a chance to voice their support of or opposition to the

war

effort. Additionally,

elections

was

they were away from

The

soldiers could participate in these

Most

a matter of considerable debate.

stated that voters could

ment

whether

still

state constitutions

cast a vote outside their local precinct if

home conducting

business for the U.

S.

govern-

or the state. Yet soldiers were considered excluded from this rule.

first state

consin, states

which

to allow soldiers to cast their vote in the field

was Wis-

legalized absentee voting in 1862. Eventually, nineteen

enacted laws allowing soldiers the right to vote by absentee

ballot.

Democrats, however, objected to soldiers voting because they suspected loyal soldiers would vote for the party of Lincoln. In Lincoln's

home

state

of Illinois, a

Democrats held

soldiers'

voting biU was defeated in 1863

same

a legislative majority, yet the

when Republicans

held a majority. In

New

bill

when

passed in 1865

York, Maryland,

Wis-

New Hampshire, support for allowing same party lines. New York's governor

consin, Indiana, Michigan, and soldiers to vote fell along the

and future Democratic presidential candidate Horatio Seymour opposed

soldier voting, using a rationale that belied his obvious par-

tisan anxieties: "It

would be worse than mockery

secluded in camps or upon ships to vote, receive letters

same freedom

and papers from

if

to

allow those

they are not permitted to

their friends, or if they have not

had the

in reading public journals."

The mechanics of soldier voting varied from state to state. Some states allowed soldiers to vote by proxy, in which a soldier recorded his vote on a piece of paper and sent

it

to a friend or family

member, who would then

vote in the soldier's place at the prescribed precinct

—

theoretically, the

friend would cast the vote as the soldier wished. In others, soldiers placed their ballots into a soldiers

box just like they would have

would then be thrown

in

at

home. The votes of the

with those of civilians in order that no

Tracy Campbell

54

one could determine Voting

/

Deliver the Vote

how the military vote went. In New York, a Soldiers

Law said that if a soldier s name was not on the registry list, a resi-

dent of the

district

could swear that he

knew the

soldier

and

attest to his

residency in order for the soldier to be registered.

Some

areas

dier vote,

saw

authorities

bend over backward

to include the sol-

sometimes in ways that opened new opportunities

for fraud.

Since officers distributed and counted the ballots, intimidation and false

counts were possible.

returns caused

Iowa

The worry

that officers could manipulate

to appoint election commissioners for each regi-

ment. Connecticut went so

far as to

have commissioners assume

from

all

voting-related procedures.

election duties

and excluded

Some

sabotaged these efforts by moving their troops closer to

officers

officers

all

the front Hnes, well beyond the range of safety for civilian sioners.

Yet in some remarkable moments, soldiers voted.

commis-

Members of

Company E reported that Confederate troops firing on Election Day under the mistaken impression that the

the 76th Pennsylvania

stopped

Union

troops would vote for Democratic candidates.

"You Can Fill Them Up as Well as Can Here" Holding

a presidential election in the

We

middle of a

war was

civil

evi-

dence that the Constitution could not be postponed. Yet the 1864 election

was

also a

and presented the If a

referendum on Lincoln's handling of the war possibility

Democrat could

of a

new policy toward

defeat Lincoln, the

new

effort

the Confederacy.

president could sue for

peace, and negotiations for official recognition of the Confederate States of

America could

reelected,

the

occur.

On

the other hand, if Lincoln were

chances of a Union victory seemed

likely.

Democrats nominated General George McClellan, the took on about

new meaning. Some

how

When

soldier vote

Congressional Democrats were worried

the troops might use force to ensure a Republican victory.

'Can You Hold Your State?"

55

This drawing by Thomas Nast appeared in Harper's Weekly one week before the 1864 election.

warned how "peace Democrats" would obtain

their fraudulent votes to defeat Lincoln

It

by registering

the dead. Credit: Harper's Weekly

Rep. Lazarus Powell of Kentucky complained that a Colonel Gilbert,

commanding

a regiment of federal troops,

summer meeting of

had

the Kentucky Democratic Party, and he soon

introduced legislation that would prohibit the

with the conduct of the election. there

was much

strong.

so

from interfering

such tensions running high,

vote.

much on

The most

New York, where collect only

With

Army

to be worried about as the nation prepared for the

1864 presidential

With

forcefully dispersed a

the line, the temptation to resort to fraud was

conspicuous example occurred, not surprisingly, in

Governor Seymour appointed nearly

Democratic votes from the

state's soldiers.

sixty agents to

In

late

October

1864, seven of these agents were arrested for impersonating military officers

who had

forged names and signatures of soldiers for the pur-

pose of illegally recording their votes in the upcoming general election.

One of those arrested, Edward J. Donahue, Jr., had written to state

I

a

Democratic

send with

this

number from

a leading

official, saying:

note a the

number of ballots

list

you sent

me

...

for your county. I

I

made out

guess you have enough.

Tracy Campbell

56

may

Fearing that you attorney sworn county.

You can

to.

You can

not

them up

fill

enclose envelopes and powers of

I

fill

Deliver the Vote

/

them up

as well as

for

Columbia, or any other

we can

here.

A roll of four hundred patients in the Jarvis Hospital in Baltimore was also included, all

good

cast a

guilty,

that

and another witness vote."

testified,

"Dead

or ahve, they

would

Donahue and another accompHce were found

and were given a severe sentence approved by President Lincoln

was

rare in the annals

of American vote fraud:

Repubhcans, wary of the massive election,

found countless

York City

registry rolls,

false

names

life

imprisonment.

illegal registration in

the 1860

New

in an investigation of the

and the absentee

soldier vote

was

a vulnerable

point for corruption. Thousands of forged registration papers had been filed for soldiers, officers' certificates

and dead

sick, disabled,

soldiers

had been forged, and numerous

had been

illegally registered.

With

rumors of Confederate agents just across the Canadian border con-

New York vote. President Lincoln dispatched GenButler to New York City along with artillery and six

spiring to steal the eral

Benjamin

F.

thousand troops, just before the election. Butler established a civiHan

him

surveillance system of the election, to report possible fraud to directly.

With his

troops just outside the

oughly intimidated, and the

memory. Yet the

New

city

city,

Tammany Hall was

saw one of the quietest

thor-

elections in

York Times pointed out that even with Butler's

occurred in heavily Democratic areas: "It was only

presence, fraud

still

necessary for a

man

to proclaim himself for 'Little Mac,'

"

the paper

reported, "to have his vote accepted without regard to his residence or qualifications for suffrage."

In Albany, a different sort of intimidation occurred ratic election inspector

to frighten

a

Democ-

appointed a number of local butchers as "special

constables" to patrol the election

was

when

and maintain order. Their real purpose

away Republican votes by forming wedges every time

a

prospective voter approached with a ticket indicative of the party of

"Can You Hold Your State?"

Lincoln. Like those

57

who had participated in the bloody New York City

draft riots of 1863, the butchers'

contempt

for Republicans originated

with Lincoln championing the cause of emancipation rather than preservation of the Union.

When

one voter attempted to sneak

Republican ticket inside a Democratic fearing for his

life,

went away without voting at

tained their vigilant presence

all

a

he was discovered and,

ticket,

all.

The butchers main-

day against anyone

who dared endorse

the Emancipation Proclamation and "black Republicans."

While Indiana allowed no

soldiers to vote in the field, a

suspicious soldier votes surfaced in a crucial October rial election.

number of

1864 gubernato-

Troops from the 60th Massachusetts Regiment took

many

advantage of the lax restrictions in Indianapolis, and

soldiers

voted a dozen times each, and some claimed they had done so twentyfive

times for the Republican candidate. In the border state of Ken-

Madison County

tucky, a officers

with a

list

election judge

of seventy

men who

was approached by Union

should not be allowed to vote.

If they did so, the officers claimed, the voters

Kentucky counties,

soldiers stood

by with

would be

their rifles

shot. In other

and bayonets,

openly cursing and threatening Democratic voters. Although these tactics did

not swing enough votes to change the election, the image

of soldiers standing by the poUs and intimidating voters should not be surprising, considering

how the war overwhelmed even

the usual fierce

partisanship accompanying a typical presidential election.

Lincoln

212 lots.

to 21.

won

rather easily, with an Electoral College margin of

Among

his soldiers,

Lincoln

won 78

percent of the bal-

In those states that allowed soldiers to vote in the

total soldier vote

was barely over 150,000.

of war prevented

many from

No

field,

the

doubt the exigencies

casting a vote, but the political oppo-

sition to allowing soldiers the franchise played a significant role as

well.

An

lion

Union

early student of soldier voting estimated that over 1.3 milsoldiers

entered the Army.

were effectively disfranchised when they

Tracy Campbell

58

/

Deliver the Vote

Black Suffrage

When the war ended in

1865, no development was as revolutionary as

black suffrage. For former slaves and freed blacks, the promise of equality "right"

was empty

if

not followed by the right to vote.

was apparently guaranteed through the

Amendment, which

"The

read:

State

on account of race,

With changed

in the South, fear.

and the

was

it

seemed American

survival of the

in peril.

On

1870, that

of the 15th

United States

by the United States or by any

color, or previous condition

the power of the ballot, forever,

ratification

right of citizens of the

to vote shall not be denied or abridged

By

Democratic

the face of

it.

of servitude." politics

would be

Party, particularly

Democrats had much

to

In 1867, black turnout for a constitutional referendum in Georgia

reached nearly 70 percent, while that figure approached 90 percent for a vote in Virginia. Without control of local or state it.

governments to stop

Southerners used a well-worn tactic to stop the black vote:

The Ku Klux Klan emerged on

the heels of the

group determined to reestablish antebellum race

war

terror.

as a vigilante

relations. It

opposed

black education, black economic and social equality, and black suffrage.

Consequently, the

Election

Day during

KKK

was

Reconstruction. In Tennessee, where the Klan

was born, the pattern was soon

would be whipped, shot lican officeholders

remained in operating

more

—

office.

a frequent presence surrounding

at,

set:

Freedmen attempting

to vote

and threatened with death, while Repub-

^white or black

—

^were similarly threatened if they

In suppressing the black vote, the Klan became an

arm of the Democratic party throughout the South. Until

"legal"

forms of vote suppression could be

utilized, flagrant fraud

was the only way Southern whites could ward off the agency of African- Americans exercising their franchise.

In Camilla, Georgia, vigilantes killed nine African- Americans shortly before the 1868 election. Their message was heeded.

Only two coura-

geous Republicans dared to cast a vote on Election Day. In Americus,

"Can You Hold Your State?"

59

Georgia, only 137 African- Americans voted out of 1,500 eligible freedmen, and most of them were bribed to vote for Democrats. "The

whole

such a farce and everything connected with

affair was

the agent concluded, legal vote or

When

how

it is

possible

it

it

so illegal,"

could stand as a

showing the sentiments of this county."

African- Americans attempted to vote in Mississippi's con-

stitutional

Eleven

"I don't see

referendum in 1868, they were driven away by armed gangs.

illiterate

freedmen from

Duck Hill

put their marks to a sworn

statement that they had voted Democratic, but were "radicals" at heart,

and were told

if

to leave the state.

they voted for the constitution they would be forced

The Grand Cyclops of the

warning to any blacks thinking of voting trying hour

dark chief

is

is

at

KKK issued the following

for the constitution:

hand! Beware! Your steps are marked!

upon

The

"The

eye of the

you. First he warns; then the avenging dagger

flashes in the moonlight."

The

presiding military officer in the area.

Major General Alvan C. Gillum, refused

to investigate such outrages.

During Reconstruction, African-Americans faced fraud and worse drawing was

titled

"One Vote

if

they went to the polls. This

Less." Credit: Harper's Weekly

Tracy Campbell

60

Due

to such tactics,

it

probably was not surprising that the consti-

tution lost by 7,600 votes. fair

Deliver the Vote

/

Former

slaves in Mississippi, in a free

election, would have overwhelmingly supported

a

new

state

stitution that prevented former confederates from holding

Freedman Thomas W. Stringer doubted whether

"as

many

as

and con-

office.

25

col-

ored

men would

tion.

Democratic Judge William L. Sharkey disagreed, claiming that

be found in the State to vote against" the constitu-

no frauds had occurred freedmen

wanted

really

in Mississippi,

with their Democratic brethren. "A

to vote

many of them belonged

great

and that the reason was that

to

Democratic masters," Sharkey rea-

soned, "and they imbibed the principle of democracy."

"We The

Intend to Succeed by Inti^hdation"

presidential election of

1868 was the

first

one conducted

after the

War. In the former Confederacy, the election was of particular

Civil

significance.

how

played

The way and

free

Deep South. In

St.

caned a Republican racial lines.

in

which the contest was held

fair elections

Landry

were

little

more than

Parish, after three leading

editor, riots

on

blacks.

investigation claimed over

violence a

Democrats

soon broke out along partisan and

One New

Orleans newspaper reported that

over a hundred freedmen were killed during the

Although

a farce in the

For weeks, armed groups of whites roamed the parish,

inflicting terror

The

in Louisiana dis-

riots,

while a state

two hundred deaths.

produced the desired

results

on Election Day.

Republican gubernatorial candidate had received over

2,500 votes seven months before. Republican presidential candidate Ulysses

The

S.

Grant did not

receive a single vote

registration supervisor put

vinced that no ticket

man

and not been

it

from

St.

Landry

in chilling terms: "I

am

Parish.

fuUy con-

could have voted any other than the Democratic killed inside of twenty-four hours."

"Can You Hold Your State?"

Throughout other

61

parishes, threats of similar violence

were heard

in

the days leading up to the election. In Bossier Parish, according to the state investigation, riots killed

the

162 people. In Caddo Parish, estimates of

number of African- Americans murdered during

the 1868 election

ranged from 185 to 300. Between the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction,

in

workers were threatened with losing their jobs

for the

Caddo

Parish for

Day activities than for any other reason. Throughout Louisiana,

Election state

more African- Americans were murdered

if

they did not vote

Democratic presidential candidate, Horatio Seymour, while

African- Americans needed "protection papers" saying that they belonged to a

Democratic

club.

Even with

federal troops

on guard, three freedmen

were murdered near Monroe. Through such intimidation, the

results

were predictable. Seymour carried Louisiana, 80,225 to 33,225. Considering that the Republicans had

1868 governor's state race for

race, violence

won more than 69,000 votes in the April

and intimidation had obviously stolen the

Seymour. Ulysses

S.

Grant, a Republican, received just one

vote in Bossier Parish, although two thousand Republicans were registered. In

New Orleans,

lante violence

anarchy."

the

was so

a Congressional

committee found that the

severe that the city

was consumed

A sobering assessment came from

White League, who

in a "state of

an anonymous

member of

claimed, "It has been charged that the white

man's party intends to achieve success by intimidation. This true.

vigi-

is strictly

We intend to succeed by intimidation." Succeed they did. In the six

months preceding the killed in Louisiana.

election, over a

thousand African- Americans were

In that same period. Democratic vote

totals

more

than doubled.

When a joint committee gated the election,

which were

it

of the Louisiana general assembly investi-

found that "the so-caUed election in parishes

in a state of anarchy was

no

election,

and that the so-called

returns from those parishes are null and void."

vote was thrown out, a foreshadowing of

would

fare for

some time

to

come.

how

The

state's electoral

Louisiana elections

Tracy Campbell

62

Georgia provided another warning of the

Deliver the Vote

/

of elections in the

state

former Confederacy. Although there were over 27,000 "colored" voters registered throughout the state,

Grant received

just over

3,500 votes for president. Those figures became even more trou-

upon

bling

Columbia and Randolph

closer inspection. In

counties,

although there were 3,047 registered African- American voters,

Grant received only two

Newton County,

votes. In

over four hun-

dred black voters were frightened away from the polls by the

Ku

Klux Klan.

When

terror

was not used, more

poll officials repeatedly challenged black voters to

(although the governor had declared in

White

voters,

late

pay poll taxes

October that one's

ability

on the grounds of non-payment of

to vote could not be challenged taxes).

Democratic

subtle tactics worked.

who had

meanwhile,

paid no such tax, were

allowed to vote. In Pike County, a notary public

named Joseph Young-

blood related that "when a colored voter offered to vote, and his ticket

was

folded,

date),

it

it

was opened, and

was put into the

if for

Seymour

ballot box." If the vote

blood related, "his tax receipt was called

show

was

a receipt his vote

refused."

for,

Democratic candi-

(the

was and

for Grant, if

Young-

voter could not

Youngblood understood the con-

sequences of such brazen fraud upon the course of Reconstruction: "If

something

is

not done for the protection of loyal

men

they will be

forced to abandon the ballot box."

The problems with

the 1868 election were not just confined to the

former Confederacy. In ralization mills

worked

New York, Tammany Hall's well-known natufeverishly before the

1868

election. In

1868 alone, over 65,000 people were naturalized controlled by

many persons were

the election fair?

was ever

The

a fair

courtrooms

Tammany. William M. Tweed himself acknowledged

that in 1868 "a great

Was

in the

October

Tweed

later

and honest election

naturalized" in order to vote.

admitted that

in

"I don't

think there

New York City."

naturalizations were just the beginning.

Gangs of

repeaters

'Can You Hold Your State?'

Thomas

Nast's image of William "Boss"

City. "As long as

I

63

Tweed and

the source of his political power in

New York

count the votes," Nast quotes Tweed, "what are you going to do about

it?"

Credit: Harper's Weekly

were

used to fraudulently register themselves.

also

at a prescribed location

would go

address,

to the place of registry,

met

name and

address.

The

assume the name and

and be registered accordingly. The repeater would then return

to the party representative, fictitious

One

repeaters

run by a party representative. There they

received a scrap of paper with a fictitious repeater

The

name and

who would repeat the process, with another

address, usually at a different precinct.

of the largest repeating centers was located

Second Avenue and 32nd

Street,

at the corner

of

and was run by Sheriff James O'Brien.

On the night before the 1868 election, over three hundred repeaters were housed in

this building.

In his

official capacity,

two thousand deputies

for the election,

who

the voting."

interfered with

repeaters were arrested

O'Brien hired more than

whose job was

Not

surprisingly,

to "arrest

anyone

no Democratic

by O'Brien's deputies, but scores of Republican

Tracy Campbell

64

poll officials

/

Deliver the Vote

and challengers were. Some tipped-off election watched

in plainclothes,

as

men

ordered by

WiUiam "Reddy the

smith" Varley registered in various locales on the same day. inspectors raided Varley 's office, they found a

book

men had registered eight of Varley men had registered a total of 161

and under what names and

the

inspectors,

Black-

When

that detailed

addresses. In

the

where

one

day,

times.

's

New York state by exactly 10,000 votes, and a later House investigation concluded that the Democrats in New York had Seymour

carried

committed "every known crime against the later

elective franchise."

Tweed

admitted that the machine went one step further. In order to con-

trol the totals,

timing of the

"one thing

we

New York City returns

overcome the upstate

to

did was take possession of the wires, so as to keep

them employed." The machine telegraphed portions of the Bible

to

delay election returns until the appropriate time.

Despite the fraud used in Seymour's behalf, to

overcome the popular support

for the

and

won

was not nearly enough

former commander of the

Union Army. Grant garnered over 300,000 nationally,

it

votes

more than Seymour

the presidency by an Electoral

CoUege 214

to 80.

The story that unfolded in this contest foretold a chilling vision of future elections in the

means

Deep South, where Democrats saw winning

—necessary

to ensure racial control in the

—by any

wake of emancipation.

In the face of this assault on the democratic process, voters did not sit

by idly and accept the

place. In

New York City,

state

of affairs that accompanied the poUing

anti-Tammany organizations

fairness to the election process.

tried to restore

A "Vigilance Committee of New York

City" held mass meetings to challenge widespread election fraud. This

organization was just one of many urban reform groups that arose after the war,

all

of which met with

committee charged that

many

little

success. In

New York voters

December 1869,

"had been robbed by

the

Tam-

Hall of the privilege of voting, and their candidates cheated of

their rights

by unparalleled swindles and enormous

frauds." After

receiving the usual rejections from city courts and state party leaders

"Can You Hold Your State?"

65

to their calls for justice, indignant tactic,

committee leaders

tried another

asking Congress for a "uniform election law" that would guar-

antee the "free right of voting."

mittee concluded,

all

Upon

would be well

passage of this

in the republic:

act,

the

"Our

comand

free

glorious institutions will be saved from otherwise unavoidable destruction."

The

purple language could not hide the futility of their cause.

Another device used by anti-Tammany reformers was the old

call to

enact registry laws.

A

new

to curtail fraud

city registry

enacted in 1866 demonstrated the ineffectiveness of this the poll

lists

of previous years served

false registrants before the

istry rolls in

1866,

as the basis

war were now

New York

legal.

of the

system

tactic.

new

Since

lists,

the

In examining the reg-

City police discovered that more than

15,000 fraudulently registered names had been added to the

which underscored how Tammany could

lists,

adjust to such reforms with

relative ease.

To

counter the tactics of Southern Democrats, the RepubUcan

majority in Congress responded in 1870 with the Enforcement Acts,

which prohibited intimidation and violence hibiting racially biased election laws (the

at the poUs, as well as

Ku Klux Klan Act

pro-

gave the

president authority to deploy troops to protect elections). Election supervisors were appointed to

watch

for election irregularities; for the

next seven years, on average, seven hundred cases of violations of the

Enforcement Acts were prosecuted by the Justice Department each year. In Arkansas, a Congressional election in 1870 demonstrated these laws were necessary. In the Third Congressional District,

Edwards was proclaimed

victorious

why John

by Governor PoweU Clayton.

A

grand jury then indicted Gov. Clayton for violating the Enforcement

Act by giving the

election to a

man who had not actually won the race.

Testimony before the grand jury revealed that Edwards's opponent,

Thomas

Boles, received between 800 and 2,130

Edwards;

yet,

istration, the

more

votes than

with rampant baUot-box stuffing and massive

governor was

satisfied to certify the election for

false reg-

Edwards.

Tracv Campbell

66

A Congressional investigation rightfiil

Deliver the Vote

eventually found that the evidence for

fraud was so overwhelming that

and replaced by the

/

Edwards was removed from

his seat

winner, Boles.

The Thefts of 1876 Few American

elections ha\'e

presidential election of 1876.

drawn

While

much

as

intense scrutiny as the

the storv of

how

was

the contest

decided in the weeks and months after the votes were cast has been exhaustively covered, the role of fraud in the election itself has tended to be obscured.

When

\iewed ^^ithin the context of what had tran-

spired since 1865, the events of 1876

do not appear so unusual.

After two rather lackluster and corruption-fiUed terms of President Grant,

who had announced

major parties

feverishl}'

the \\'^hite House. that

had

his decision

sought to nominate candidates

Adding

to the

economy was

stiU contracting three

In addition to these concerns, the fates of Reconstruction and

millions of freedmen

candidate

hung

in the balance.

who had managed

The Republicans

to avoid offending

settied

on a

major elements of the

Governor Rutherford B. Ha^'es of Ohio. Upon accepting

part}-.

part}'s

his

nomination, Hayes told anxious Southerners that the time of

militarv'

occupation was over and that "honest and capable local

government" would be allowed to grow in

Samuel Tilden, whose reputation was founded on topple the

Tweed Ring

in

New

self-

his administration.

The Democrats, meanwhile, nominated New to

who could claim

drama was an economic depression

started in 1873; the nation's

\'ears later.

not to seek a third term, the

York Citv

York's

Governor

his role in helping five

^•ears

earlier.

Although the Democrats seemed handicapped by the memories of the Ci\il

tion

War and

their prior defense

of slaverv, the

r\Nin issues

of corrup-

and depression spelled trouble for the Republicans.

As

the election approached, political observers assumed Tilden

"Can You Hold Your State?"

would win virtually

all

likely take thirteen

Northern

67

of the Southern states.

states,

The

while Hayes would most

election, then,

"swing" states such as Indiana, Ohio, and Tilden's

hinged on key

own New York. Not

Republican New York Times carried ominous reports of

surprisingly, the

Democratic repeaters invading Indiana and Ohio weeks before the election. In

New York City alone, Tammany was busy registering thou-

sands to vote for Tilden in numbers that far exceeded previous registrations. (Despite his role in

uncovering the magnitude of the corruption

of Boss Tweed, Tammany's Democratic allegiances to the

were

still

state

governor

paramount.) In Brooklyn, registration figures reached 98,307

in late October,

compared

to just 73,651 the previous year.

In Mississippi, whites interpreted the upcoming election as nothing less

than a crusade. "To lose the election

such a canvass and such scenes in the

would

the State

Democrats scored

God tion

this fall

fall

of 1877

to see," said the

like

who were

to the

a civilized race,

Day in

tickets,

only to find an ominous spectacle: In

dug

the makeshift coffin read: "Death to any ticket here today." It

was no

cast in SmithviUe,

and that hearty

men who had been

Grant

force

and

threats.

grave,

man

soul.

and

a sign next to

that votes the radical

surprise that only

for his life for over four miles. Sheriff

County by

trees.

SmithviUe, Mississippi, a white Republican came

poUs to distribute

davits of

and

have been justified in swinging up their oppressors as

front of the polls voters found a freshly

was

no well-wisher of

contending for libera-

from the basest thralldom ever endured by

Election

upon us

Aberdeen Examiner. After

food for the buzzards to the boughs of our forest

On

as

entail

their inevitable victory, the paper proclaimed:

gave the victory to a people

who would

would

one Republican vote

Minor Tubbs, had

Lee had over

a

thousand

driven away from the polls in

This was the same

district that

a 2,343-vote majority just four years earlier.

to

run affi-

Monroe

had given

Tracy Campbell

68

/

Deliver the Vote

In Florida, the rhetoric surrounding the vote grew more heated as the election approached.

The RepubHcan

warned African-Americans

meant war, and

all

governor, Marcellus Stearns,

in his state that a

Democratic

victory-

black schools "would be aboHshed because the

whites did not want to educate them with their tax money."

One

Republican leader in Alachua County advised the blacks in his county to "carry their

guns on election day." Beyond these flourishes were

some economic

threats. Planters in Jefferson

"priority system" for granting credit

and divvying up farmable land.

Democratic, second to those not voting

RepubUcan would be considered

last."

including landlords and doctors,

vowed

percent.

established a

one historian, "would go to those voting

First preference, according to

clients suspected

County

at

all,

while those voting

In Monticello, town leaders, that they

would charge

their

of voting for Republicans a surcharge of twenty- five

A less subtle means was used by the Florida Central Railroad

Company, which

distributed Democratic ballots to

Nassau and Duval counties, and maintained employees

who brought back

a ballot

its

workers in

a careful list

of those

on Election Day; any who did

not would be fired on the spot.

A worried tion:

Hayes confided

"Another danger

is

in his diary just

imminent: a contested

pared for Democratic corruption at the

weeks before the result."

elec-

Hayes was pre-

polls, particularly in the

South,

but he was more concerned with the structural means of electing a president in the United States:

And we have no such means for its decision as ought to be provided by law.

This must be attended to hereafter. We should not allow another

Presidential election to occur before a

provided. If a contest comes

means

for settling a contest

is

now it may lead to a conflict of arms.

Perhaps not even the most prescient observer could have predicted just

how

close this election

would

be, at least in terms

of the Electoral

"Can You Hold Your State?"

College.

On

69

election night, Tilden appeared in the lead in both the

popular and electoral count. In night believing he had

more than

lost.

fact,

Hayes himself went

to

bed that

Tilden held a lead in the popular vote of

a quarter million votes,

and

after

New York's electoral votes

were put in Tilden's column, the Republicans seemingly had hope. Having

won

Connecticut, and

Indiana,

New

little

Jersey,

and

assuming that Tilden had carried the South, Democrats were confident of winning over two hundred electoral votes. But Republicans

knew

also

that they controlled the returning boards in Louisiana,

South Carolina, and Florida, and word was sent to delay returning their counts. In

one of the most famous telegrams in American

Republican party chairman Zach Chandler alerted party

ical history.

leaders in those states: olina, Florida

meant

secure a

184

to

Hayes

is

elected if we have carried South Car-

in those critical states, they

cook the numbers,

winning the

his aides obviously

in whatever

state?"

knew

that "hold your

manner

necessary, to

Republicans conceded that Tilden had

victory.

electoral votes; but that

requisite for

and

"Hayes

and Louisiana. Can you hold your

To Republicans state"

polit-

was one vote shy of the Constitutional

election.

had

won

Hayes had won 166

their eyes

electoral votes,

on nineteen "disputed" votes

in

South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. Since Appomattox, those three states

had

all

seen their

fair

share of voter intimidation and Klan

violence, as well as outright election fraud.

In Louisiana, the decades of open warfare on Republican voters had their intended effect. In East Feliciana Parish alone, there

had been

over fifty separate occurrences of political violence by vigilante groups

toward Republicans. Although there were 2,127 registered Republicans in the parish, Hayes did not receive one single vote. Even worse, in

Ouachita and Morehouse parishes in the northeastern part of the

state,

two noted black Republicans had been murdered the month pre-

ceding the election.

from

all

By Election Day, it was

not surprising that reports

over the state indicated a rather "quiet" day.

The damage had

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

70

already been done, but Democratic patrols reinforced the message to

any lingering black

voters. In East

ciana,

Morehouse, and Ouachita

lican

electoral

Baton Rouge, East and West

parishes, in just

two years

a

Feli-

Repub-

majority of 3,979 votes had been turned into a

Democratic majority of 3,493. In Mississippi, a state that did not even figure in the election con-

from various

troversy, stories

Deep South

One

were consistent with other

states regarding

Democratic intimidation of black

voters.

how

the election proceeded in Jackson.

When

resident explained

one poll

locales there

took Republican tickets handed him by black voters,

official

he threw them on the floor and substituted Democratic tickets for

them, which he then placed in the ballot box. "Such plain stealing was noticed by everybody present," wrote the

nobody dared

to say anything, as

it

anonymous black voter, "but

would have

resulted in the arrest

and murder of the complainants." In Ebenezer Precinct, an armed

gang

Republican

killed the

official responsible for distributing the

election tickets for his party. Scores of African-Americans reported

that they

had been told "to vote Democrat or die." The New York Times

understood that the implications of the election fraud extended farther than

whether Tilden or Hayes

won

the

much

White House. The

point of the fraud had far-reaching effects on Reconstruction policy

and the

state's

store for

African-American population: "There

them but complete subjugation

is

nothing in

to the old slave-master, or

extermination."

The returns

election

margin was razor-thin

had Hayes leading 24,327

tern that

Florida,

where

official

to 24,287, a 40-vote lead. In a pat-

would again be played out

reports of spoiled ballots

in

in 2000, there

and otherwise

were widespread

legal voters

being iUegaUy

purged. In Alachua County, Democrats charged that Tilden had been

cheated out of over two hundred votes, which was verified by one con-

who stayed at the polls all day, duly who arrived to vote. In his total, 319

scientious citizen of one precinct,

writing

down

every individual

"Can You Hold Your State?"

total votes

71

should have been recorded in his precinct, yet the

official

returns indicated 563 votes

had been

Hayes with

of over two hundred votes. In Jefferson

a false majority

cast in the precinct, providing

County, some Democratic precincts were removed or abolished altogether, while in another precinct fifty

existed

on the

state, similar

registration

In

many other counties throughout the

problems with both Democratic and Republican votes

and begged the question

arose,

counted, as well as

As

lists.

more votes were counted than

who

as to

how

the Florida

how to

settle the dispute, it

prising that overtones of yet another civil a train carrying

was not

sur-

war were frequently heard.

some Republican

Florida shortly after the election, charges that the train

should be

should do the counting.

the parties fought over

When

tallies

couriers

was wrecked

came from the

state

in

house

had been "ku kluxed," and President Grant dispatched

troops to the state to maintain order. "Tilden or Blood" was an often-

heard cry from Democrats, said that a

as the St.

Louis publisher Joseph Pulitzer

hundred thousand men should come

armed and ready in Indianapolis,

for business."

George

ballots as the palladium

"fully

claimed that "millions of men will

lives as

of our

Washington

Speaking before an "immense mob"

W. Julian

be found ready to offer their

to

hostages to the sacredness of the

liberties."

President Grant reacted to such threats on Washington, D.C., with his

own

threat of martial law. Congressional

Democrats responded by

threatening to impeach Grant for misusing the military to intimidate voters. Yet

Grant was not intimidated, and he

also

warned his generals to

be on the lookout for any potential fraud. "Should there be any grounds

Grant warned,

of suspicion of fraudulent counting on either

side,"

should be reported and denounced at once. "No

man worthy of the office

of President," Grant wrote, would be "willing to hold the office

counted

in,

placed there by fraud."

either candidate,

The

"it

if

question remained whether

under the existing circumstances, could govern

minions could manage to scrape together 185 electoral votes.

if his

— Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

72

The

dual image of bullets and ballots

is

seen here in Nast's infamous "Tilden or Blood" cartoon

from 1877. Credit: Harper's Weekly

Who The

Decides?

year 1876 provides another laboratory for studying

presidential elections can play out.

When

on both

wanner

in a

way

offered

littie real

votes remained.

Congress, and lege count, the tion.

sides,

that the

guidance

The

if no

contested

the vote totals are so close

even based on thoroughly illegitimate numbers are so intense

how

—and

the charges of fraud

who has the final authority to determine the country will recognize? The Constitution in how to proceed when so many disputed

votes were to be opened before a joint session of

one received a majority of the

entire Electoral

House of Representatives would then be given

Col-

the elec-

Yet there were divisive partisan dynamics present that were not

anticipated

by the Founding Fathers. Since Republicans controlled the

Senate, Democrats were

wary of

that

body deciding which contested

returns from the three states in question should be counted, while

Republicans were not about to see the Democratic-controlled House get the election.

With

such an impasse, could a winner be determined in a

way that would not damage the presidency and the Constitution?

"Can You Hold Your State?"

Both

parties, in the

meantime,

that if a peaceful election

more Southern attempting to

73

felt

had been

cheated. Republicans claimed

Hayes would have

held,

and that the party of the "bloody

states,

the presidency by force.

steal

One

carried

was

shirt"

partisan from

Louisiana was thoroughly disgusted at the Democratic bullying of black voters, and described Election similar to "the

most

stories

terrible

Democrats countered that

their

Day

atrocities in the state as

of the Spanish Inquisition."

man had won

the popular vote and

was on the verge of being cheated out of office by Republican

office-

holders at the state level and in Congress.

The two

candidates and their parties adopted differing stances as

the turmoil ensued. Tilden retreated to his

December and ruminated over

New

York home

in

the legal issues concerning the counting

of electoral votes and made no public claims on the presidency. After prematurely conceding that Tilden had been elected, Hayes took a

more

aggressive stance, claiming victory

and approving of Republican

attempts to negotiate with South Carolina and Louisiana Democrats, the while assuring

all

the

South

far

them

that a

differently than

Hayes administration would

treat

Grant had. Republican Senator

Roscoe Conkling admitted privately that he thought the Democrats

had won, and was puzzled by Tilden's quiet response. Conkling

wondered whether Tilden and

his supporters

meant "to

act

upon

the

good boy principle of submission, or whether we mean to have

it

understood that Tilden has been elected and, by the Eternal, he shall

be inaugurated."

While

the events in Florida before and on Election

Day were

cor-

rupted by the Democrats in order to diminish the African- American vote, the events in the

rupted by Republicans,

on the lookout

for

who

totals.

342 -vote margin of

after Election

Day were

cor-

controlled the canvassing boards and were

any suspicious

out Democratic vote a

Sunshine State

In a

activity that could

Key West

precinct,

victory, the canvassing

warrant throwing

which gave Tilden

board threw out the

Tracy Campbell

74

on the grounds that

results entirely

/

Deliver the Vote

election inspectors

had adjourned

before properly completing the canvass and had the count

moved

to

the following day without public notification. In the interim, the ballot

box was out of pubUc view, which, to Republican canvassers, presented the possibility of fraud, the results were summarily thrown out.

Despite Democratic protestations, in such ways the

be recorded

Hayes

as a

official

vote would

victory.

Although on Election Day Louisiana

electors for

Tilden had a

majority of at least 6,300 votes, outraged Republicans claimed that that majority

was

built

on fraud and intimidation. The returning

boards, dominated by Repubhcans, heard allegations of fraud in a

number of some

parishes.

One

Republican newspaper reported that in

selected parishes, the state of affairs in the

to the election

was nothing

camps, roving patrols of except their

own

than "a state of war": "with hostile

less

five

months leading up

companies, acknowledging no law

and the directions of the Democratic State

will

Committee." In East and West FeHciana, East Baton Rouge, Morehouse, and Ouachita parishes, the paper claimed, "the

Negroes

are virtually prisoners

of war, and

as

unarmed

completely under the

control of the Democratic guerrillas as the prisoners of Andersonville

and Sahsbury were." In East Baton Rouge Parish, the intimidate voters in the Third a

room

Ward were

tactics

used to

not atypical. After seizing

that adjoined the election commissioners, the "bulldozers"

brandished pions of

rifles

and shotguns, and in

'free, full

unanimously

and

for the

fair elections'

this

all

display, "these

Democrats." In West FeHciana Parish,

dark of the night for their

disloyalty.

self-

and carefully recorded the

Republican voters, threatening them with a

Sherman wrote

cham-

succeeded in carrying the poll

styled "regulators" stood near the polls

names of

open

visit in

the

Ohio's RepubHcan Senator John

to a friend in Louisiana of his "repugnance to the

scenes of violence in

some of the

alone in his revulsion.

parishes in Louisiana."

On December

5,

He

was not

1876, the board officially

"Can You Hold Your State?"

75

threw out the returns from Grant and East Feliciana parishes, and in the process rejected approximately 15,000 votes, most of which were

Democratic votes, thereby giving Hayes eral

a statewide majority

of sev-

thousand.

The With

question then became:

a deadlock looming, a

Which

returns should be certified?

compromise was brokered

in Congress

whereby an Electoral Commission would decide the outcome of the

The makeup of that commission, obviously, was matter of deep interest to both parties. The law establishing the

Hayes-Tilden a

commission

race.

settled

on

fifteen

members

divided between the parties, and five

The justices appointed crats

to the

—ten from Congress equally

members of the Supreme Court.

commission would consist of two

Demo-

and two Republicans who would then be allowed to name the

member of the commission.

Unless partisan politics were

left

equation, which possibility only the most naive observer considered, this last pick

Most

observers assumed Justice David Davis

a Republican

who

Tilden

one of the disputed

at least

dency. Yet

US.

would have that

States.

would be the

choice,

nonetheless was rumored to be willing to give

when Democratic

Davis to the

out of the

would undoubtedly be the swing vote

would effectively select the next president of the United

final

states and, consequently, the presi-

legislators in Illinois conspired to elect

Senate (the only Supreme Court justice ever to leave

the bench for the Senate), his appointment to the commission was

now greatly ation for

in doubt.

Had

the Democrats done this in token appreci-

what they hoped would be

should be president?

Or had

Machiavellian interests deep within the

Republican Party secretly allowed tion for the Electoral

In any event, Davis

Davis's concurrence that Tilden

this in order to

deny Davis's

selec-

Commission?

prompdy resigned his position on the commission,

and Justice Joseph Bradley,

a Republican,

took his place. Meanwhile,

bribes in the range of $200,000 (the equivalent of roughly $4 million

today) were supposedly offered to

members of the

returning boards in

Tracy Campbell

76

Deliver the Vote

/

Louisiana.

Congressman Abram Hewitt, Tilden's campaign manager and

one of his

closest aides, later claimed that a "less scrupulous"

had

actually agreed to carry out the bribe

on Tilden's

Democrat

behalf, but that the

governor himself, upon learning of the prospective deal, had intervened to stop

it.

With Justice

Bradley adhering to party

lines, a series

of 8-7 votes

denying aU Democratic claims subsequendy gave the disputed nineteen electoral votes to

Hayes,

who

officially

won

in the Electoral College

margin of 185-184. Angry Democrats were president's legitimacy,

and referred

to

him

as

left to ''

question the

by

a

new

Rutherfraud Hayes" and

"His Fraudulency." Despite his "victory" in the national popular vote, Tilden had

While

there

would not be

the inauguration,

a

second

war or violence surrounding

some embittered Democrats refused

as the legitimate chief executive,

new

civil

president as long as

all

to accept

which ought

federal troops were

removed from the

new

president,

that his position "had been secured

by frauds

to have led

the people in a justice

felt

might

new

Hayes

while others reluctantly accepted the

South. Hewitt declined to have any dealings with the

adding that Hayes

lost.

him

to resign his high place

and

to appeal to

election for such decision as the sense of public

require."

Of

course,

Hewitt would not have advised a

President Tilden to submit to such a special election had the results of the Electoral that

Commission been

Hayes was

president,

justice," the lessons if

different.

But the

central point

was

and despite any lingering sense of "pubUc

were rather

clear:

Once

in office,

assume power

as

the vote had been unanimous, and leave any notions of unfulfilled

"justice" to the embittered losers.

AU

that

election

was

really certain

was that the winners and

would not be determined by voters casting

a free election. essentially

no

When

their conscience in

the players also act as referees and there are

rules, questions

of legitimacy extended well beyond the

persona of Rutherford B. Hayes to the republic best said by

losers in this

itself

Perhaps

it

was

Congressman and former Amherst College president

"Can You Hold Your State?"

Julius Seelye,

who

noted:

"No

77

facts

were ever proved more conclusively

than the fraud and corruption charged on the one side and cruelty

Which

charged on the other. very hard to

say.

The

among white

would be

it

corruption of the one side seems as heinous as

the cruelty of the other side at least

of the two sides went hirther

is

Floridians,

Henry Adams's Senator

The memory of the

horrible."

was one that sounded very

Ratcliffe.

The

election,

similar to

Florida Times-Union pro-

claimed in 1899 that in the pivotal election of 1876, white

men

"vio-

lated the sanctity of the ballot box" in order to save the state "from

shame and

[their]

community from

Who actually won?

destruction."

Some of the most

distinguished

American

his-

torians have reached varying conclusions, yet the majority opinion

seems to suggest that Tilden was robbed. Earlier writers put either Florida or Louisiana in Tilden's column, giving

him enough

electoral

votes for victory. In Louisiana alone, Tilden's early lead ranged

between 6,000 and 9,000

amount of cooking

the

votes,

enough

to

numbers and, with

seemingly withstand any it,

enough

to give Tilden

Vann Woodward agreed with

the presidency. In the 1950s, C.

his con-

temporaries that Florida should have gone to Tilden and he therefore

won by

should have

an electoral count of 188 to 181.

Eric Foner concludes that

won

probably impossible to say

recently,

who

'really'

the election of 1876," but he argues that had the election been

and

free

"it is

More

fair,

Hayes would have

carried the

Deep South

states

on the

basis of the black vote for the Republicans.

The

real story

of 1876 goes beyond these immediate concerns.

was the culmination of over where both

The

parties

a decade's

saw each other

It

worth of election corruption

as deliberately stealing elections.

point had been reached long before where honest accounts of the

popular will were the farthest things from anyone's mind.

To

Southern Democrats, the Republican effort to extend the franchise to

former slaves was a fundamental corruption of the electoral

system

— and they were on

solid

ground

in claiming that

many of the

Tracy Campbell

78

/

Deliver the Vote

Republican efforts behind black suffrage were grounded in the desire to obtain

more RepubUcan

rights. Republicans,

on the other hand, saw the wholesale violence

and blatant manipulation Mississippi,

votes, rather than as an issue of civil

in such places as Louisiana, Florida,

and

and understood that black voters were targeted because

they would vote RepubUcan. Both parties justified their actions as

Was anybody really expecting one to see who could better manip-

merely responding to the other's fraud. an

election in

1876, other than the

ulate the count?

The 1876

election should thus not be seen as an anomaly, very dif-

from so many that had preceded

ferent

temic fraud delegitimized the registry

lists,

and the governments that would

votes,

it.

It

demonstrated

how

sys-

the casting and counting of

follow. In the end, a system so

thoroughly infused with the culture of corruption can result in electoral crises such as 1876.

way at

For a government that had looked the other

the elections in Kansas twenty years before, no one should have

been surprised

at

what occurred

in 1876.

The Greatest Danger to Free Government In the immediate aftermath of the election recount, the disgust with election practices

was widespread; yet

outrage was defined along partisan

in too

many

cases, the apparent

Democrats may have fumed

lines.

over 1876, but their indignation was expressed mostly in the ways the

recount favored Republicans rather than a preoccupation with the erosion of democratic principles.

From

various quarters, certain pre-

dictable reforms were suggested as antidotes to a rotting system.

Constitutional

amendments ending the

laws concerning

how

Electoral

presidential votes

CoUege

From

to specific

would be counted

in the

Senate, these were the typical reactions from an electorate reeUng from

an embarrassing election.

One

Congressional committee proposed

"Can You Hold Your State?"

79

on the popular

distributing electoral votes pro rata based

these calls for reform, like those that

would follow other

vote. Yet

closely con-

tested presidential elections, quickly dissipated.

Congress called for investigations of the election, headed by Repre-

whether

New

Democrat of

sentative Clarkson Potter, a

York.

The

on partisan con-

to even hold these hearings turned, naturally,

and the Democrats wanted the hearings in order

cerns. Potter

decision

to inquire

into the "alleged fraudulent canvass." Republicans, wincing at the "fraudulent," objected

harm

on the

lines that Potter's inquiry

word

would implicidy

the country by opening old political wounds. Treasury Secretary

John Sherman,

a

major figure in the Louisiana recount, dismissed

Potter s committee as nothing

more than "manufacturing ammunition

for the fall campaign." The Republican Congressional flirther,

Committee went

saying the Democrats were attempting to institute "anarchy and

Mexicanize the government by throwing doubts upon the legitimacy of the

title

of the President."

The New

York Times editorialized that the

committee's work might even threaten the "business confidence" of the country. Potter responded in equally dramatic words:

When

a large portion, if

not a large majority, of the people believe

that the last Presidential election

was secured by organized fraud,

surely an inquiry to ascertain the facts ought to be had.

throw out the votes of one

side

and keep

.

.

To

in the votes of the other

without cause, to invent pretexts for such wrongs, to permit

fig-

ures to be altered, returns to be forged, frauds to be perfected, and

generally every trated

there free

Potter

means by which the wiU of the people may be

and the popular voice

may

stifled,

frus-

then becomes possible and

be thus a condition of things absolutely destructive of

government.

won

the argument, and his committee struck paydirt,

when

one of the election canvassers in Florida revealed some of the

Tracy Campbell

80

machinations that had occurred in his

state.

Hayes had given plum jobs

who had

to those

/

Deliver the Vote

Since his inauguration, served

him

well in

Florida and Louisiana, including a Cabinet post and several ambas-

He

sadorships.

Court of

New

Sentinel and a

also

nominated Samuel B. McLin

to the

Supreme

Mexico. McLin, a former editor of the Tallahassee

member of

the state canvassing board, had been

beaten with a cane on the streets of Tallahassee by a Democratic

member of

the

McLin's nomination, he soon grew the spring of 1878. In as a canvasser

When

canvassing board.

it,

was not

reporting a free and

and swore

ill

McLin claimed

Senate rejected

the

to a deposition in

that he understood his role

to be an objective observer dedicated to

fair vote,

but rather

was

it

his "privilege

duty, in a political sense, to give the benefit of every

of the Repubhcan party." In retrospect, feared for the country if a

and that

a

McLin

Democrat were

to

and

doubt in favor

admitted that he had

win the White House

"combination of influences" had compelled him "most

powerfully in blinding his judgment and swaying his actions."

Like others involved in the election

crisis,

McLin's

role

was not

as

objective referee dedicated to ascertaining the will of the voters; his role

was

as

accounts.

advocate for his party, a role that seems pervasive in such

A thoroughly nonplussed Nation, in reporting these "Florida

confessions," nonetheless defended the legitimacy of Hayes's presi-

dency:

"No honorable man could

accepting

it

he was bound to

which he had

satisfy

a majority, the vote

honesdy made." Such was the

accept the Presidency if before

himself that in every state in

had been lawfully

descriptive terminology

by a progressive journal to justify election that

cast

fraud,

The

who was

employed even

and added

saw lav^^l voting and honest counts secondary

of an executive

and the count

to a culture

to the legitimacy

to their liking.

Potter Committee's findings revealed to a cynical electorate

what many had already expected, "real choice"

of those

that Tilden and not

who had been

Hayes was the

permitted to participate in the

"Can You Hold Your State?"

1876

81

election. "For the first time in the history

of the government," the

report read, "electoral votes challenged as fraudulent and false were, nevertheless, received

of the election."

The

and counted, and

did, in fact,

change the

results

report was particularly clear in describing the

election in Louisiana:

Here, then, was disclosed a

new

danger.

A discretionary power over

the result of an election in a State by one of the parties, to be exercised with the aid of external influence

and patronage, and with the

protection of Federal troops,

all

greatest

mockery

in the

is,

way of an

of

conceivable things, the

election

and the greatest danger

to free government.

It

was

also obvious that partisans

working

to deliver the vote in

Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida to Hayes received considerable benefits for their service well out of proportion to partisans

other states or areas. advisers

No

working

in

proof was brought to bear that Hayes or his

had made promises of jobs

but in the inner world of power

in return for the disputed votes;

politics,

no such promises need

made. With the presidency in the balance and

all

that

to be

went with

it,

those working to secure those precious disputed electoral votes could expect a grateflil president to reward

Committee electors,

was not

also

which diminished Democratic that the

The

cries

Potter

of a "stolen election."

Democrats were innocent victims who had from under

the muscle or the

skill

it

accordingly.

uncovered evidence of Democratic attempts to bribe

fair election stolen

where

them

a free

It

and

their noses; rather, they did not have

of their RepubUcan counterparts

when and

mattered most.

Clearly,

what the

first

eight decades of the nineteenth century

demonstrated was that the fledgling nation had become a play-

ground of Election Day

bribery, thievery,

corruption emanated from

New

and violence. Whether the

York City or Florida, there was

a

Tracy Campbell

82

ready explanation that

former

slaves,

whose voting

cratic party, the

rang hollow.

it

would be somehow rights

had been

/

Deliver the Vote

corrected. Yet for

nullified

admonitions that better days were

by the Demo-

fast

approaching

"

Chapter Four

"The Holiest Institution Ameriean People'' "We have ruled by force, but

As

iJDe

ijoe

of the

have ruled by fraud,

%£)ant to rule

by

laiJD.

the country emerged from Reconstruction and in 1877 inaugu-

rated a

new

chief executive elected in a tainted contest, worries

over the legitimacy of elections themselves

came

1880s, reformers of virtually every persuasion

be eradicated by the

secret ballot or the

to the fore. felt

growing faith

By the

late

the excesses could in technology. The

New York Times expressed it best when it described a new Belgian mechanism that

inventor labeled the "Perfected Voting Machine," as "a

its

device for registering voters without possibility of fraud." White Southerners,

on the other hand, felt that the crimes of Reconstruction could be

solved by another electoral reform called black disfranchisement.

Self-Preservation

The

leading voices of Southern society

tors, to

name

a

—considered

few

—

ministers, teachers,

and

edi-

their efforts to eradicate the African-

Tracy Campbell

84

American vote not "beheve

a patriotic duty.

it is

/

Deliver the Vote

The Selma Times noted

that

it

did

any harm to rob the vote of an ilhterate Negro."

Considering that black suffrage had been forced upon the South by

"The

"bayonets," the newspaper claimed preservation, gives us the right to civilization

law of nature,

first

do anything

to

from being wiped off the face of the

self-

keep our race and our

earth." Sen. John Tyler

bluntly concluded that fraud was a "necessary

Morgan of Alabama

measure" because of the "outrage" of "Negro domination."

Southern

political

city versions,

machines, every bit

had elected

a coterie of

as effective as the

Democrats

to state houses

Congress, where they steadily gained seniority and power.

members of the

"Solid South"

came

to power, the

Northern

To

see

and

how

Tillman brothers of

South CaroHna provide a good example. In 1880, Rep. George D, Tillman ran for reelection against Robert Smalls. Smalls was everything Tillman detested

—he was an African-American and he was

a

Republican. Tillman beat Smalls by over 5,400 votes, but Smalls contested the election. to investigate,

it

When a House committee came to

found that Tillman's

lence and intimidation

district

South CaroUna

was "controlled by vio-

on the part of organized and armed bodies of

white men, directed entirely against the colored voters."

of votes for Tillman in every county

number of eligible white

males.

cluded, "if [Tillman] received received

results

in

exceeded the total

As

the majority of the committee con-

all

the white vote he must also have

more colored votes than

ored votes than white votes."

in his district

The number

[Smalls],

and

in

most

The committee threw

cases

more

col-

out the entire

Edgefield County, part of Aiken County, and several

precincts in other counties in the district. (Edgefield has a certain

prominence

in

South Carolina

politics,

producing ten governors and

Senator Strom Thurmond, a Dixiecrat. Tillman's son, James,

and best known editors.)

for

The House

who was South

It

also

produced George

Carolina's lieutenant governor

murdering one of the

state's

leading newspaper

agreed with the committee's findings and voted

'The Holiest Institution of the American People"

to seat Smalls instead.

and

But the House's action hardly impeded Tillman

his followers. In 1882, using the

TiUman

left

his

same

tactics

SmaUs and never

regained the seat over

While Tillman

85

mark

in the

he used in 1880,

lost again.

House,

his

better-known

brother became a power in the Senate. "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman was elected South Carolina's governor in 1890,

served in the U.

S.

Senate.

Ben Tillman had

and from 1895 to 1918 learned his politics as a

Democratic manager of a poll in Edgefield County, where in the tion in 1876 he

drew

pistols

elec-

on black Republicans. The wholesale

fraud and intimidation allowed Democrats to carry TiUman's precinct

211 to

2.

The

votes from Edgefield

before long the presidential election

Ben TiUman became one of

County were thrown

crisis

This 1880 cartoon depicts the

said,

reality

and

of 1876-77 ensued. In time,

the country's most racist demagogues,

once comparing African- Americans to monkeys. "To Constitution," Tillman

out,

if it

hell

with the

dared interfere with lynching.

of voting in the South. Democratic Speaker of the House

Samuel J. Randall introduces the "Great Democratic Moral Show," while behind the curtain awaits an armed former Confederate left reads:

"A

Full Vote,

"As for the negroes,

let

A

who wiU make

certain the votes are cast correctly.

Free Ballot, and a Fair Count."

them amuse themselves,

if

The Democratic

The

placard on the

creed underneath says:

they will, by voting the Radical ticket.

the count." Credit: Harper's Weekly

We

have

Tracy Campbell

86

/

Deliver the Vote

Tillman's four consecutive elections to the Senate, and his rise to sen-

within the upper chamber, were built on tactics that had helped

iority

catapult his brother to victory. South Carolina's Republican voters,

white and black, had no way to prevent his ascendancy. Yet the

and the

nation's,

by lawmakers

African-Americans had to

like

state's,

nation governed

live in a

Pitchfork Ben.

SiL\MNG Moustaches Big Tim Sullivan,

more

a veteran

of Tammany Hall, understood some of the

detailed nuances of repeat voting.

was having the hired repeater grow

"When

them with

you've voted

The

a full

key, according to Sullivan,

beard before the election.

their whiskers on,

you take them to a

barber and scrape off the chin fringe," said Sullivan. After voting a

second time, Sullivan would have more for a third time,

"clean off the mustache

a

few more

a

face.

like

Big

Tim was

as

not confined to

Tranquilino

race,

known

That makes one of

Tammany

Hall. In a

New

Luna beat Francisco Manzanares.

House committee examined

the results that

to 0.

The

also

found massive alphabetical voting

came from

Luna had won, 4,259

vote from Valencia had never exceeded 2,200. Investigators

—^where

who happened

—and

SuUivan boasted,

Gilded Age, the audacity

Valencia County, they were horrified to see that

voters

"If that ain't

for four votes."

Mexico House

When

ballots,"

and vote them plain

In 1884, in the middle of an era

of people

removed, vote them

and then have the mustache shaved.

enough and the box can stand

them good

facial hair

ballots

to correspond exactly to the alphabetical registry

from various precincts were

list

cases

where the

fictitious.

The

audacity of the theft was simply too

those accustomed to

were cast by

entire returns

some amounts of election

awarded to Manzanares.

much

chicanery.

The

for even seat

was

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

87

Contesting elections was serious business, and those black Republicans

who

terror

was not limited

dared to report an election violation understood that the

African-Americans in

to registration or Election Day. In Florida,

who

testified in federal court

Madison County were lynched by white mobs

what constituted normal

cultural practices

about election fraud

—

a clear

message of

and what was perceived to

be violations of those norms by Southern whites. In an 1890 House race in Arkansas, Republican crat Clifton Breckinridge

and personally box had been

by 846

visited the small

stolen.

incumbent Demo-

votes. Clayton contested the results

town of Plumerville where

a ballot

was murdered. Local newspapers dubbed the

a "political assassination"

into the election

lost to

In the course of obtaining testimony from local

participants, Clayton

murder

John Clayton

methods

aimed

at

crushing any close look

in rural Arkansas.

The House committee

concurred, and concluded that the theft of the Plumerville box alone

had cost Clayton over four hundred

At

entirely.

the next election, however, Breckinridge

The

ficulty.

election

votes, before vacating the seat

won with no

dif-

lessons were abundantly clear: Challenging Southern

methods was

a cause only for those willing to die in the

process.

Social Darwinism and Elections

The

culture of corruption of the Gilded

vacuum. In many ways, forces.

The

it

fed off of larger economic and political

War

caused the tectonic plates of the country's

political structure to shift,

and the ways candidates and

approached elections adjusted

and

and

this ethos filtered

elections.

did not exist in a

Industrial Revolution that exploded in the United

States after the Civil

Street,

Age

as well. Social

down

parties

Darwinism ruled Wall

to the nation's schools, churches,

A society that celebrated ruthlessness in business could

Tracy Campbell

88

find election fraud even

profound questions of that were

all

more

tariffs,

new

other, they cheated

ethos:

Deliver the Vote

justifiable, especially

government

subsidies,

on the Une. As David Callahan

the heart of the

/

"These

and destroyed

titans

considering the

and land policy

notes, cheating

was

at

of industry cheated each

their smaller competitors,

and they

cheated consumers."

The

Industrial Revolution

had another consequence that brought

certain justification to election fraud.

Americans

felt

alienation

from

social

a

As more and more impoverished

the pohtical system was rigged against them, their politics

made manipulating

elections even easier. If

Darwinists were right, and some people were born to

vote buyers and unscrupulous poll officials reasoned that fectly acceptable to steal votes

rule, it

many

was per-

from the uneducated and uncivilized

masses on behalf of the "right" candidate or party.

Challenges By the late 1800s, the two-party system that dominates to this day was in place. The parties protected themselves against any third-party challenges by outspending their opponents, using

demagogy

to dis-

miss them into oblivion, and simply keeping them off the ballot necessary.

able ties

When

third parties

impediments and work

had

other

effective

intimidation and fraud

managed

their

when

to

overcome these consider-

way onto

the ballot, the major par-

weapons

at

their

—and they used these

disposal

— namely,

skillfully.

An illustrative example occurred in Mississippi shortly after the end of Reconstruction. When Greenbackers ran for office in 1878 in Lowndes County, Democrats used some weU-worn

tricks to

quash the

insurgent vote, such as firing a cannon every half hour on Election Day.

Throughout the

First District,

Democrats printed up

false ballots that

suggested that the Greenback candidate for Congress had withdrawn

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

from the

race.

To make

89

certain that Greenbackers could not spread the

message that the election was wires. After losing the race,

still

on, Democrats tore

down

Greenbackers contested the

telegraph

results,

but no

witnesses could be located willing to testify in public about Democratic

methods. In 1880, Mississippi Democratic election

officials

were

ever in ensuring that no fusionist efforts (Republicans

as blatant as

combined with

Greenbackers) would unseat a Democrat. While some poll refused to open the boxes in public, in Clay

were

County

three

officials

young men

tried for stuffing ballot boxes. After a four-day trial, they

were

of $250.00 each. Yet the young

men

convicted and given

were greeted

composed

stiff fines

as heroes

when

they returned home, and a

poem was

in their honor:

Our welcome,

gallant

trio,

Clay County's free-born sons! Convicted of true manhood Thrice welcome honored ones.

Any

sense of corrupting democratic forms was overcome

tion that the

young

ballot stuffers, in keeping a party

by the emo-

composed of

blacks and radical farmers out of power, had displayed "true

and would be held izens

in a place of honor in the hearts

who, no doubt, were "free-born"

as well.

manhood"

of their fellow

cit-

This was a vivid example

of the power that the culture of corruption held in the deep South. As a token of the esteem with peers, a concert

which the young men were held by

was held that raised funds

sufficient to

pay their

their fines.

In areas outside the South, election fraud sometimes triggered some violent reactions.

Chicago ward heelers of various

political persuasions

had long bribed voters with alcohol or intimidated them with

drawn

pistols, stuffed ballots,

and used

fists

and

creative counting procedures to

ensure that their candidate won. For third-party candidates, the

Tracy Campbell

90

chances of a

and

fair election in

the

/

Deliver the Vote

were dim, especially for

cit)'

socialists

anarchists. In 1880, after losing a race for alderman, the Socialist

candidate, Frank Stauber, sued, and a local court uncovered stories of excessive fraud. Stauber eventually regained his seat, yet the jury

refused to convict the poll workers, saying that the workers had acted in

"good

The Alarm, a Chicago-based Socialist weekly, was

faith."

demon-

equally indignant, saying that Chicago election practices

means the control of the propertied

strated that "Practical pohtics

prominent member of the Chicago

classes."

As George

Socialist

movement, observed, the Stauber episode "did more, perhaps,

than

all

Schilling, a

combined

the other things

to destroy the faith

of Chicago in the efficiency of the paper expressed the feeling institution of the

crated and

The

the

German

many of them had

For years,

variety of illegal to the SociaHst

means

felt

in the

readers:

"The

holiest

been dese-

a lie."

population in Chicago was not new. that Irish

to steal elections.

Labor Party

its

right to vote, has

and

a miserable farce

among

A Chicago German news-

among many of

American people, the

become

anger

ballot."

of the Socialists

Democrats practiced

a

The Germans who belonged

1870s had endured Irish poUce

offi-

cers beating

Germans, and had seen the poUs moved the night before

an election.

By

the 1880s, the Socialist Labor Party had essentially

given up hope of winning a free and

them, Albert Parsons, was ures in the

Haymarket

later

affair.

fair election in

Chicago.

him

change through

of

executed as one of the principal fig-

Parsons claimed that the Stauber

and the accumulated evidence that stolen elections were so accepted led

One

to reject the very notion

elections. Parsons

affair

culturally

of achieving poUtical

wrote that he realized "the hopeless

task of political reformation" could never occur through the usual

means accorded

at the poUs,

and that he simply

the potency of the ballot." Others well,

and

came

to Parsons's conclusions as

their collective outrage finally vented

Haymarket.

lost "faith in the in

itself in

the streets of

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

In

May

91

1886, anarchists affiliated with the International

People's Association

went on

Chicago police confronted the

strike

Working

demanding an eight-hour

strikers

and when

a

day.

bomb was thrown

into a group of police, seven eventually died. Four of the anarchists were later executed.

One

of the causes that directly led to the Haymarket

tragedy was election fraud, along with the anarchists' subsequent frustration that authentic civic

"Men of the Strictest The

had

life

but vanished in Chicago.

Integrity"

presidential election of 1884

toral reputation.

all

was another blot on the

nation's elec-

The Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland of New

York to run against the Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. Cleveland

won yet

another close race, edging Blaine in the Electoral CoUege by a

margin of 219-182. Cleveland's less

home

7\ll eyes,

state

before and after the election, were on

of New York, which gave him the presidency by

than a thousand votes. Blaine and his supporters claimed that

New York and, consequently, the White House, but he refused to challenge the results. New

imported voters and other illegal votes had cost him

York election returns were always suspect to the loser, and for some good reasons. Four years earlier, one observer in

New York

found that over

twenty percent of the vote in one precinct was purchased, with prices ranging from $2.00 to $5.00.

What struck this observer was who participated in it.

the casual

nature of the vote-buying, and

Men of the strictest integrity, who would scorn a dishonorable action in

any business or social matter, do not hesitate to take an

open bribery, and they do not lose

caste in the

active part in

community by so doing.

Their action is considered a necessary part of "practical politics," and to be applauded in proportion to their success

—

i.e.,

votes they secure by outbidding their opponents.

to the

number of

Tracy Campbell

92

/

Deliver THE Vote

In the South, Republicans understood that the methods used by the

Democrats election.

in the "Solid South"

one Mississippi county accepted ballots

Poll workers in

through a

slit

had not vanished following the 1876

whereby the

in a wall,

Democratic votes and discounted

as

counted

official casually

many RepubHcans

all

he desired.

as

In Florida, Democrats used election-day threats to frighten away black

and

voters,

stole several ballot boxes. In Mississippi,

Georgia, and

South Carolina, Democrats carried 98 counties with black majorities, indicating the extent to

which the black

right to vote

was quickly

dis-

appearing. In Loreauville, Louisiana, eighteen blacks died in rioting

up to Election Day

in the three days leading

which had supported Republicans before the Democratic enclave. In

a sense,

The

in 1884.

riots,

parish,

quickly became a

with one portion of the country so

thoroughly intimidated that Republicans could never expect a return, could

any presidential race in

this era

be excluded from the

fair list

of elections where fraud was rampant and influential? Republicans noted the utter duplicity of Southern elections and

moved

to restore

some semblance of fairness

at the poUs.

A

intro-

bill,

duced by Rep. Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, sought to extend federal supervision of local elections.

would be empowered

officials

It

provided that federal

to inspect registration

lists,

count, and, if necessary, overturn the results of an election.

certify the

The House

version gave the president the authority to dispatch troops to ensure the fairness of a particular contest,

known

as the

noted:

"When

"Lodge

in the count,"

hedged with

was

is

why

the

bill

came

force biU." In proposing the legislation.

to be

Lodge

half the states almost are so controlled that they cheat

he wrote, the

difficulties."

reiterated in the

istration

which

GOP

The

"struggle to carry the country

essential logic

is

behind the Lodge biU

1888 Repubhcan platform: "The present Admin-

and the Democratic majority owe

their existence to the sup-

pression of the ballot by a criminal nuUification of the Constitution

and the laws of the United

States."

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

Southern Democrats, of course, saw the supremacy.

The

bill as a

93

threat to white

biU brought back images of Northern aggression as

well as passionate defenses of states' rights and Southern liberties.

While the biU was aimed only at federal elections, saw contests

for state

and

local offices,

the same races often

and the idea of close federal

supervision of those races naturally rankled

many whites

in Dixie.

One

thoroughly disgusted Mississippian noted the obvious hypocrisy of his brethren: "Well, now, 'liberty'

appeal in the

make

is

name of 'Liberty'

And

we

hear an

for the right to stuff a ballot

box and

a

grand subject.

yet

fraudulent returns."

The

bill

generated passionate debate in the House, where

without a single Democratic vote.

The

bill stalled, like

so

it.

passed

many

reform measures, in the Senate, where a 33-day Democratic killed

it

other

filibuster

Southern senators understood what a force biU could mean to

their very

power

base.

These men, such

as Mississippi's

James George,

South Carolina's Ben TiUman and North Carolina's Furnifold Sim-

mons, who held give

power because of

them an advantage

at the

were not about

slit

party, bill's

their

to

a electoral system rigged to

expense of blacks and the Republican

their

own

political throats.

death, coupled with flirther Congressional assaults

The Lodge

on the

vote in the 1890s, ended for seven decades any real federal assure that Southern elections

would be

free

and

right to

move

to

fair.

Although the Fifteenth Amendment supposedly protected black voting rights, a series of Supreme Court decisions effectively nullified the

amendment. In 1876,

in U.S.

remarkable conclusion that the the right to vote,

it

v.

Reese, the

Amendment

Court came

to the

did not bestow on blacks

only prohibited the exclusion of someone from

voting on account of their race. Using Reese as a pretext, other lesser courts essentially invalidated the

amendment, making disfranchisement

Constitutional. Yet in 1884, in a case that received relatively

little

attention, the

Court unanimously affirmed the federal government's

right to punish

someone for obstructing another's

right to vote. In exparte

Tracy Campbell

94

Yarbrough, the

Klan

Court upheld the conviction of members of the Ku Klux

who had

Samuel federal

F.

forcefully obstructed a black

a

government whose head and

executive

body

legislative

tion

directly,

are

is

voting. Justice

arguments that the

elections

essential character

numerous and powerful branch of the people

man from

Miller, writing for the Court, dismissed

government had no power to protect

That

Deliver THE Vote

/

from fraud:

republican,

both

legislature

elective, is

elected

whose whose by the

has no power by appropriate laws to secure this elec-

from the influence of violence, of corruption, and of fraud,

demand

proposition so startling as to arrest attention and

is

a

the

gravest consideration.

The Court

recognized that "the temptation to control these elections

by violence and by corruption

is

a constant source

of danger." Yet in

1903, in a similar case involving a Congressional race in western Kentucky, the

Court

essentially reversed itself from the Yarbrough decision,

arguing that "Congress has no power to punish bribery at tions."

For those hoping the Supreme Court would be an

tecting minority voting rights

would be

from

all

ally in

elec-

pro-

bribery, violence, or fraud, they

sorely disappointed.

Approaching the Gates of the Penitentiary The 1888

election proved a watershed in the federal approach to elec-

tion methods. In fact, the 1888 presidential contest

most corrupt

come

in

American

history, a

was one of the

comment on how Httle reform had

since the tainted election of 1876. President Cleveland

pitted against the Republican

which the returns were odd on toral College majority,

Benjamin Harrison

was

in a contest in

several fronts. Harrison

won

an Elec-

but lost the popular count by over 60,000 votes.

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

Had

Cleveland been robbed? Again, a perspective

examining these

results.

Democratic successes

95

necessary in

is

In ways that had not changed since 1876, any

in the

South were grounded

in fraud.

African-Americans been allowed to vote, Harrison would have several of those states,

and accumulated

a

much

Had won

broader majority in

the Electoral College and a considerable majority in the popular vote as well.

In

West

Virginia, Cleveland

more than 159,000 gible to

do

so.

In

cast,

won by

a

mere 500 votes out of

although 12,000 more voted than were

eli-

New York, Democrats were put in the ironic position

of charging the Republicans with iUegaUy importing "colonizers." The stench from the

Quay

to the

New

York

election alone led

chairman Matt

famous remark that Harrison never knew "how close a

number of men were compelled tiary to

GOP

make him

to approach the gates of the peniten-

President."

Yet the most explosive charges of the election originated in Harrison's

rison

home

state

won by

of Indiana.

just 2,376.

By

Out of over

a half million votes,

Har-

the late 1880s, Indiana had acquired a

notorious reputation in the annals of electoral corruption, being pri-

marily a regional center for colonizers to neighboring

was known widely

as

"Venal Indiana."

have attracted plenty of attention

as

The

In

fact, it

election in Indiana

would

states.

was, yet a letter from a key

it

GOP leader revealed not only the techniques that would be employed in

winning Indiana, but the culture that now pervaded American

tions in general.

The

letter

national treasurer of the instructed

was written by William

Dudley, the

Republican national committee,

who

GOP workers in Indiana to:

Divide the floaters into blocks of

five

and put a trusted man with

necessary funds in charge of these five and that

W.

elec-

none get away and that aU vote our

Commentators have long

since debated

make him

responsible

ticket.

whether these instructions

Tracy Campbell

96

were

literally

true.

One

/

historian dismissed the

Deliver the Vote

whole

and

affair

declared that the 1888 election in Indiana was "the cleanest in years."

Yet a contemporary, R. H. Dabney, was convinced that the "floater" vote had a profound impact.

He

found that in Monroe, Indiana,

although the town had a voting population of 700, he estimated that floaters constituted

85 percent of these votes.

He watched

as

RepubH-

cans brought these voters into town on election eve and had sentries

guard them through the night. Dabney also knew that charges that only blacks did such things were absurd: "The Hoosier floater

is

but

too frequently neither Negro nor foreigner, but your genuine free-born

American

sovereign."

Lodge

In the aftermath of the the

biU's defeat, reformers

sought

answers to the overwhelming problem of election fraud. Calls were

loud for tighter restrictions on registration systems, yet even this was a

double-edged sword. Stricter registration laws that required class,

who

Democrats complained that landlords might

evict

term for residency usually worked against the working

moved

frequently.

a set

residents close to an election in order to disfranchise them. Republi-

cans countered that without some verification of the registry

lists,

fraud would continue to be rampant. Meanwhile, third-party leaders

understood that registry laws were "practically of no

of the vote false

registration

everyone it

may be

came

knew

avail.

The count

guarded," the National Economist editorialized, "but

wiU

effect

the

ends of

rascality."

Throughout,

that partisan pohtics played into the equation.

to fraud, the parties each

pursued

tactics that

would

When

necessarily

hurt their opponents' base while helping their own.

Voting

in

Secret

Following the 1888 election and the "blocks of sheer speed with which the nation adopted a

five" revelations, the

new voting method was

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

breathtaking.

The Nation commented just

that drastic changes in the

97

days after the 1888 election

way men voted needed

to occur in order to

restore confidence in the structure of American democracy. "If the act

of voting were performed in voter could or

himself"

form

The

would be

by the

and submit the

become the standard Louisville,

ballot

be cast in private.

ballots into a

marks that might indicate

Louisville

state to

the party nominees and voters

list

in secrecy

trusted to carry out his bargain

Kentucky is

when

a uni-

The new

ballot

what would

drive to secure

American

elections

began in

how the secret ballot came to Chapter Five). The first state to adopt the new

(the process of

covered in

was Massachusetts

Cleveland supported

all

their preference

box without any distinguishing

The

their vote.

practice of

would mark

left to

—

obvious answer seemed the "Australian" ballot

ballot printed

would

paper predicted, "no bribed

secret," the

its

in 1888,

and soon thereafter even Grover

passage nationwide.

State legislators jumped over each other to enact the secret ballot, but

not out of a righteous effort to rid the system of fraud. The parties understood that the lots,

new system would save them the expenses of printing bal-

would hamper

even more

difficult.

split tickets,

As

and would make third-party challenges

H. Argersinger

the historian Peter

writes,

with

who controlled the state thus gained the power to structure the system in their own behalf "While the rules of the game may have changed somewhat, the purpose of the game certainly had not. If the advent of the new ballot had been enough to the advent of the Australian ballot, "Those

drastically alter the playing field, the parties

secret ballot

would have approached the

with considerable caution. Yet by the time the 1892 election

came, three quarters of the

states in the

early 1900s only three states

were

Union had adopted

left that

it,

and by the

did not have some provisions

of the Australian system. Rarely has such an overhaul in such sweeping terms occurred, and the notion

now

that

men

could freely vote their

conscience and would, therefore, return the nation to cratic

foundations was widespread.

When

its

more demo-

voter turnout began to

Tracy Campbell

98

/

Deliver the Vote

fOW

A satirical sketch of the new Australian ballot. A ward heeler brings an illiterate voter to the professor, asking

notes

him

"It's

to teach the student three words:

meself as kin attend to the

rest

"Dem, Rep, and

Prohib."

decrease, observers casually dismissed the declining

more than decreased fraud But the evidence

is

The

heeler then

of the taichin." Credit: Harper's Weekly

numbers

as little

at the poUs.

—the Australian

abundantly clear

not decrease the extent of fraud.

It

only changed the

way

ballot did

the fraud

occurred. Likewise, the secret ballot served as an effective tool to disfranchise poor whites, illiterate immigrants, and Southern blacks,

made

it

more

electorate.

difficult for third parties to gain a

and

foothold within the

Southern whites were especially receptive to the new

voting method, and did not bother to hide their reasons for supporting

it.

that "It

is

Negroes

The Democratic Memphis Daily Avalanche many

years will elapse before the bulk of the

reawaken to an

interest in elections, if relegated to their

certain that

will

editorialized

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

proper sphere, the corn and cotton

fields,

99

by some election law which

was

will

adopt the principle of the Australian

first

drafted in Tennessee, the Democratic party leadership added, as

an afterthought, that the

bill

would

ballot."

After the

also "stop the cry

bill

of fraud," but

not the fraud itself

The

first

laws establishing the

new voting methods

were, of course,

passed by state legislatures comprising Democrats and Republicans who

were not interested in an objective exercise to make balloting free

from intimidation. Where

possible, they

fairer

and

wanted laws that would

ensure their parties' success at the polls. In Vermont, for example,

Republicans were successful in keeping the secret ballot confined to the larger,

urban

areas,

where they assumed the Democrats controlled the

immigrant populations that might have other areas, Democrats

which opened

a

won

difficulty reading a ballot. In

the ability to "assist" voters in the polls,

wave of methods that could bypass the whole point

behind the secret baUot. As with so many other "reforms" passed under the ostensible heading of anti-fraud measures, the secret ballot was mired in a partisan effort to secure advantage over the

opponent at the poUs.

If the secret ballot were not enough, another reform tailing fraud

was

first

aimed

used in an 1892 election in Lockport,

Rather than using paper

ballots, the

at cur-

New York.

Myers Automatic Booth

lever

voting machine utilized a mechanical device to record votes without

any paper.

would

The

machine's inventor, Jacob H. Myers, said the device

"protect mechanically the voter

from rascaldom, and make the

process of casting a ballot perfectly plain, simple, and secret." This was

no simple invention. The Meyers machine

moving parts didate's

that recorded a vote once a lever

was

cast,

hundreds of

was pulled beside

name. The machine returned the lever

after the vote

utilized

a can-

to the starting position

and the machine was designed to block

a voter

from voting more than once. Befitting the Industrial Revolution, the voting machine seemed to herald a

would so

finally

new day

in

which technology

bring an end to the widespread fraud that characterized

many American

elections.

Tracy Campbell

10

/

Deliver THE Vote

secret ballot

had no impact on

"The People Are Demoil\lized" There

is

no better example of how the

curtailing vote fraud than

what happened

to the People's party, or

Pop-

The 1892

party platform underscored the pre-

vailing notions about voting in

America: "Corruption dominates the

ulists, in

the 1890s.

box

ballot

.

.

.

commented on trahan ballot:

the People are demoralized." These agrarian activists

movement

the recent

"Many of the

to secure passage of the

Aus-

States have been compelled to isolate the

voters at the poUing places in order to prevent universal intimidation

or bribery." Yet the passage of the Australian ballot did not bode well for third-party challengers. Since the state official ballots,

written by

from the

and the

rules for gaining a place

members of the major

start.

was responsible

on that

parties, third parties

for printing

were in trouble

Coupled with new laws that allowed voters

"straight" party ticket

by checking

ballots discouraged voters

from

a

box

at the top

were

ballot

to vote a

of the page, the

new

"split" votes for third parties.

In the South, the People's party ran straight into the fortress that

—the Democratic

protected white supremacy ture that

lenges,

permeated Democratic

and knew what

newspaper put

it

to

best: "It

circles

itself

is

was on guard

political cul-

for

any chal-

A

Louisiana

the reHgious duty of Democrats to rob

and any

words, the received culture of

whenever and wherever the

failure to

of true Louisiana Democratic teaching."

little

The

do once they were spotted.

Populists and Republicans of their votes

opportunity presents

party.

do so

The

Deep South

will

be a violation

"teaching," or in other

politics in the 1890s,

had

use for true democratic forms of any kind.

In 1894, Populists throughout the South were treated to a wide

assortment of election Populist

tactics.

Reuben Kolb

In Alabama, the race for governor pitted

against

Democrat William Gates. Gates had

defended the practice of stuffing ballot boxes to keep black Republican voters

from swaying

state politics,

and

to those

Democrats who

felt a

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

101

pang of conscience, Oates reassured them that "The recording angel will

shed no tear in blotting these acts from the record of the

account." Oates received 57 percent of the vote, although the

of black voters threatened before the election

is

final

number

unknown. Kolb

protested and simply declared that he considered himself the newly elected governor.

"We

here in

claimed a Kolb supporter,

Alabama white and

"feel that

we

are

colored," pro-

but slaves to a despotism of

fraud and political serfdom."

After the Alabama legislature refused to intervene, a bizarre and

on Inauguration Day,

possibly frightening scene developed

both

as

Kolb and Oates arrived in Montgomery expecting to be sworn in the

him

new

governor.

A

local

judge sympathetic to Kolb administered

the oath, and Kolb then marched

capitol with his supporters.

as

down Dexter Avenue

They were met by armed

troops,

to the

and when

he was denied permission to speak on the capitol grounds, Kolb went to a nearby street to declare that he

was the legitimate governor of

Alabama. One Kolb supporter then proudly proclaimed that

if

being

an opponent to "ballot box thieves" made one an anarchist, then he

was an

anarchist. Yet the displays of protest

state house,

where Gov. Oates was

persed, with a bitter Kolb

wrongs done

to

vowing

him through

had no bearing on the

in power.

to

The group then

dis-

one day win "redress" for the

election fraud.

In 1896, in Robertson County, Texas, several of the candidates on a

Republican-Populist ticket were African-Americans.

On

Election

Day, Democrats stole ballot boxes and paraded around predominantly black precincts with their pistols prominently displayed. Unsure that these tactics suppressed the black vote sufficiently, party leaders sent

word

to

Cannon

Democratic County Judge O. D. Cannon to hold did, literally:

his pistol.

his precinct.

he went down to the poUs and stayed there with

Cannon proudly boasted of having

threatened at least a

thousand African-American voters away from the

polls.

added, "Not a Negro voted," that day, or afterward.

As

When

a result,

he

the returns

Tracy Campbell

102

/

Deliver the Vote

were opened, an African-American Populist seemed to have seat in the Texas legislature. Election officials quickly out.

The outraged

was

all

when

candidate threatened to contest the election, which

man

thought

I

I

in the arm.

had

to. I

Cannon

later

winner of his

actually declared the

race,

for his

admitted that

know God puUed me

African-American Popuhst candidate

"I

through."

gun

only shot

When one

county commissioner was

for

he declined the office because

of the organized violence he had witnessed. his

a

counted him

Judge Cannon needed to hear before he reached

and shot the

won

With

the swearing in of

Democratic opponent, the historian Gregg CantreU writes, "White

supremacy returned to Robertson County."

"We R\ve Taken a By the

late

to the

Southern Democratic

to accomplish legally

In

Praise"

1890s, the People's party was finished as a legitimate threat

needed to be addressed

sissippi.

To God Be the

City.

fact,

the

Yet the threat had been

party.

structurally.

The leading state in the movement

accompHshed

in

methods chosen by

Mississippi's constitutional

many of the

literacy tests the

other Southern states that

Making

bedrock of

the

poU

tax,

African-Americans.

Amendment:

The need

it

property

state law, Mississippi

1890 what "redeemers" had been hoping

passage of the Fifteenth

mulated outrage

many years was Mis-

for so

acquired a name: the Mississippi plan.

and

and

what fraud had done

framers were adopted by so

qualifications,

real,

a "legal"

way

for since the

to disfranchise

for these measures rested in the accu-

at the election fraud that

had become

so

endemic

to

Southern elections. "Fourteen years of fraud excited nausea," the president of the Mississippi convention proclaimed. for

Democrats

to use their control of state

The time had come

governments

to

make white

supremacy permanent. In the Alabama constitutional convention, in a strange logical twist,

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

Democrats noted that so whites

103

legalizing black disfranchisement

would not have

to sully their

was necessary

hands in election fraud.

hand, the convention president, John Knox,

On one

said election fraud

was

a

necessary tool in the white supremacist battle, one that was deeply

ingrained in the very fabric of the nation. Stealing votes, according to

Knox, was simply part of the Jeffersonian notion of the "right to revolution."

Knox

explained that stuffing ballot boxes was "a revolutionary

measure, justified upon that ground." After submitting the stitution to the voters, defenders

ifying

it,

elections

new con-

of the document claimed that by

rat-

whites would no longer have to resort to such means; cleaner

would

prevail.

A newspaper in Clanton claimed that "the old many

constitution

makes

proposition

of white supremacy." If the

adopted, then

it

force or fraud in

was

clear that

it

localities essential to the

new

would allow

constitution were

"a sure

path to honest

elections in the future."

In Louisiana, a Democratic newspaper noted that "It

win these

elections,

but at a heavy

cost,

true that

is

we

and by the use of methods

repugnant to our idea of political honesty." Louisiana had become, in the estimation of the

New

Orleans Times-Democrat, "the head center

of ballot box stuffing." After Mississippi's lead in 1890, other

states

undertook similar developments either during the height of the Populist revolt

or afterward, and their intent was to do far

more than

dis-

franchise Republican-leaning blacks.

Consequently, what violence and fraud had accomplished before

became codified

in a slew

1890s. Poor whites tests;

of

would be

and although some

right to vote states,"

state constitutions in the

severely affected

by poU

taxes

and

literacy

states instituted "grandfather clauses" osten-

sibly to protect these voters,

voters they felt

new Southern

and

parties often paid the

poU

would support them, thousands of whites had

taxes of lost the

by the turn of the century. "Conservatives of neighboring

wrote C. Vann Woodward, "grappling with powerful Populist

opposition, eyed the results of the Mississippi plan enviously."

By

Tracy Campbell

104

Deliver the Vote

/

1901, Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, and

adopted such codes into their

own

Alabama had

and the

constitutions,

overall

impact was startUng. In Louisiana alone, the figures for those registered to vote

—immediately before and

ments were adopted into the

new

after the disenfranchising ele-

constitution

—show how

successful

the framers were in disposing of threats to the Democratic party:

REGISTERED, REGISTERED, Those

WHITES

BLACKS

TOTAL

1897

164,088

130,344

294,432

1900

125,437

5,320

130,757

eligible to vote

cent of the

state's

had been cut by more than

Ninety-six per-

black voters were legally disfranchised, while over

twenty-three percent of white voters, most of

who had been

whites

half.

whom

were the poor

attracted to the People's party, lost the franchise

as well.

The Nation understood that election fraud was

originally "started

As was

whites that wanted to defraud blacks of their votes. it

has been extended in

another."

No

inevitable,

range until one faction of whites cheats

one was more blunt than Alabama's former governor

Gates,

who

go to

boys, count

it

its

by

told his state's constitutional convention, "I told

them

them

to

out," a direct admission of how the black vote

was handled. But Gates lamented an obvious byproduct of the fraud that gripped the region:

other until

we

something

to

"White men have gotten

to cheating each

don't have any honest elections." Populism certainly

do with

this

development, but

critics

had

such as the Nation

did not understand that fraud had been a part of the American

repubhc from the very beginning, and

bad

in

American

No

more recent manifestations,

they were, were symptomatic of the culture deeply embedded

as

as

its

politics.

state provides a better

American and white populist

example of white reaction to Africanelectoral strength than

North Carolina.

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

In 1894, a Fusionist party of Populists and Republicans

105

won

the gov-

ernorship, a majority in the General Assembly, and a host of local offices

throughout the

state.

These triumphs were too much

for white

supremacists to bear. The real problem reactionaries faced in the Tarheel State, according to racy,"

Glenda E. Gilmore, "was the

where Fusionists restored the "home

than allowing state

officials to

won

Populists consequently

democ-

practice of

rule" to local offices, rather

appoint them. African- Americans and

posts previously held

North Carolina Democrats corrected the

by Democrats. Using

situation in 1898.

intimidation and blatant election fraud, the Democrats recaptured five

of the

nine Congressional seats in that year's election.

state's

than anything lesson to election,

who

all

what occurred

else,

in

Wilmington provided

More

a clear

dared challenge white supremacy. Days before the

former congressman and Confederate veteran Alfred

Moore Waddell

told a

mass meeting of whites

tomorrow, and

to the polls

to leave the poUs,

and

if

he

if you find the refiises, kill

in

Wilmington, "Go

negro out voting,

him."

The

tell

him

threat of racial vio-

lence and unchecked fraud changed a Republican majority in

Wilm-

ington of 5,000 in 1896 to a Democratic majority of 6,000 just

twenty-four months

later.

Yet controlling the polls in Wilmington was

not enough. After the election, whites essentially declared war on the city's

African-Americans.

Led by Waddell, paper

a

mob

of four hundred

attacked a black news-

then went on a kiUing spree in the black

office,

extent of the slaughter

is

districts.

The

unknown, but the most conservative figure lists

seven dead, while other sources estimate as several days,

men

WaddeU assumed

many as three hundred. After

the mayor's office, and a local minister

proclaimed "We have taken a city. To

God be the praise." Once the sanc-

tioned riot in Wilmington was over, writes Joel Williamson, "there was

no need

for

rats elected

it

to

happen elsewhere." After Wilmington, white Democ-

Charles Aycock governor in 1900 and amended the consti-

tution to disfranchise African-Americans. In his inaugural speech in

106

Tracy Campbell

1901, Aycock stated that until the

moment blacks received the franchise,

"the fairness of our elections

according to the

to rule

Deliver the Vote

was never questioned." With black suffrage,

new governor,

elections

were

"a farce

and a fraud."

He

of the Democrats' methods to achieve white

later altered his appraisals

supremacy:

/

"We have ruled by force, we have ruled by fraud, but we want

by law."

The Agents of Democracy The "coup

d'etat" in

North Carolina was

rivaled

by one

in Kentucky.

In 1899, the Democrat

WiUiam Goebel

Republican William

Taylor and a third-party candidate

S.

ran for governor against the

who had

bolted from the Democrats, former governor John Y. Brown, Goebel

was a ruthless

man who had

allegedly killing a poHtical

Goebel used

even been indicted for murder after

opponent

in 1895. After his acquittal,

his seat in the state senate to secure a

introduced in 1898 that would forever be tion

Law.

It

as the

biU he

Goebel Elec-

gave broad powers to a three-member Board of Elections,

which would be the tling

known

new election

and in

final arbiter in certifying all elections

set-

aU election disputes.

Opponents of the biU

called

associated with that term. terson,

saw the

a

bill as

law was enacted, the Republican to the

The

it

a "force" biU, recognizing the

Courier-Journal's editor,

Henry Wat-

naked grab for power by Goebel.

legislature

new

stigma

When

the

appointed two Democrats and one

board, ensuring that the Democrats would

ostensibly control future elections, such as the governor's race in 1899.

Brown warned

that he

not what be the vote; dictions

had heard too many Democrats say

we

"We

care

do the counting." There were

dire pre-

of bloodshed on Election Day, and Governor

WiUiam

will

Bradley called out the state militia to keep Louisville.

To

down any

violence in

the Cincinnati Enquirer, "the contest here will scarcely

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

10 7

deserve to be classified as a batde of ballots." Rather, the newspaper argued, that

it

would be

a struggle

"between the forces of organized

and the "agents of

fraud, seeking to defeat the will of the voters,"

Democracy," bound to prevent the fraud. Election

Day

itself went rather peacefliUy, a

The

events to come.

poor foreshadowing of

election results were not definitive.

Although

Taylor was in front by approximately 2,000 votes out of over 400,000 cast,

Goebel's supporters contended that Taylor's lead was based on

illegal

and fraudulent

votes.

Goebel

also

contended that in four other

counties, tissue paper ballots (where false ballots

made of tissue were more votes than

inserted inside legal ballots) gave Taylor 3,251

Goebel.

To

settle

the contested returns, of course, was the same board

Goebel had helped

Both

create the previous year.

sides insisted the other

was trying

local papers dueled over the returns.

Goebel

majority, but the

The

to steal the election,

and

Courier-Journal reported a

Evening Post claimed that

his rival

used "fake

returns" to change Taylor's victory of 3,500 to 4,000 votes to a defeat

of several thousand. Governor Bradley, fearing a possible "revolution," asked for federal troops from President McKinley,

who

declined the

request.

In early December 1899, the election board began

its

proceedings,

but they did so under great tension. Hundreds of mountain Republicans arrived in Frankfort by train, brandishing weapons and warning

of violence that this

When ment.

if

Goebel were declared governor. Democrats countered

was armed intimidation

the board issued

By

a

its

ruling,

it

comprised proceeding.

was another stunning develop-

2-1 margin, the board decided in favor of Taylor, claiming

that the law did not allow return.

to a lawfully

Three days

governor of the

authority to go behind a county

after the board's decision, Taylor

was inaugurated

as

Commonwealth of Kentucky.

For Democrats lature, there

them

who

was one

held a considerable majority in the state legis-

last

move: Goebel could contest the

results to the

Tracy Campbell

108

Amid

legislature.

charges of bribes being offered for legislators' votes,

Goebel claimed that fraud

way, the

had deprived him of his

in forty counties

By the end of January

office.

Deliver the Vote

/

1900, as the contest hearings were under

GOP had brought in over a thousand armed mountaineers to

the capital

city.

Democrats, meanwhile, vowed to fight force with

force.

On the

morning of January

ings, a shot

30, as

Goebel was walking

to the hear-

rang out. Goebel was hit with a single bullet to the chest.

Witnesses claimed the shot had come from a window in a building adjacent to the capitol, a

window

that

was located

retary of State Caleb Powers, a Republican critic.

Goebel was taken

to a local hotel,

Democrats were readying

for

in the office

and an outspoken Goebel

and

news spread, angry

as the

more gunfights and vowing revenge.

Goebel's condition was grave, and as he fought for his

committee of the

legislature

met once

On

again.

life,

the contest

a partisan vote, the

committee recommended that Goebel be declared governor. ished Taylor, realizing

how

of Sec-

An aston-

dangerous the situation was becoming,

announced that the General Assembly should meet

in

London,

a

Republican stronghold approximately a hundred miles to the south. Taylor remained in Frankfort, guarded by legislators

met the next

five

hundred

Frankfort.

As

the

Republicans fled to London, while

day.

Democrats, challenging Taylor's right to remove the defiantly in

militia.

capital,

That afternoon, the Democrats

remained called

a

quorum, and declared Goebel governor. The Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals quickly made swore in the dying ernors, It

and two

was

man

his

as governor.

legislatures

way

For a time, the

meeting in separate

a dangerous condition indeed.

and lawful ownership

to Goebel's hotel

Both

to the governor's chair;

other had acted unlawflilly and

vowed

had two gov-

cities.

sides claimed rightflil

both

sides claimed the

to fight for their

very end; both had their contingent of armed quiet streets of Frankfort. It

state

room and

man

to the

men ready for war in

was yet another

result

the

of an electoral

"The Holiest Institution of the American People"

109

system that was essentially broken, one where people did not trust the results

of an election. "Governor" Goebel's condition worsened, and on

February

3,

1900, only three days after being sworn

Goebel

in,

died,

the only governor in United States history to die while in office as a result

of an assassination (the peculiar circumstances of the events

caused the tortured wording of the claim). Democratic Lieutenant

Governor J. C.

W. Beckham

was sworn

in as governor

no voter would have imagined three months

situation

Taylor feared for his

life if

of Kentucky, a

earlier,

he did not resign and again asked Presi-

dent McKinley for help. But the president refused to send federal troops to a situation that Harper's Weekly called the "the greatest political crisis in its

any

state" since Reconstruction.

The

Outlook described to

readers the state of "anarchy" that existed in Kentucky.

decide the election?

Would

Who would

the result be respected? Taylor agreed that

the courts should have the fmal say and decided to submit the ultimate

question to a body that was seemingly above politics. The state s highest court, the

Court of Appeals, sided with the Democrats

Taylor's hold

in April,

on the governorship rested on an appeal

Supreme Court. Meanwhile, some Republican case to the U.S.

Court of Appeals

tion against the State Contest

officials

and

to the U.S.

had taken

their

in Cincinnati, asking for an injunc-

Board

in

some other

election issues.

Judge (and future president) William Howard Taft threw out the

case,

claiming there was no ground for federal interference with a state elec-

and that the

tion,

lican case

state courts

seemed weak,

would be the

at best, as

it

headed

final arbiter.

for the

The Repub-

Supreme Court.

When the nation's highest court handed down its decision, on May 21, 1900,

it

agreed with Judge Taft's assessment that the

federal courts, should decide the election, thereby tucl^^ court's decision. Taylor,

ment

as

lived the

The

with no options

life

not

upholding the Ken-

left

and under indict-

an accessory, fled the governor's mansion and the

remainder of his

states,

state,

and

(twenty-eight years) in Indianapolis.

partisan bitterness over the election remained for generations, as

Tracy Campbell

110

Republicans

felt

/

that the properly elected governor

out of office, while Democrats

felt

that the

Deliver the Vote

had been cheated

GOP had resorted to cold-

blooded murder. Sadly, tisans

both sides were

right.

As

the twentieth century dawned, par-

had ample reason to believe they would be cheated

election unless they were

at the next

wiUing to resort to disfranchisement or

stuffing baUot boxes. If that did not work, of course,

more extreme

measures were always available. This was a dangerous situation that

was not confined tucky.

The

tempt the

to

Wilmington, North Carolina, or Frankfort, Ken-

culture of corruption thrived everywhere.

The

utter con-

parties displayed for each other reinforced the latent disdain

they each had developed for the democratic process.

Part Two

The Struggle to Reelaim

Democracy

Chapter Five

How to

Steal an Election

"God damn

the law,

iive're

Democrats."

institution not

known

a Louisville

munic-

Court of Appeals, an In 1907, the Kentucky threw out the of for

its

radicalism,

ipal election

No

entire results

from two years

earlier.

In the ruling, the court concluded,

people can be said to govern themselves whose elections are

controlled by force, fear, or fraud.

govern themselves are

The

And

the people

who do

not

slaves.

events that led the court to take such action, and to use such lan-

guage, were indicative of the election practices in so

American

cities.

Yet scholars examining Gilded

never use the term slavery to depict the civic

Age

life

many

elections

other

would

of early twentieth-

century America. Instead, there exists a mind-numbing array of statistical

analyses that seek to provide the comforting scientific appraisal

that election fraud

was

a marginal influence throughout the land. Yet

— Tracy Campbell

114

for the people

comfort and

of Louisville, such

what they faced when they went Louisville

is

provided

on-the-ground

little

reality

of

to the polls.

not a location that one normally thinks of as a cesspool

of corruption. Quite the contrary, tralian ballot,

Deliver the Vote

statistical abstractions

to adequately describe the

fail

/

it is

as the city that

pioneered the Aus-

usually seen as progressive and mostly

many

the problems that plagued so

a border city in a border state

—

immune from

other areas. Louisville's location

places

it

at a certain crossroads

of the

country. Neither too northern nor too southern, neither too large a

metropolis nor too small a budding town or hamlet, tion to

examine

how one

election

was

it is

an ideal loca-

stolen.

"The Politic\l Filth of Louismlle" After Reconstruction, Louisville was Kentucky's largest city and the eighteenth largest in the nation. Between 1880 and 1900, the

population increased from 123,758 to 204,731. for

itan mixture that included

Democratic

African- Americans.

Politically, the

trolled the city as the

winner of the

city's

city relied heavily

economic base and had

on Ohio River commerce

its

The

Democratic party

War

Civil

Democratic primaries was

a

cosmopol-

and Republican

Irish Catholics

memories of the

city's

effectively

persisted,

effectively the

con-

and the

winner of

the general election in November.

Throughout the 1880s, ulent city elections.

To

Louisville

correct the

had experienced

problem of

repeaters, a Louisville

representative, Albert StoU, introduced a bill in the ture calling for

mandatory

a series of fraud-

Kentucky

registration in Louisville. Stoll told the

assembly that "repeating and fraudulent voting are so Louisville that "a law for the registration of voters greatest part of the evil." effect

on reforming the

legisla-

His

bill

process.

became law

Three years

common"

in

would remove the

in 1884, but

later, in a

it

had no

blatantly corrupt

HowtoStealanElection

mayoral dates

race, a plot

on the

poll

115

was uncovered whereby the names of the candi-

books were purposely situated so close together that

corrupt clerks could place a easily detected.

One

mark

half the battle."

'fixed,' that's

called the

Commonwealth Club it

wrong column without being

insider understood that "you

the clerks

tion stated

in the

A

must be

sure

and get

self-appointed committee

overseeing the 1887 municipal elec-

was "thoroughly disgusted" with the methods used

manipulate and

steal votes.

Henry Watterson,

to

publisher of the local

newspaper the Courier-Journal, concluded that the election "was without parallel in the history of LouisviUe for fraud and corruption."

One

of the members of the 1887 committee was Arthur Wallace, a

Louisville state representative. After reading an article

on the new

secret ballot system used in Australia, Wallace approached

some

area

judges to see whether a law mandating such a system could pass constitutional muster in Kentucky. Wallace's biU could not be applied

amending the

to the entire state without

affected Louisville's municipal contests only. tion BiU" quietly first

became law

state constitution, so

When the "Wallace Elec-

in February 1888, Louisville

municipality in the nation to adopt the

inaugural municipal election in

it

became the

new voting method. At its

December 1888, the

Courier-Journal

proclaimed proudly "the election was a quiet one, and the Wallace law stood

its first test

very

fairly."

A

claimed that the election "was the

known which was not bought vinced.

The

new

ballot.

outright." Yet not everyone

"The best of men weep over

WhaUen,

a

have ever

was so con-

it

and wipe

young burlesque theater owner,

became the acknowledged king of as

I

and write a subscription to the election fund."

the 1890s, John

Known

municipal election

"As to vote buying, there seems to be no

solution," the paper claimed.

By

first

Courier-Journal noted that vote-selling was stiU practiced,

even with the

their eyes

LouisviUian writing in the Nation

Louisville's

"Napoleon" by some of his cronies,

served as courier to Confederate General John

Democratic

a teenage

party.

WhaUen had

Hunt Morgan and had

Tracy Campbell

116

moved

to Louisville after the

war

Whallen and

Theater. In 1880,

to

Deliver the Vote

/

co-manage the Metropolitan

his brother

Jim opened the Buck-

ingham Theater, which soon became widely known

for

its

bawdy per-

formances. Described glowingly by one supporter as one

gathered about trols

him

a large

with extraordinary

skill

"has

and formidable following," that "he conand

ability,"

WhaUen

understood that the

of political power rested in controlling elections. In a dis-

real source

creet understatement, the supporter also noted

"powerful at the poUs," and that to station

who

them

weU-known

WhaUen "understands

to the best advantage."

center of

WhaUen's

forces are

The Buckingham was

community support

in times

how

right well

also a

of economic

crises

or natural disasters, which, of course, was one of the foundations of

WhaUen's popular

WhaUen opened

appeal.

FoUowing one especiaUy hard winter storm, to his theater

where

$25,000 in groceries and coal were distributed

gratis

LouisviUians. real center

a

commissary next

WhaUen

of the

a reported

needy

to

once boasted that his burlesque theater was the

city's

poUtical apparatus, a place that he once

described candidly as "the poUtical sewer through which the poUtical filth

of LouisviUe runs."

In his memoirs, Arthur Krock, a LouisviUe native, recaUed that in

most poUtical meetings held by WhaUen,

"it

was customary that the

LouisviUe poUce be represented," because, according to Krock, the

poUce "had put

it

to

know

the nominating and electing

game plan

.

.

.

and

documentary knowledge of

into operation. This often required

the peccadiUoes and worse of the aspiring poUticians, especiaUy those

who were more

RepubUcans." This knowledge, Krock understood, "was

powerfiil than their night[sticks]."

"We Were WhaUen that

Che.\ted on Every Side"

ensured his control over the

city's

made him unique among American

election

machinery

in

ways

poUtical bosses. In 1892, for

How

TO Steal an Election

example,

117

when Whallen was

for city chancellor

would

confident that his handpicked candidate

lose in a party primary,

he urged the party to

adopt a rather unorthodox method of voting. These primaries, which

were exempt from many election laws and the secret cially ripe for fraud.

canvass,

Whallen's

new method

ballot,

involved a house-to-house

which Whallen proudly claimed was "superior

forms of primary elections." His plan required

on one of two nights

were espe-

for a three-hour period.

all

all

other

voters to be at

home

to

To Whallen, this method

would "remove the crowding of voters into small spaces where money, and bullying can get

in their work." In effect, the

franchised nearly five thousand of the

city's

liquor,

maneuver dis-

13,108 eligible Democratic

voters due to residence changes or to the fact that they simply could not

be located or were not

home

at

at the

appointed times. Even more,

door-to-door canvassing had the intended effect of properly ensuring that a bought vote

was appropriately cast, and the threat of losing

job or services certainly permeated the exchange.

A critical newspaper

was appalled by WhaUen's hubris, charging that he had "gone ther than he ever

went

members wished

before." If party

in "a conspiracy as far reaching as

it is

walked upon and spat upon by such

a city

a step far-

to participate

shameless, they deserve to be

men as WhaUen."

After temporarily losing control of city government in the mid

Whallen reappeared, helping

1890s,

his

the mayor's race, due in large part to a

hand-picked candidate win

new method employed by

fol-

lowers of Whallen: police intimidation of African- American voters.

When

a

prominent African-American attorney attempted to

was confronted by biUies

and

I will

a police officer

wear

this

who

told him, "I have

worn

vote,

one out on you." Less violent means, such

clerks slowly checking registration

lists,

meant those wishing

he

out four as

to vote in

the heavily African-American Ninth and Tenth wards often waited

hours to cast a ballot.

Of course, many

reached the front of the

line,

found that before they had

the poUs had closed. In one precinct, the

noon. (The Courier-Journal, never one

poUs were not opened until

after

to question allegations of

Democratic wrongdoing, blamed

a

drunk

Tracy Campbell

118

Republican election

he had

lost nearly

officer.)

The

side."

Deliver the Vote

losing mayoral candidate concluded

4,500 votes in these

were cheated on every

/

alone and concluded 'we

vv^ards

Without the strong arm of the

police,

Whallen's machine could not have controlled Louisville's elections.

WhaUen's cronies used other methods turnout

among African-Americans. By

Americans city's

living in Louisville

to fight the Republican

1900, the 28,651 African-

comprised nearly fourteen percent of the

population. Although Democrats had not legally disfranchised

African-Americans in Kentucky

as

Deep

they had throughout the

South, electoral intimidation and fraud remained potent tools in the

hands of people such

as

WhaUen. The

historian

George C. Wright

wrote that Whallen hired black "shadies" to form Negro Democratic Clubs, which were Uttle more than instruments of organized intimidation of African- American voters, and concluded that "Negro thugs, as

much as anything else, kept many blacks from viewing the Democrats

as a respectable party."

When that tactic failed, WhaUen resorted to the

weU-tested strategy of appeaUng to white supremacy and the fears of

what Republican victories might bring to

Louisville's racial climate.

Whallen's forces in the Democratic primary of 1899 employed a daring technique to keep the opposition vote down. Pat Grimes, a saloon owner

and Whallen

crony, installed a "portable voting place" in a train car near

the convergence of the 11th and 12th wards.

The Whallen

forces

feared a heavy turnout from this area for an anti-Whallen candidate.

So, as

Grimes considered

these votes

would be

it,

a particularly skillful

to simply

move

the car

way

to diminish

away when long

lines

of

voters developed.

Yet when

it

became

resorted to an even tion.

clear that his candidates

more audacious

party's central

Whallen simply annulled the primary

altogether. Following this election,

member of the

self-described

one

WhaUen

on the afternoon of the

Acting under the auspices of the Democratic

mittee,

a

tactic

were traiHng,

election

elec-

com-

results

local blacksmith claimed that

"Honest Election League" had given

HowtoStealanElection

him cash

to

buy

votes.

119

Within the

the blacksmith, were tables

full

office

of the League, according to

of stacks of money.

The man who was

doling out the funds was Arthur Wallace, the author of Louisville's Australian ballot

By

bill

eleven years

the early 1900s, then,

John Whallen directed the Democratic

But he was not without

machine

in Louisville.

the

Republican stalwarts,

city's

Whallen using the

resented

earlier.

as well as a

opponents among

number of Democrats who apparatus to increase his

city's political

personal wealth and political power. The

his

city's

GOP also grew increasAn

ingly frustrated with Democratic electoral practices.

1903 contained more than registered

falsely

voters,

its

usual share of

moved

election in

precincts

and

excluded duly chosen election officers

replaced by Whallen cronies, and stuffed baUot boxes. Eighteen strong

Republican precincts were also moved on Election Day. Not surprisingly, these precincts

returned Democratic majorities such as 243 to

5.

In the Sixth Ward, a Democratic challenger questioned the credentials

men waiting in line. He was soon approached by one police officer who told him "You damn fool, those niggers you're throwing out isn't Republicans; they're our own of nearly twenty-five African- American

repeaters!"

hoped

Although some members of the Democratic party had

to "put

failed.

A

WhaUen

thoroughly disgusted Evening Post concluded that the

"audacity of the steal

With rats

out of business" with this election, their efforts

is its

most astonishing

feature."

the 1903 election fresh in their minds, disenchanted

Democ-

joined with angry Republicans to form a Fusionist party which,

with

its

combined

strength,

candidate, Paul Barth, in the objective

was simple:

hoped

to defeat the

upcoming 1905

Democratic mayoral

election.

"to destroy the system or political

The

Fusionists'

machine which

has brought such evil to our City, and the perpetuation of which fraught with menace for the future."

The

so

Fusionists struggled for a

candidate of their own. In their canvass, Joseph front-runner.

is

T

O'Neal was the

During the Fusion convention, O'Neal's nomination

Tracy Campbell

120

Deliver the Vote

/

apparently was defeated 111-109, but the convention's chairman,

Alfred Seligman, announced that O'Neal was affirmed 119-111,

simply giving him an additional ten votes. According to Robert

Bingham,

several newspapers

W.

and former mayor George Todd "threat-

ened to expose the fraud underlying the whole thing" but decided to remain

quiet.

With

combined

their

strength, the Fusionists posed a

WhaUen's hold on the

significant threat to

city.

Nothing Short of Revolutionary Tactics Election

Day fraud

can begin with fraud on registration day. Someone

registered illegally can then vote "legally."

employed area criminals tering,

and understood that the

dual effect:

It

voters, thus easier.

day.

to intimidate

African-Americans from

illegal registration

making the job of also

used

challenges were

Democratic attempts to

its

many

rolls

control of the police Fusionists to

on

legal

much

controlling the election that

made by

regis-

of "repeaters" had a

could potentially crowd off from the

The machine

When

The Whallen machine

registration

some questionable

register, a Louisville police officer

named

Roman Leachman

threatened the challengers on several occasions.

Leachman shouted

that if an official "refuses to register another

I

wiU smash him

in the

head and kiU him and

his carcass into the street; cial

meekly inquired

revealing language

if

I

will

come and throw

he doesn't amount to anything."

Leachman was overstepping

Leachman underscored

man,

his

One

offi-

bounds, and in

the reason for the police

presence at the registration booths: "To hell with you. This means

nothing to your crowd, and means four years for me, and of course

am

going to look out for

my own

interests."

The

next day. Fusion

workers were simply thrown out of their polling places and ratic officials seized registration

Papers in

St.

I

books and completed them

Democ-

in private.

Louis warned the citizens of Louisville that eighty

How

TO Steal an Election

"practical politicians"

under

false

names.

121

were doing their work, repeatedly registering

The paper

"would work

stated that the repeaters

wonders increasing the population of Louisville." By padding the with thousands of illegal voters, the machine was

now prepared

rolls

to "get

out the vote" in November.

Roman Leachman was

not the only policeman working during the

registration period to steal the election.

When the Fusionist Arthur D,

Allen complained of irregularities in one precinct. Officer Jack McAu-

knocked him unconscious and threw him

liffe

in

jail.

A

thoroughly

unsympathetic Kentucky Irish-American alleged that Allen had "made a

movement

as if to

draw

a weapon,"

whereupon Officer McAuliffe

gallantly "hit Allen with his club rather than shooting him." Later that day,

Allen was convicted of disorderly conduct. In considering

counter police intimidation, a

member of one of the

city's

accompUsh the purpose." polls

He

favored taking a dozen or so

men

to the

on Election Day, armed with "concealed weapons or shotguns."

In the Tenth Ward, a Fusionist registration officer

O'Mara

O'Mara claimed

Democratic committeeman for the Tenth offered

O'Mara

first sip,

a glass

O'Mara

that

Ward and

falling in." After

being led to a

O'Mara was then taken

paper,

O'Mara

chair,

I

O'Mara

He had been drugged to make

easier to steal his registration records. After several

his records taken.

a

a saloon owner,

found myself whirling around and

understood what had happened.

confusion,

John Keane,

of lemonade on registration day. Seconds after

recalled "I

thought the house was finally

named WiUiam

discovered the extent to which the Democrats would go to

corrupt the registration process.

it

leading fam-

suggested "nothing short of revolutionary tactics in Louisville will

ilies

the

how to

minutes of dazed

outside where he was assaulted and

When he saw the "official" roll printed in the

news-

discovered that over sixty-five names had been added

to his registration

lists.

Charles Schuff, the county

sheriff,

knew

that the key to neutralizing

the Republican vote was in keeping large numbers of African- American

Tracy Campbell

122

Deliver the Vote

away on Election Day. SchufF revealed that over 2,500 African-

voters

American away

/

registration certificates

in a safe where, in Schuff

s

had been bought and were tucked words, "we can control them."

money could also be used to purchase someone's

non-participation.

The

One

African- American resident, William Moore, later testified that he was

Reducing the turnout was

offered $2.00 to not register. stealing the election as

was intimidating voters and

as critical to

stuffing ballots

boxes.

The 1905

election also revealed the dynamics behind those election

who were

officers

toral process.

charged with being neutral referees of the

Of 356

election officers in Louisville's twelve wards, 89,

or one quarter, either

having

relatives

listed as

who

city's elec-

worked

did

so.

for the city or county, or

were

listed as

Another 48 workers, or 13 percent, were

"gamblers" or "bartenders." Fusionists understood that

if those

responsible for ensuring the legality of the election had a vested interest in the election's outcome, or

owned

saloons where

much of the

tioneering occurred, chances of another stolen election

loomed

elec-

high.

"All Elections Require Money" In order for

all

of the corrupt figures in the Louisville election to do

their jobs properly,

money was

a necessity.

oral race provides a rare opportunity to see

in a

The 1905

LouisviUe may-

how much money was

used

Gilded Age municipal election. Bank records revealed that the

Democratic Campaign Fund had deposits of over $69,000 between

August 31, 1905, and Election Day times the

show

amount of the

in early

November, nearly three

Fusionist fund. Furthermore, those records

that during registration

week

in early October,

$22,290 was

withdrawn, and on Election Day, another $23,360 was removed from the account.

been

in the

By the end of November,

all

of the $72,612.50 which had

campaign fund had been depleted.

How

123

TO Steal AN Election

Fred R. Bishop, treasurer of the Democratic campaign fund, described

how he went

later

about raising these funds. Candidates for var-

ious city offices were to contribute ten percent of their current city salary,

while police officers contributed according to their rank:

The

police chief gave $125; lieutenants, $50;

and patrolmen, $32. Other

employees were expected to give

percent of their earnings to

city

five

the fund. Bishop added that no threats were necessary to secure these

sums and dismissed suggestions that

his efforts served to corrupt the

system. "All elections require money," Bishop claimed. "You can't have

an election without

it."

The manner in which The fund

actually

the campaign fund was spent was instructive.

had nothing

to

do with printing campaign buttons

or distributing placards, and everything to do with manipulating votes.

The Campaign Committee

instructed Bishop

on how much

to give

each ward on the night preceding registration day. Bishop was

Was

there a verbal

money? "No,"

said Bishop, "it

versed in the nuances of conducting elections.

understanding

was not necessary that spending large tain nearly $2,500

particular

how

as to

to disburse the

to have an understanding at an election,"

sums "has on

to be done."

election eve.

weU

When

adding

Bishop gave one ward cap-

Bishop was asked

why

that

amount, he casually replied because that ward had "very near

7,000 votes." The larger the ward, the larger the amount given to each

ward

captain.

On

Election

Day

itself,

periodically for

more

cash.

tributed

ward and precinct captains would return

The method by which

the

was not done with exacting accounting

simply related that whenever a captain came they have to have,

I

give

it

to them."

was not Bishop's concern. In

how much

fact,

What

in,

money was

precision.

dis-

Bishop

"whatever they say

they did with the

money

he never even recorded in his ledger

he distributed. Afterward, Bishop simply burned

all

of his

election records entirely because, in his understated words, "election

business

is

not good stuff to have laying around."

— Tracy Campbell

124

After acquiring the

what

to

officers

do with

and

it.

money from

They

in helping the

Deliver the Vote

money paying

city police

day off to perform various chores

Democrats. More than twenty percent of the

fighters claimed they

knew

Bishop, the ward captains

spent part of their

firefighters to take the

/

city's fire-

were sick on Election Day and were put to use

on behalf of the Democratic campaign. The Evening Post understood the degree to which the pohce force was an officer,

arm of the machine. Each

the paper revealed, was required to register from his residence

three to seven "phantom" voters.

came from the houses of

AH told, 313

illegally registered voters

John Quinn

police or firemen. Officer

boasted that he had personally purchased over two hundred registration certificates from the

went

Tenth Ward.

to the 14th Precinct in the Fifth

tion officer

who had taken

cratic challenger to leave

Ward

W.

A. Jones

Fusion elec-

was told by the Demo-

immediately. Jones refused, and he was

witnesses to the beating, none

men

Rev.

to replace a

a leave for lunch, he

attacked by Police Officer Willis Alien.

Fusionists placed

When The

Even though Jones had

would corroborate

his account.

three

When

with cameras in various precincts, for example,

an angry Police Chief Sebastian Gunther ordered his

men

to "drive

every son of a bitch off the street that has a camera."

"The Wagon That Stole Our Rights"

On

election eve, an estimated 10,000 people gathered at the court-

house to support the Fusionist candidates. At the gathering, the theme of the various speakers was consistent: Be the Democrats. During the meeting,

some angry

obviously in the pocket of the Democrats writing

down the names of those

The Democrats attended.

alert for election fraud

by

police officers

—waded through the crowd,

in attendance as visibly as they could.

held a simultaneous

rally,

yet only a handful of voters

How

125

TO Steal an Election

When

the polls opened, voters in several wards could not vote

because of an insufficient supply of ballots. In the Tenth Ward, voters in the 31st Precinct could not vote until shortly before

noon because

the election commissioners had not arrived. In other areas, legal voters

were denied their franchise in apparently

"legal"

terms.

Lucius

Alexander, an African-American in the Fifth Ward, tried to vote, but

when he approached I

couldn't vote."

the poll, "they said the

Had

he been able to do

have voted Fusionist, and added:

"I

name had done voted, and

never voted no other kind of ticket

but the straight Republican ticket ever since

More

have been able to vote."

I

blatant examples existed as well. In the 38th Precinct of the

Third Ward, three armed loaded

Alexander said he would

so,

it

on

a

men

wagon and

simply took the ballot box at gunpoint,

carried

it

away. Afterward, one African-

American resident of the precinct saw the wagon the

culprits

used in

carrying the box and remarked, in words that poignantly underscored

what had occurred,

"that looks like the

wagon

that stole our rights."

In the Sixth Ward, Police Officer John Enright refused to allow a

number of properly registered African- Americans lived in a "disreputable place."

to vote because they

When their landlord came

them, Enright switched to a different

by refusing them entry

to the polls.

vouch

for

of reasoning, admitting

line

frankly "these Negroes ought to be disfranchised." that

to

He

then did just

Others told Enright that

as

an officer of the court, he was pledged to uphold the law, to which Enright sneered: "To hell with the law, what do

I

care for the law?"

and

proclaimed that no African- Americans were allowed to vote on his watch: "None of their

damn

color shall vote here."

When pressed that

he was exceeding his authority, Enright replied: "By God,

through

this thing before; I

know what

I

am

I

have been

doing."

In the Tenth Ward, PoUce Officers Lee Speed and James

J.

Tierney

allowed elderly voters brought to the polls on omnibuses from the Little Sister

of the Poor

Home

other voters patiently waiting in

to vote immediately, at the expense of line.

When

some of these

voters took

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

126

who had been waiting since One observer counted between

ten minutes each to cast their vote, others shortly before 6:00 A.M. simply

twenty-five and thirty get to their jobs.

left.

men who left before voting, because they had to

When

Tierney was questioned about allowing the

elderly voters in ahead of

many who had been

waiting for nearly four

hours, he angrily raised his club and threatened anyone challenging

the vote. B.

M.

Rivers, a Republican challenger in the Fifth

shocked when he challenged a

Ward, was

and was sum-

voter's qualifications

marily ignored by Democratic election officers. Rivers turned to his to cite his legal authority in election challenges. Pat

books

statute

Hartnett, the Democratic challenger, expressed nothing short of outright

contempt

for the statute

the events of the day:

books

"God damn

In the Twelfth Ward, a former

in a language that underscored

the law,

we

are

member of the

Democrats!" fire

department and

devout Whallenite, John Barry, pulled a pistol on an election worker

and demanded the

ballot books.

With

the help of three policemen,

Barry took the books to another location, swore in his

own

election

workers, and proceeded to stuff ballot boxes with hundreds of his votes.

Another Republican challenger

in

own

the Twelfth Ward, Henry

Fundstine, took a more charitable approach to the matter of allowing "repeaters" to vote.

When

one of his friends named Kinney came in

and attempted to vote under the name of "Burns," Fundstine asked

how Kinney people spell

spelled his last it

name. Kinney winked and said "some

'B-Y-R-N-E-S.' To which

all

Fundstine could do was

allow Kinney to go in and vote. "Kinney needed the

want

to beat

needed

it.

money and I

him out of it," Fundstine remarked, adding

He

is

a

man

get the $2.00. It did

that can't

work hard and

him more good than

it

I let

"I

didn't

knew he

him go on and

would do me

for

him not

to vote."

Throughout the tured from the

day, John Whallen kept a

Buckingham on

lican challenger,

at least

Tony Giuliano, went

low profile, though he ven-

one occasion. When the Repub-

to his precinct in the Sixth

he was met by several men, including Whallen,

who

Ward,

asked Giuliano to

How

127

TO Steal an Election

Upon Giuliano's return, done swore a man in your place and

check on another challenger's whereabouts.

Whallen informed him "we have

man in the other man's place." Giuliano protested, but Whallen simply told him "the best thing for you to do is to get out of here." One another

of the

new

election officers

Whallen had summarily

morning was Roman Leachman, the

police officer

installed that

who had so

conspic-

uously intimidated prospective voters on registration day.

"Frauds Open and Brazen" While

Fusionists were outraged at the blatant theft, the Democratic

Courier-Journal glowingly reported the official results of the election the following day: Barth had beaten O'Neal by 19,645 to 16,557 (a

margin that eventually expanded to 4,826

votes).

A

humble Barth

stated he could not attribute the victory to himself, but gave thanks "to

the loyal support of the unswerving Democrats of this tion

was not without

its

city."

The

elec-

share of election problems, according to the

paper, noting that Fusionists were allegedly

armed with

clubs

and ax

handles and were committing outrageous acts of violence upon unsuspecting and innocent Democrats.

The

following day, the Courier-

Journal editoriaUzed on the results of the election with prose that

marks the end of many stolen

elections:

All things considered [the election] was as free of disturbances as

could be expected

become

.

.

that the beaten party should cry "fraud" has

a matter of course; the fairest

among them, however, and

—conscious of own shortcomings and seeing both medicine and take of the record—have been disposed

the manlier sides

.

their

to

their

abide by the result.

The of

Fusionists refused to go away. Calling themselves the

One Hundred,"

"Committee

they organized to raise the necessary funds to

Tracy Campbell

128

Deliver the Vote

/

contest the election and "take the poUce out of poHtics." Leading the Fusionist campaign

with James

P.

was Helm Bruce,

Helm, Alex

Barrett,

and William Marshall

began deposing hundreds of witnesses in preparing

Had

the Jefferson Chancery Court.

it

Bullitt,

their case before

not been for Bruce, the 1905

would have quickly faded away

Louisville election

who, along

a Louisville attorney,

as

another anec-

dotal episode of some "alleged election irregularities" in an obscure city election

where frauds on both

because of his

efforts, the

exposed in graphic

illegal registrants

inner workings of the 1905 race were

investigation, a review of the city's registra-

some of the had

buying was not done

fliU

voted in the

discreetly.

by four house

offered

illegal registrations

Eleventh

Street

seen.

who owned

a ten-

Ward,

First

The going

790

vote-

to swear that five

was $9 per person. One

a

to give Peoples $75,

Democratic

sheriff,

registration

men

day

lived in the

rate, it

poll official,

told

seems, for

Walter Peo-

a one-vote

had

Enos Huff. Huff's

offer

was

keep $25 for himself, and for Peoples to give the

margin

in the heavily

Republican precinct. In the Twelfth tered voters

the

in

least

he had been offered $100 in the 15th Precinct of the

Ward by

Democrats

him $45

Godfrey had never

ples, testified

Godfrey,

At

The open

had been approached shortly before

men who

whom

extent of the fraud.

mayoral election.

Thomas J.

ement house on East Jefferson investigators he

But

detail.

At the beginning of the tion Hsts revealed

sides cancelled each other out.

tried to vote but

Ward

African-American and

alone,

830 properly

regis-

were unable because no ballots had

been supplied.

The Republican Evening-Post wrote

lyrically

fraud in Barth's election. There was evidence

of the breadth of the

of:

frauds perpetrated by repeaters; frauds due to conspiracies; frauds in

the count; frauds

consummated only by

violence; frauds

open and

brazen; frauds subtle and silent; frauds in the third, frauds in the

HowtoStealanElection

129

town and frauds such

tenth; frauds in respectable parts of

might expect

March

In

contest.

in the

Red Light

one

as

District.

1907, the Jefferson Chancery Court ruled on the election

By

2-1 margin, Judges Shackleford Miller and Samuel B.

a

BCirby refused to overturn the election, saying that fraud

was undoubt-

edly a major factor in the Democratic victories, but that such corruption affected only nine percent of the vote, not

the results entirely. Judges

enough

to invalidate

MiUer and Kirby concluded

that in the

Twelfth Ward, "many of the Democrats behaved very badly, but the place to deal with

The

them

is

in the criminal

and not

in the civil courts."

decision did not lack for political machinations.

supported Judge MiUer in his

first

election to the

Whallen had

Chancery Court

in

1897. Miller returned the favor the following year by deciding a case for a

Whallen

that allowed the city to purchase land from

courthouse annex.

MiUer

The

Not

Whallen

for

Whallen firmly supported

surprisingly,

in his reelection bid in 1903. court's decision

was not surprising

to thoughtfiil observers of

Louisville's court system. In the previous three years,

election cases brought before the Jefferson

of eighty-seven

County Circuit Court, only

one resulted in a conviction, an African-American

who was

given a

six-month sentence in the workhouse for violating election laws. In

some of these as

cases, police officers involved in the

Roman Leachman and Martin Donahue, had

1905

election, such

their charges dis-

missed. Bruce and his partners appealed the Chancellors' ruling to the

Kentucky Court of Appeals, the posed of

five

As

undoing the

The

highest court, which was

Democrats and one Republican. Throughout

Mayor Barth and test appeal.

state's

his cohorts ran the city

the

results

months and

years

with

went

little

comit

aU,

regard for the con-

by, the realistic

chances of

of the 1905 election grew increasingly sHm.

court's actions only verified

corrupt political system.

"We

what some saw

as a

thoroughly

have the best election laws and the worst

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

130

Lafon Allen of the Municipal

possible elections in Louisville," said Voters' League.

"Such

a thing as

Louisville," Allen concluded, "it is

an honest election

We

unknown

in

adding that part of the problem was that

man

impossible in our city to have a

election.

is

convicted for stealing an

have no confidence in our judges."

The Triumph of Democracy In April 1907, seventeen months after the election, Kentucky's high court finally heard the case. Arguing for overturning the election,

William

M.

Bullitt asked the court, "Are elections to

way? If we cannot get tion

where

When

a court

of equity could give

can you conceive of any elec-

relief?" Bullitt

trial,

magic words

"I

concluded:

Roman

the Apostle Paul was scourged by the

without a

this

relief in this case,

be carried that

Captain

he made that Captain quake with fear with the

am

a

Roman

Citizen." The citizens of Louisville ask

high tribunal that they should make the word "citizen" in Ken-

tucky as sacred

as

it

was

in the days

they ask that you say once and for

Roman Empire

of the all

that policemen shall be taught once

.

.

and

that the policemen have

Roman government

greater right than a Captain of the

.

and

for

all

no

had, and

that they are not

excused from wrongdoings.

Bullitt presented the court

Ballot." In

He

it,

with a chart he

titled

"The Rape of the

he concluded that 6,296 voters had been disfranchised.

was countered by Joe C. Dodd, representing the Democrats, who campaign had been "designed

told the court that the Fusionist

fraud,

backed up by

adjourned, Whallenites

vilification

who had

"muttered threats" against

Bullitt.

and abuse."

When

traveled to Frankfort

Yet the

"real bosses,"

the

in

court

made some according to

How

131

TO Steal an Election

the Evening Post, "realize that any act of violence at this time

have disastrous

would

results."

On May 22, 1907, the Court of Appeals issued a stunning ruling. By a 4-2

vote, the court agreed

with the Fusionists that the election had been

marked by overwhelming evidence of illegal registrations, destroyed ballots,

stolen ballot boxes, alphabetical voting,

to the court's ruling

and police violence. Central

was overturning the Chancery Court's finding that

not enough ballots had been stolen to affect the outcome of the election.

The majority opinion, written by Judge John B. Lassing, stated: The

force

and violence used by the partisans under the protection

of the police; the pernicious activity of the police themselves in and about the polling places, coupled with the large number of votes

shown

to have

been

cast,

we

sion that a "free and fair" election

The Court of Appeals went

illegal

are led to the inevitable conclu.

.

.

was not

a flirther step,

held.

and agreed with

Bullitt that

6,292 voters had been disfranchised in the election, more than enough to overturn the election's results.

The

court thundered:

We cannot feel that our duty in this case insisting that

it

is

is

fully

performed without

absolutely necessary for the preservation of a

democratic form of government, that the right of suffrage should be free

and untrammeled.

No

people can be said to govern themselves

whose

elections are controlled

people

who do

by

force, fear, or fraud.

And

the

not govern themselves are slaves.

Finding that the methods used by the Democrats were "abhorrent to the spirit of our civilization and our Government," the court

sum-

marily overturned the results of the 1905 city election and ordered Louisville municipal offices vacated immediately.

Beckham was

given authority to

name an

Governor

J.

C.

all

W.

interim mayor and other city

Tracy Campbell

132

/

Deliver the Vote

Following the decision by the Kentucky Court of Appeals that overturned the 1905 Louisville election, this cartoon depicts a disappointed

angry

member of the crowd

officeholders until a delirious

Democratic machine that echoed "Casey

says "Kill the umpire." Credit: Louisville

new election

could be held in

Evening Post claimed that with such

a

at the Bat."

Evening

November 1907.

that the ruling

would "put heart

are fighting against the tyranny

A

"triumph of democ-

com-

racy," the ruling restored "self government to Louisville." Outlook

mented

One

Post.

into those everywhere

who

of political corruption."

Governor Beckham quickly appointed Robert

W. Bingham

to

fill

the mayor's post. Bingham, coincidentally, had been elected county attorney in 1905 and was one of those removed by the Court of

Appeals' ruling. In his brief tenure,

Bingham worked to expose some of

the machine's corruption within city government.

movement gone and oral

nominee,

Owen Tyler,

relatively quiet election in

lost to

elections

Republican James

November 1907

term. Yet the real test of whether its

With

the Fusion

the poUs under close watch, the Democratic

WhaUen

F.

may-

Grinstead in a

to complete Barth's original still

controlled the city and

would come in the next regular election in November 1909.

How

133

TO Steal an Election

A City of White With

People

the Court of Appeals' decision fresh in the minds of the

Whallen could not depend on the usual methods

voters,

to ensure vic-

tory for his partisans in the 1909 mayor's race. Rather, reverted to white supremacy for his drive to office.

The day before

page a

letter

city's

Whallen

win back the mayor's

the election, the Courier-Journal ran on

its

supposedly written by an local African- American

front

named

"Pinky" to other members of a fictitious group called the "Young

Men's Colored Republican Club." In the republican party wins this after a

fall

letter,

we will have

"Pinky" wrote "if the

everything" and

vowed

that

Republican victory "people of our color will be on an equality

with any

dam

[sic\

white person."

blatant race-baiting worked.

It

was an obvious

forgery, but such

The Kentucky Irish-American^ an

ment of the Whallen machine, posed

"Do you want Negro domination

the case plainly for

or do you

its

want LouisviUe

a city of white people, for the white people,

to

instru-

readers:

remain

and governed by white

WiUiam O. Head told a crowd of he had seen a black man in charge of

people?" Campaigning for mayor,

white German-Americans that

some white workers on

a city street.

"A negro was bossing them around

and was cussing one of the men." Head implored, "Do you want that condition of affairs to continue in this city?"

The

majority of nearly 1,700

good part of said: "I

won by 2,316 votes, with a votes in the Twelfth Ward accounting for a On election night, a very satisfied WhaUen

following day, Whallen's candidate

his victory.

went

into this fight to

win

.

.

.

and the good people of

LouisviUe rallied to our support with unswerving devotion." The jubilant

new mayor

told

Whallen, "The people were with us in

this fight

and your work has been wonderful." Then, Whallen and Judge Shackleford Miller,

shook hands his brother

gusted

who had

in victory.

won

Bingham

decided for the Democrats in 1905,

Whallen had another reason

almost $10,000 in election wagers.

to smile.

He

and

A thoroughly dis-

reflected that with the return of the "old corrupt

and

Tracy Campbell

134

vicious

Democratic

/

Deliver the Vote

now

ring," that "conditions here

are as bad, if

not

worse, than they have ever been."

For African- Americans living in Louisville, the 1909 vote taught

them everything they needed highest court

may have

know about

to

After winning the mayor's

African-Americans off the

The on the

return to city's

The

state's

invalidated election theft in the 1905 race, but

race-baiting in 1909 accomplished

tion to the city's

elections.

office, city's

what

stolen ballots could not do.

Head and

payroll

the Democrats kept

and even extended segrega-

jail.

power of the WhaUenites

police force.

By

also

had one tangible

1908, of fifty-two officers

affect

who had been

implicated in some form of election fraud, twenty-four had been dis-

missed from the force, and eight more had resigned,

Roman Leachman. One

local

newspaper declared that the police

themselves were particularly pleased with the politics

since they

Democratic

would no longer have

November 1909,

power,

of the fired

duties.

Some,

like

officers

Officer Steve

machine and the

The

city's

Wickham, alliance

in fact,

between

police force,

The 1905

money

WhaUenites returned

to lengthy careers

no penalties

and

to

to

later

at all for their

had been promoted

to cap-

Louisville's corrupt political

which served

ment of fraud on Election Day, remained

"Louisville Is

in city

were suddenly reappointed to their

Frank BuddeU, went on

tain in July 1907.

to contribute

shortly after the

received their city pensions. Others suffered activities.

new dynamics

"do humiliating deeds for the Courier-Journah

coffers, or

crowd." In six

among them

as a

powerful instru-

intact.

Not a Hardened Sinner"

election

and

its

aftermath was not an isolated incident in

Louisville's electoral history. In

1923 and 1925, the same dynamics

played out, complete with stories of "concentration camps" where

How

135

TO Steal an Election

repeaters

—the "Go Get 'Em Boys"— were taught

officials,

and with the Court of Appeals

later

ernments based on blatantly fraudulent rebuke of

its

elections in

concluded,

"No

reflections

on

"Louisville

is

what took

city

throwing out

elections.

two decades, the

New

With

by party

city

gov-

the third

York Evening World

with any self-respect can indefinitely stand such

The

integrity."

civic

its

their trade

Courier-Journal disagreed:

not a hardened sinner, and neither defends nor condones

Unlike other

place."

cities,

the paper noted, at least

Louisville could boast "that the crooks don't always get

Considering

that

all

had happened, the

rich,

his election crimes.

and never spent

When

a

it."

Louisville story offers the

distressing conclusion that the crooks mostly did get

Whallen grew

away with

day in

jail

he died in 1913,

away with

it.

or paid one cent for

his funeral procession

included over a hundred carriages of mourners, one of the largest in the history of the

brother Jim,

who

city.

His place

carried

as city boss

on the family

was assumed by

tradition.

When Jim

his

died in

1930, one of his pallbearers was none other than the Australian ballot reformer, Arthur Wallace.

"

Chapter Six

"The Lowest Layer of Corruption 9^

"/

kno'w

it

isn't right,

on for so long that

isoe

but this has been going

no longer looked upon

it

as a crime.

muckraker Lincoln 1905, Inwhich Rhode was

Steffens described the ways in

the

essentially "a state for sale." Steffens por-

Island

trayed the state as one intimately tied to big business,

whose

were "grounded on the lowest layer of corruption that thus far

—the bribery of

Governor Lucius

That bribery

F.

some

C. Garvin,

who

said in 1903:

exists to a great extent in the elections

No

the great political parties.

It is true

changed, so

are concerned, but

state

is

a

by one or both of

that the results of the election

far as the candidates

many assemblymen occupy

means of purchased

of this

general election passes without,

sections of this state, the purchase of votes

may not often be

have found

voters with cash at the polls." Steffens quoted

matter of common knowledge. in

I

politics

on the

state ticket

the seats they do by

votes.

In a considerable number of our towns bribery

is

so

common and

"The Lowest Layer OF Corruption"

has existed for so

many years

137

that the awfiil nature of the crime has

ceased to impress.

As many of his

colonial forbears

that vote-buying as the

would have understood, Garvin knew

was not perceived within the

state's political culture

purchase of the franchise, but rather as "compensation" for time

lost in visiting the polls.

Many

reformers assumed structural changes in the

way

votes were

broken system. After the widespread usage of

cast could finally fix a

the Australian ballot had

come

changing the extent of fraud

into vogue

—another

—

^without

essentially

possible answer to the paper

ballot presented itself with the introduction of voting machines. states

the

began turning to the new mechanical devices

century.

New

Jersey,

for

Many

after the turn

of

example, used over 350 machines

statewide by 1908. Yet problems quickly arose. Splitting tickets was

made cumbersome with

the machines, and write-in candidates seemed

doomed. Others worried

know how one way

voted, while anxiety

to teU if one's vote

islature

that skilled election handlers

would

still

was prevalent that there was no

was accurately recorded. The

New Jersey leg-

put the question of voting machines before the voters in a 1908

referendum.

Out of 335

election districts, a majority of voters in a

staggering 321 districts rejected the

new machines and voted

to return

to paper ballots.

One way to get around the thorny problem posed by secrecy was the chain ballot. This system was designed to ensure the

purchased vote.

morning.

The

He would

go the poll and receive a

box and carry the

seller arrived, the

take inside.

The

of the

vote buyer began the process early in the

depositing the ballot in the box, he would in the

reliability

slip a

real ballot outside.

ballot.

blank piece of paper

When

a prospective vote

buyer would mark the ballot and give voter

would deposit the marked

bring a fresh, unmarked ballot to the vote buyer,

Instead of

it

to voter to

ballot in the box,

who would

then pay

Tracy Campbell

138

When

the voter.

Deliver the Vote

/

next vote seller appeared, the process was

the

repeated. States also extended the use of absentee ballots to other itinerant

voters besides soldiers, such as mail carriers

the end of

World War

I,

and railroad workers. By

nearly every state allowed soldiers to vote,

while twenty states provided absentee ballots for work-related

While

absences.

who lots

the desire to extend the suffrage to

could not be

home on

qualified voters

Day was strong, taking the balopened new opportunities for vote

Election

themselves away from the polls

buying and intimidation.

all

The

irony was that absentee voting compro-

mised a system that had just placed newfound importance on

secrecy.

Hearst Not even and

the wealthiest of candidates were

elections, stolen out

immune

from under them. In

fact,

to having votes,

William Randolph

Hearst, one of the richest and most powerful newspaper publishers

of the

era,

York City mayoral

found in

this to

1905

be the case

when he

ran for mayor of

—coincidentally the same year of the

Louisville

race.

Hearst would seem an unUkely victim of election fraud. after

all,

New

one of the giant figures of American

had made

a fortune in

was,

politics. Hearst's father

mining and parlayed that into

from California. William inherited

He

a U.S. Senate seat

his father's fortune

and turned

his

ambitions to the newspaper business, and by the 1890s Hearst owned several leading papers that

became Hnked with "yeUow journaHsm."

While Hearst served two terms

in the U.S.

House,

it

did not satisfy his

ultimate ambition, which was entertained by a few delegates to the

1904 Democratic national convention who hoped Hearst would receive the presidential nomination. In 1905, Hearst ran for

New York on a

mayor of

third-party platform that opposed Tammany HaU, and

"The Lowest Layer OF Corruption"

here he saw

how election fraud

someone of his considerable

139

could be

journalistic

skillfully utilized against

and

even

political clout.

Unlike modern elections where candidates announce for office years

Hearst did not declare for the mayor's

in advance,

month before

the election. After unsuccessfully looking for

run against the incumbent mayor and

McCleUan, the son of the in 1864,

office until just a

Tammany

Civil War general

someone

favorite

to

George

and presidential candidate

and the Republican WiUiam Ivins, Hearst announced he would

run himself on the Municipal Ownership League

ticket.

Throughout

October, Hearst spoke before numerous crowds, exhorting them to reject

Tammany

on with the seemed

Hall and bolt the major parties. His message caught

city's

working

class,

and by early November Hearst

to have a real chance of winning.

The

threat he posed could

be measured by Tammany's desperate diatribes, which called Hearst an anarchist, a socialist,

William McKinley's to implore for

its

McClellan

and even implied that he had played

assassination.

readers to

The New

a role in

York Times went so far as

abandon the Republican candidate and vote

to stave off a potential Hearst victory.

Although the

role

of

money

in

American

elections has seemingly

been covered from every angle, one corrupting influence has not received serious attention from scholars: Elections in the early twentieth century tion,

were a prime target for gamblers. Days before each

elec-

newspapers reported the amounts wagered and the odds on

specific candidates,

ways. Conceivably,

and gamblers used these posted odds if a bettor felt

in a variety of

confident about a candidate's chances,

he would place a wager in that candidate's name and, of course, receive a return if his entirely. If a

man won. Yet

the bets could have different motivations

candidate was a long shot and,

if elected,

would bring

a

higher return, the temptation to coerce votes or stuff ballots increased.

produced many complica-

The open

practice of wagering

tions that

added to the prevailing culture of corruption.

New

on

elections

York bookmakers reported that

election wagering favored

Tracy Campbell

140

McClellan generally by 2

/

Deliver the Vote

to 1. After public utility stocks

denly higher, McClellan's odds even went up to 2V2 to

some of the

that the

city's

economic stalwarts

felt

1,

went sud-

a clear sign

comfortable with

McClellan's chances, as well as an indication that Tammany was ready to

do what was

openly wondered

necessary. Others inside the bookmakers' offices

why so

little

money was being placed on

Hearst. Per-

haps insiders understood the significance of Elections Supervisor

George

W.

Morgan's assertion that same day that more cases of

registrations

and plots of vote

than in any previous year in

One

city

floaters

had been uncovered

false

1905

in

New York City.

newspaper reported afterward that the November 1905

was "the most extraordinary election ever witnessed,"

election

remarkable distinction

Throughout the

if true.

ions ensured that McClellan

would win.

a

Tammany's min-

day,

Poll watchers

were intimi-

dated, ballot boxes mysteriously disappeared or were delivered to the

wrong

address,

repeaters

moving around the

casually stood

and shot

and scores of people reported seeing

at.

city

by and observed

Several

Tammany

floaters

throughout the day. Police

as Hearst's

and

officers

poU watchers were beaten

precincts held back their returns after

the poUs closed, knowing these returns might provide the margin of victory for McClellan. Hearst's

campaign even sent over some men

Tammany men would bribe them to vote for McClellan. Three such men were offered various bribes, including a gold watch. After suspicion arose that the men were decoys, the Tammany thugs beat them and chased them away. By night's end, as Tammany gauged the final results, its handiwork during the election to pose as "tramps" to see

was apparent. The

election returns

showed

if

that

McClellan had beaten

Hearst by 222,795 to 219,708, with Ivins finishing a distant

third.

While McClellan's forces claimed victory, Hearst vowed he would go to court to fight against the massive vote fraud which he the election.

"We

have

won

felt

had

the election," Hearst claimed,

many's intimidation and violence,

all

Tammany's

cost

"all

him

Tam-

false registration.

"The Lowest Layer of Corruption"

illegal

141

voting and dishonest count have not been able to overcome a

great popular majority." The

New York Times dismissed Hearst's claims

of fraud and reveled in McClellan's victory, saying it "spared the city the humiliation, the affairs

trials,

and the dangers of four years' management of its

by a peculiarly

reckless, unschooled,

experimenters and adventurers."

Had

and unsteady group of

Hearst been elected, the Times

warned, his assumption to power "would have sent a shiver of apprehension over the entire Union."

Undaunted, Hearst asked that

a recount be undertaken.

attorneys filed suit, Hearst claimed his fight nity of the franchise." city utility stocks

new

With

was

While

his

to reclaim "the dig-

investors fearful of the

pending

litigation,

took a nosedive. The prolonged election contest drew

money was being

wagers, and this time the smart

placed on

Hearst. Considering that he could hire armies of attorneys to fight

Tammany and

use his papers to expose

its

fraudulent practices, even

the most cynical observers were willing to place a wager on Hearst.

One

anxious bettor wanted to place $10,000 on Hearst's contest even

before the election wagering market opened, hoping to get even better

much money would be

placed on

following day, Hearst's challenge was bolstered

when an

odds than Hearst

The

later,

when he assumed

as to drive

down

unsealed ballot box,

so

the odds.

fiill

of uncounted

shop located in the 21st Assembly

ballots,

District.

directly contradicted the receipts held

by the

was found

The

discovery of the box

city police

boxes had been delivered to the Board of Elections.

were located in a

tailor's

in a barber

showing that all

Two more

boxes

shop, one with mutilated ballots, the other

empty. Hearst was so confident that he boasted he would not need a recount to be declared mayor, considering that his aides had already located over 8,000 spoiled ballots where voters had placed an additional

"X" on the Hearst party box

An

as well as the

unusual voice was added to the

McLaurin,

a former

one

New

for the candidate.

York drama by John L.

Democratic senator from South Carolina

who

Tracy Campbell

142

/

Deliver the Vote

witnessed the city election. In discussing the recent election,

New York to the pracnever more disgusted in my life," stated

McLaurin compared what he had just seen tices in

South Carolina:

"I

was

in

McLaurin, adding that the treatment afforded Southern black voters "even in the heat of politics

of the Hearst voters get in

McLaurin

said

is

a paradise

compared

New York."

to

what

Despite his party

I

saw some affiliation,

he would have supported Hearst considering what the

Democratic party had done.

local

McClellan's supporters vowed to fight any recount, and as an indication of the heavy hitters behind McClellan's cause, Alton B. Parker,

who had been

the Democratic

States just the previous year,

nominee

for president of the

headed McClellan's

legal

United

team that

argued his case before the state Supreme Court.

On November 27, 1905, the New York Supreme Court ordered that ballot boxes in five election districts be

would be repeated nearly

pattern that

Hearst's forces decided to precincts,

for a

which

his

demand

opened and recounted. In a century later

a

by Al Gore,

a recount in just a few, selected

opponents charged would be an "entering wedge

more preposterous one, involving the opening of every ballot box

in the city."

from the

As

first

the process began, Hearst picked

up seventeen votes

few days of the recount. With seven hundred more boxes

awaiting, the Hearst forces were confident of victory nearly a full

month

after the election.

Yet Hearst's confidence was short-lived. In early December, the

New York Court of Appeals no right

to

demand

ruled that under existing law, Hearst had

a reopening of the ballot boxes.

The Hearst

lawyers hoped the state legislature might intervene to pass an act

authorizing the recount, a

move

On

two months

was

December officially

27, almost

that

was quickly

rejected in Albany.

after the election,

McClellan

declared mayor of New York by a plurality of 3,472 votes.

For the next two years, while McClellan worked

at his

desk

as

mayor, courtroom battles continued as more stories of the election

"The Lowest Layer OF Corruption"

abuses at the hand of the allegations

had no

effect

143

Tammany machine

on the administration of city government, or

on the public perception of McClellan's as

were revealed. Yet the

another recount began in

May

Once

right to govern.

again,

1908, the public was treated to a

daily dose of Hearst's apparent gains in the

1905

race.

By

the end of

the month, the recount was finished, and Hearst's official total netted less

than a thousand more votes in

all,

stiU giving

of over 2,900 votes. Hearst's lawyers argued,

McCleUan

a

margin

at too late a date, that the

recount proved that in certain districts more votes were cast than were

recorded in the poU books.

By this

time, the

New York Supreme Court

had had enough, and ruled that McCleUan had won the recount and directed that he be found to have been legally elected in 1905. After

claiming he would be declared mayor and serve out McCleUan's term,

Hearst reversed course and said he was decision and that

all

along, aU he

was

"satisfied"

with the court's

really interested in

pursuing was

an "honest count of the votes." In the end, Hearst's deep pockets and the power of his newspapers

and the persuasion of

his attorneys could not

machine that knew how once again was too

much

to win.

overcome a

The power of Tammany

to overcome, even for

political

Hall's tricks

one of the richest

men

in the world.

"It's Just a Condition

From

Down There"

cases such as LouisviUe

and

New

York,

it

would be easy

assume that election fraud was primarily an urban concern

to

in the early

1900s. Yet the countryside was infected with the same political culture.

Few examples life

than

better illustrated

Adams

County, Ohio.

how vote-buying had become It also

buying votes?

The

way of

brings to light an issue that has

infused election fraud from the very beginning. in

a

Who is the real culprit

politicians, or the voters themselves?

Tracy Campbell

144

Vote-buying had a long history in Cincinnati in southern Ohio.

The

Adams

/

Deliver the Vote

County, located near

1910 election

price of a vote in the

ranged from a drink of whiskey to a whopping $25, although

mates placed the average

$8

at

—

still

a considerable

sum

esti-

for the day.

Since the 1890s, reformers in the county had tried unsuccessfully to

curb the open purchasing of votes. Yet

when

vowed they would vote

dared to sign the agreement.

To

against the

first

these voters. Election

party that

Day was

economic opportunity. Struggling to make ends meet, these izens

saw

for themselves

little

to gain in the

to

some outraged

sign agreements refusing to participate in vote-buying, voters objected and

vowed

party leaders

outcome of an

an

rural citelection,

no matter who won.

While Adams County may have been rural

American

counties,

it

had one major difference from the

the country: It had Judge Albion Z. Blair a hard-nosed jurist

rampant corruption

who

in his midst, he aggressively

had committed no pay from their

hundred

rest

local bench. Blair

went

had been on the lookout

a group of approximately a

substantial

on the

not only refused to look the other

sold their votes. Judge Blair

that they

similar to hundreds of other

way

was

at the

who 1906, when

after those

since

local vote sellers

informed him

transgressions, since officeholders earned service.

For Judge

Blair, it

was an eye-

opening exhibition of the entrenched corruption that flourished in county.

power

He

of

resolved that at the appropriate time, he

would use

his his

to fight the graft at the poUs.

Blair

found that opportunity in the November 1910

election,

and

he impaneled a grand jury to investigate the allegations of election fraud. In his

opening charge, Blair warned that

if no

jury in the county

were willing to bring indictments of fraud, then nothing state

less

than a

of "anarchy" ruled the county. But before the case could proceed,

the court struggled with or the one Blair's

who

whom to indict: the one who bought the vote,

sold his vote?

remedy was

to pursue indictments against the vote sellers

145

"The Lowest Layer of Corruption"

and then compel them to

testify against the

brought immediate rebuke from the local

vote buyers. His decision

who

clergy,

claimed that the

vote buyer was the real culprit, and Ohio's Governor Judson

Harmon

agreed. Yet Blair remained steadfast, and even defended his

methods

along blatantly class

Since vote buyers were usually composed of

lines.

some of the leading business and reasoned, the sellers tended to local population. Blair

political leaders

come from

of the county, Blair

the poorer elements of the

concluded that indicting those "who furnished

prosperity" to the county

would cause greater

community. Blair went even

further:

suffering to the entire

The vote buyer was

the less guilty

of the pair since he only sought party gain, while the vote

seller

was

out entirely for himself.

Throughout the Judge

half of 1911, a parade of witnesses appeared in

first

Blair's court, testifying to the extent

County.

From

of vote-buying in

Adams

the banks that provided the large amounts of cash

during election season, to the party committees and then the precincts, it

seemed

as if the entire

county was involved in one way or another.

By summer, hundreds of people pled

guilty. Blair

and confessing

indictments had been returned, and 328

intimidated

many more

their crimes rather than

going to

into

coming

trial,

to court

where the

fines

and other penalties would be much harsher. Yet beyond fines ranging from $5 to $25, Judge Blair also took the step of disfranchising hundreds of

Adams County

citizens

who

con-

fessed, usually for a five-year period. Scores of impoverished farmers

made

it

that she

to Judge Blair's

bench

to tell their story.

had sold the votes of her husband and

One woman

son.

Another

confessed Civil

War

veteran told Judge Blair about the incipient culture of corruption that

Adams County: "I took it because it was there to take," he said, adding, "I know it isn't right, but this has been going on for so long that we no longer looked upon it as a crime." John A. McCarty, a Democratic Central Committee member from the county, put it best: "It has been going on for years. The very best

ruled

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

146

and most honorable are

men

in the

buyers

ministers, lawyers, businessmen, farmers, teachers,

made up of

Sunday School superintendents,

laborers,

The

county purchased votes.

of men."

in fact all kinds

When two ministers pled guilty to accepting five dollars for their vote. Judge Blair decided

keep their names

local citizenry

encapsulated a prevaiHng really

secret.

Sunday would even come

evangelist Billy

admonish the

to

fact:

on the

News soon to

spread that

Adams County

error of their ways.

that this culture

McCarty

was so powerful, no one

questioned the moraUty or legahty of the vote-buying:

a condition

down

The religious irony. The long

to

"It's

just

there."

overtones of the

Adams County

case

had

a certain

hordes of "sinners" waiting to confess their trans-

gressions to Judge Blair, and the usual indictments of the "immoral"

of the county, soon grew to be too

activity

the county,

many of whom

righteous judge singling counties

Judge

them out while many

in other

By

self-

neighboring

circulated of attempts

while others saw his actions

political grandstanding.

for the citizens of

deeply resented the notion of a

went unpunished. Rumors even

Blair's life,

much

as little

on

more than

the end of the hearings, Blair had dis-

franchised nearly 1,700 voters for five years for their role in the

vote-buying, over one quarter of the entire electorate in

Adams

County.

The Adams County case became Literary Digest published a poem in

Many people sold their vote For

to

buy an overcoat

Or to buy a

sack offlour

Thinking

a prosperous hour

Men

it

of different age and size

Forfive years are

disfranchised.

a national sensation, its

wake:

and even the

"The Lowest Layer of Corruption"

147

Despite the criticism that Blair had been too harsh on his rural constituents,

actions

former president Theodore Roosevelt applauded the judge's

and noted that the case revealed that election fraud did not just

occur "in

cities

and among our foreign-born population." In Adams

County, in Roosevelt's estimation, the old

American

stock."

The

"its

people practically

ultimate point was not lost

on TR, who

wrote that without honest elections, "popular government

The Adams County acknowledged, that the country

whose

Ued by election

it

belong to

all

is

a farce."

episode demonstrated, in ways not readily

was just one of hundreds of counties throughout and

political

social culture, to

its

very core, was sul-

fraud. For the people of those counties

heed to the campaigns and voted

who

paid close

were

their conscience, their votes

stacked against the ballots of bought and bribed voters.

"Worse Than Dynamite" In the end, election fraud remained a local or state matter, and few

doubted the outcome of any investigation or

That would change

when

in 1915,

local election officials

the U.

S.

efforts at prosecution.

Supreme Court ruled

that

were subject to federal indictments when they

conspired to suppress votes. Writing for the court. Justice Oliver Wendell

Holmes

noted:

"We regard it equally unquestionable that the

to have one's vote counted

is

as

open

to protection

by Congress

right to put a ballot in the box." Federal prosecutors were

right

as the

buoyed by

the knowledge that they could start indicting local officials in races involving Congressional contests.

sheriff,

and a

Unlike the

year, in Terre

Haute, Indiana,

men for conspiracy to corrupt an elecincluding Mayor Donn M. Roberts, the

federal prosecutors indicted

tion held there in 1914,

That

114

circuit judge.

Adams County

case,

which remained

Terre Haute case took on a national perspective

a local affair, the

when

a

number of

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

148

Southern Democrats, led by Kentucky's Senator Ollie James and Con-

gressman A. O. Stanley, intervened to block the prosecutions. To these Democrats, the federal courts had no jurisdiction over

and the actions of the Supreme Court constituted an rights of the sovereign states. Yet as

much more With

Mayor Roberts

local elections,

on the

assault

w^rote Stanley,

w^as at stake v^ith the court's decision:

the evident intentions of the

Supreme Court of the U.S.

man had

the federal courts take jurisdiction of elections, the white

move out of the South and

just as well

to let

turn the offices over to the

Negroes.

Before any

trials

began, eighty of the indicted

Mayor

defendants, including

Roberts, went on

men

pled guilty. Other

trial in

March

1915. In

women Conference, who

attendance in the IndianapoHs courtroom were a number of

who

belonged to the Mississippi VaUey Suffrage

obviously wanted a first-hand appraisal of how voting really worked by

men who

the very same

As

the

trial

progressed,

were conducted were

how

denied them that right.

more

details

carefiilly spelled out.

the election machinery of Terre

Roberts, the "Czar,"

who was

ernor. Roberts allegedly

also a

toughs to threaten voters

When

I

prosecution showed

Haute was ruled by Mayor

Democratic candidate

when he

for gov-

fund" to buy votes, and gangs of

at the poUs.

One

city

employee,

who

fictitious registration cards at the police chief's

testified that

ination.

The

oversaw an election that was complete with

false registrations, a sizeable "slush

wrote out

of how Terre Haute elections

ran out of cards, he "made

said

he

command,

men out of my imag-

gave them a name, an age, and set out the place of birth."

another told

Mayor Roberts on

Election

Day

that he

was

unable to "put anything over" in a specific precinct because of Repub-

Hcan watchdogs, Roberts instructed him their pockets

and have them arrested

to "get

something to put

for carrying concealed

in

weapons."

"The Low EST Layer OF Corruption"

The

highlight of the

chief, testified that

istration cards.

Day,

floater

who

cards were then to be given to floaters

was paid $8

to vote ten times,

false reg-

on Election

floater,

Cortlandt

and that he received

from Mayor Roberts. Rector was outpaced by another

testified

Stanley's defense

he voted twenty-two times on Election Day. Rep.

crumbled

early April, the federal jury

Mayor

Holler, the city police

paid $5 for their services. Yet one

Rector, testified he his instructions

came when Edward

Roberts had ordered him to make 2,500

The

who were

trial

149

as

more of

found

all

his clients pleaded guilty.

By

remaining defendants, including

Roberts, guilty. In his sentencing. Judge Anderson ruled that

Roberts was the "arch conspirator" and sent him to Fort Leavenworth

An

for six years.

appellate judge later ruled that Roberts's crime

"worse than dynamite; that

A local circuit judge fifteen others

were

and

it

amounted

to treason."

a sheriff received five-year sentences,

also sentenced to prison.

torialized that Roberts

and

his cohorts

The New

mitted."

seem

to be about the

The Times understood

something that was

intrinsic to the

something new was in the his accomplices ions, like others,

that

air.

and

York Times edi-

had been convicted of crimes and

social

serious that can be

com-

that "to people with a decently developed sense of civic responsibiUties

was

most

Mayor Roberts was "game of

politics,"

convicted of

but

felt

that

"The misfortune of Mayor Roberts and

and henchmen was

in not noticing that political fash-

change once in a while, and that what

is

safe

and even

commendable one year may be dangerous and reprehensible the

next."

"Next Time, Be More Careful" If the Times felt that a

had

to

new day had arrived in American elections, all they

do was walk around the neighborhoods near

sorely disappointed. In

pouring rain

November 1923,

at the corner

a

Times

their offices to be

reporter stood in a

of Houston Street and Bowery late on Election

Tracy Campbell

150

/

Deliver the Vote

Day, talking to a good "Bowery Democrat" who complained that he "had

done the

a hard day's

work

two men walked

—Voting

to the

in various places.' " After the polls closed,

253rd Precinct of the 14th Ward, located

at

When they arrived, a kindly man inquired if they wished to vote. When the reporter said he could not because it was too late Public School 106.

to

do

so,

As

the

the

man replied, "Never too late here."

Bowery vote was counted,

mous Barney Rourke, who was another precinct. Street

results.

"How's

were swapped of the infa-

"responsible" for the delivering votes in

On one election night, Rourke was having dinner on

when

Grand

stories

this,

for the opposition."

his lieutenant

walked

in,

reporting on the election

Barney," he said, "139 votes for our ticket and one

While expecting

a ringing

endorsement from

boss, the

young man only received scorn from Rourke. "What

business

is

this

coming

"What were you

in

with such a return?" Rourke

thinking of

when you

let

him

young man was further badgered, "Were you

more

said,

his

sort

of

adding

vote?" Shocked, the

asleep?

Next time, be

carehil."

As

the onlookers exchanged

their work. In the

more

stories, the

vote counters finished

253rd precinct, there were 300

voters, of

whom

sixty

were Republicans; except for a smattering of SociaUsts, the remainder were Democrats. The

official results

ASSEMBLY:

were:

Galgano, Democrat, 300 votes;

Cohen, Republican,

ALDERMAN:

0.

Grauband, Democrat, 300 Berzoni, Republican,

MUNICIPAL COURT:

reporter then described

0.

Schimmel, Democrat, 300 votes; Ellman, Republican,

The

votes;

what happened

0.

next.

When the various formalities connected with the voting and the declaration of the official result

were completed, the election

officers

"The Lowest Layer OF Corruption"

separated and

151

left for their respective

homes in the downpour of rain.

There were no angry coUisions of embittered or extreme there were

no recriminations over any unfair advantage taken by one

side over the other. There

were no threats of court proceedings, pros-

ecutions, or disclosures. They separated,

honest count of the votes

—

west

The

partisans;

cast, it

most of them going east. An

seemed

to the writer,

had gone

decidedly!

reporter reflected

New

on what he had observed on

York's

Bowery:

In other election days election night on the Bowery was a gala occasion for

many of those whom

ness had joined in the

a sinister destiny or their

army of the down and

out.

The

own weak-

saloons were

open, and especially on a wet and cheerless night there was a greeting in each for

all

newcomers. There was singing, cheers, and

the occasional blowing of horns. It was not so last year,

when what

Swift described as a "rain of cats and dogs" added something to the cheerlessness of the great thoroughfare

which continues

an abnormal number of those

who

electorate of the great City of

New York.

In so

many ways,

vote early and often to the huge

the culture of corruption that this lone observer dis-

covered was repeated in

cities

blatant vote-stealing revealed

and towns

how

little

all

across the country.

how endemic

The Suffrage By

these

The

anyone cared about getting

caught, and the casualness of the overall assault belied

to supply

methods had become

upon democracy

to election insiders.

Issue

the 1920s, two Constitutional

amendments had been

ratified that

allowed for the direct election of United States senators (1913) and

Tracy Campbell

152

gave

women the

right to vote (1920).

Deliver the Vote

/

The sudden swelling of the

ranks

of the electorate as well as the increase in the power of the individual voter certainly changed

some of the ground

While reformers could point

to the

rules for election fraud.

amendments

expanding and more democratic electorate, the

as sure signs

states

of an

themselves were

often headed in the opposite direction, taking steps to disfranchise millions and

make voting more

difficult,

except for the privileged. Lit-

eracy tests, poll taxes, lengthening residency requirements, and prohibiting non-citizens from voting were adopted.

As Alexander Keyssar

has written, "Stripping voters of the franchise was a politically dehcate operation that generally had to be performed obliquely and without

arousing the

Women

ire

of large and concentrated groups of voters."

fighting for the right to vote

which men had controlled

saw some of the ways

due to paternalism, but

and

city

some

part

elections for ages. Local politicians

bosses were obviously not supportive of women's suffrage, in also because

in

an enlarged electorate was

much

harder to manipulate and control. In the early 1900s, various states placed the question of women's suffrage as referenda for voters to consider.

Either way, as the suffragist Carrie

fraud was a major factor in frage.

some of the

Chapman

Catt understood,

early defeats of women's suf-

In Wisconsin and North Dakota, the ballots for the suffrage ref-

erenda were a different size and color than regular ballots, while in

New York there were three by opponents

to

check and

separate ballots. All of these could be used effectively control the matter

of suffrage.

Catt concluded that the suffrage movement was confronted by "an unscrupulous body [that] stood ready to engage the lowest elements by fraudulent processes to defeat suffrage." Catt's experience had taught

her a

vital lesson

against fraud

about American

on Election Day

for a

politics:

"There was no protection

measure unsponsored by the dom-

inant party, and that after fraud there was no redress."

In a Texas suffrage election in 1919, suffragists were wary of election fraud, and one male supporter of the suffragists

who was

steeped

"The Low EST Layer OF Corruption"

in

how

Texas elections proceeded warned supporters to pay close

attention to

and gets

how the votes were counted. "The counting is what counts

results,"

he admonished, adding, "Just count and then count

some more and you

will be sure to win." Yet the question failed in

Texas by over 25,000 votes, some of

opened start

153

due to

it

polls that never

in precincts that supported suffrage. Obviously,

counting

when

The movement

for

the process never

women's

suffrage

commences

flight.

When

amendment was

to quit,

ratification process

Tennessee approved the measure in 1920, the

secured.

As women gained in the

hard to

in the first place.

was too well organized

and with the support of even President Wilson, the took

it is

even

the right to vote, African- Americans, especially

deep South, had seen their voting rights evaporate by 1920.

White Democrats used

a variety of

methods

remove African-Americans from the voting

away from the

from the Reconstruction

Americans fought courageously from whites was often

and

legal

rolls

polls for good. Yet in the face

obstacles inherited

—

—

illegal

to

and to keep them

of these overwhelming era.

Southern African-

for the right to vote,

and the reaction

brutal. In Florida, blacks registered to vote in

the 1920 general election, hoping to transform the tradition of one-

party rule and Jim Crow.

On

Election Day, what the historian Paul

Ortiz has described as the "bloodiest presidential election in the history of twentieth-century America," the

KKK

declared open war on

black voting; with the encouragement of state authorities, an estimated

30 to 60 black Floridians were

killed that day, along

more wounded or chased away from the

with hundreds

state.

Congressional Remedies As demonstrated in Louisville, Adams County, and Terre Haute, courageous judges sometimes interceded to punish vote buyers or election

Tracv Campbell

154

/

Deliver the Vote

thugs and reverse elections. Without judicial intervention, officials

there.

many elected

assumed power vv^ith no check on the methods used to get them

An

exception w^as Congress, where both chambers reserved the

right to withhold seating a

member

in cases

where fraud had provided

the

mode of victory. When an

tees

would hear the evidence and make recommendations

was contested,

election

special

commit-

to the entire

chamber, which could possibly unseat someone or declare a seat vacant.

Between 1789 and 1901, 217 separate in the

House charging

fraud,

and

in

election contests

had been waged

94

43 percent, the

instances, or

House voted to either award the seat to the contestant or declare the seat vacated. Partisan loyalties, of course, usually determined

Thaddeus Stevens,

interpreted a contested election. In the 1860s,

Republican, was listening to a contest case

both of the candidates

know

"damned

as

how a member

when

a

a colleague described

scoundrels." Stevens agreed and

— thing "Which

wanted

to

damned

scoundrel?" Yet from 1908 to 1951, charges of election fraud

only one

one

is

the Republican

swayed fewer House members, and only thirteen contestants were

awarded

their seats, while

two

elections

were declared nuU and void.

Even when fraud was proven, the remedy could be hoUow. In Tenth Congressional

District of Pennsylvania in 1918, the

Patrick McLane, was at

John R.

first

Democrat,

declared the winner, while, the Republican,

Farr, contested the election.

gressional

committee examined the

Over nearly two

case; they

years, a

sworn

to 121 vote

on the House

in to serve out the

floor,

remainder of his term

only fueled the culture that tolerated such

—

six days.

is

s

activity.

refusing a seat based even

fraud belied the simple fact that this

seat,

and,

McLane was unseated and Farr

and purposes, cheating had paid off for McLane'

hood of the House

Con-

determined in February

1921 that "wholesale fraud" had indeed cheated Farr out of his

by a 161

the

on

For

all

supporters,

The

intents

which

distant likeli-

significant evidence

of

what often happens when the

players also act as referees.

Senate contests took a teenth

Amendment. With

new

turn with the passage of the Seven-

direct elections, seats in the

most powerful

"The Lowest Layer OF Corruption"

chamber

legislative

155

were up for grabs, and the methods

in the land

long used in electing governors and presidents were elect U.S. senators. In the

Not

the Senate.

tests in

now employed

to

1920s alone, there were four election consurprisingly, senators almost always voted

along party lines in such disputes, and a candidate contesting a result

who was

not a

member of the

party in control of the Senate usually

a hearing. Yet even if the majority party heard a

had no hope of even

claim for one of its own, the tradition-laden Senate was not disposed to overturn elections.

Less Than a One-ev-Eight Chance Yet in rare cases, even the Senate was forced to take action against the

One

pervasiveness of fraud.

of the most famous Senate contests

involved a primary election in Pennsylvania in

May 1926. The winners

of the party primaries were the former U.S. Secretary of Labor

William B. Wilson,

a

Democrat, and the Republican, William

the acknowledged political boss of Philadelphia. Vare election in

November, but Wilson contested the

Vare campaign had ballots,

The

won by employing

and intimidating

won

results,

S.

Vare,

the general

claiming the

legions of "floaters," stuffing

voters.

question of whether to allow Vare his seat quickly arose.

Gov-

ernor Gifford Pinchot, in his letter to the Senate certifying Vare's election,

seat

wrote that Vare "appears to have been chosen," although

was

"partly stolen"

and the general

his

by frauds that had "tainted both the primary

election." In his public statements, Pinchot, a

Repub-

"When men in other states now think of Pennsylvania, they think of one man Vare and one thing corruption of the

lican, said: first

—

ballot box."

the

—

Complicating the issue

letter, his successor,

John

—

fiirther

Fisher,

was that

was sworn

after

Pinchot sent

in as governor

and

quickly sent a second letter that certified Vare without any qualifications.

When

Vare presented his credentials to Congress on

Tracy Campbell

156

December

9,

1927, there were loud objections from some Democratic

senators and he

As

Deliver the Vote

/

was not allowed

to take his seat.

the committee began investigating the Pennsylvania election,

the details of the charges

came

to the fore. In several Philadelphia

wards, Wilson did not receive even a single vote. The committee found over 21,500 poU-tax receipts that had been illegally issued, and in 395

number of

voting divisions in Philadelphia the

certified

ballots

exceeded the number of people registered to vote. Allegheny County

Commissioner Charles McGovern tion

told the

committee that the

was nothing more than the "pure purchase of votes."

elec-

A random

check of just 150 divisions found 1,547 forged signatures on the registration books,

and over 9,500

davits to prove their

they voted. In

all,

had no corresponding

"illiterates"

affi-

need for "assistance" from party workers when

the committee estimated at least 14,000 fraudulent

registrations in Philadelphia;

and 635 people were found to have

signed their names at least twice as having voted. In a biting indict-

committee wrote: "The fraud pervading the

ment of the

election, the

actual count

by the division

officers

is

had

a typical legal voter in Philadelphia

chance of having his or her vote counted

The

special

committee submitted

February 22^ 1929.

its

The committee

whelming amount of fraud not entitled to his

seat.

senator, since Vare

had

The

that

and concluded that

appalling," less

than a one-in-eight

correctly.

findings to the full Senate

due to the over-

stated that

marked the 1926

election, Vare

fallen iU. Later that year, a

the mountain of evidence against

him was

weakened Vare took

little

do was claim that

more than

clerical

Meanwhile, the Committee on Privileges and Elections

reported to the Senate that Vare would have votes were removed. This seat.

was

Senate delayed taking action against the

to the floor to defend his seat, but the best he could

errors.

on

On December

6,

move

effectively

won

even

if

the disputed

ended Wilson's claim to the

1929, over three years after voters had gone to

the poUs in Pennsylvania, the U.S. Senate

—

despite the committee's

157

"The Lowest Layer OF Corruption"

findings

—

^voted

22 to deny

it

66 to 15 to deny Vare his

as well to

seat,

and then voted 58 to

Wilson.

In other instances, the Senate could act in contested elections in

ways that turned party

down. In 1924

politics upside

Repubhcan incumbent Smith W. Brookhart ran

in Iowa, the

to retain his seat

against the Democrat, Daniel F. Steck. Brookhart ran afoul of the

when he

GOP

refused to endorse Calvin Coolidge, the popular Republican

president.

Some Iowa Republican

organizations distributed sample

ballots to voters indicating that they should vote the party line all the

way with the

exception of Brookhart, who, voters were advised, should

be passed over in favor of Steck.

When Brookhart won by fewer than election.

The hard

feelings

800

votes, Steck contested the

from the election had not subsided, and

Brookhart soon learned that he would not have the

own

At

party during the recount.

full

backing of his

the heart of Steck's case were thou-

sands of ballots that had been marked as invalid since they

played an arrow drawn

way

the

all

to Steck's

far.

The committee noted

ballots, including

broken

name. These voters had

that there were other problems with the

seals

between the numbers of

dis-

number of local newspapers

apparently taken a Steck ad carried in a

too

all

on the

ballots

ballot boxes

and

precincts. All the same, the investigators

registrants

and discrepancies in

a

number of

determined that although the

arrow constituted an extraneous mark and, in a purely technical sense,

made

the ballot

illegal,

the arrows clearly indicated the voters' intent.

Consequently, the committee credited them to Steck. In the end,

won the election by 1,420 votes. One committee member dissented. Unwilling to hand

it

found that Steck had

the seat to a

Democrat, Senator Hubert D. Stephens claimed that the committee

had counted over 1,300

straight Republican ballots that

had individual

marks beside each Republican with the exception of Brookhart. Stephens cases

felt

that voter intent

was not

clearly ascertained in these

and contended that Brookhart should be

seated.

What made

Tracy Campbell

158

Stephens's claims so unusual

was that he was

a

Deliver THE Vote

/

Democrat. Although

there were obvious partisan overtones to the dispute in

which some

angry Republicans exacted some revenge on Brookhart, and there were

Democrats eager still

to capitalize

on the

some members who worked

to

situation to seat Steele, there

fmd

were

the real winner of the election

based on some objective reasoning that they understood might be

apphed

to their

own

reelections in the future.

In April 1926, the Senate vote on the Brookhart-Steck contest saw

many members

cross party lines for a variety of reasons.

By

a vote of

45-41, the Senate removed Brookhart from his seat and replaced him

with Steck. Although the Republicans controlled the Senate, one of their

own was

replaced by a Democrat, but under circumstances that

were unlikely to be duplicated. Brookhart 's crime seemed to be that he

was not

come

a loyal Republican,

to his defense.

Had

and party stalwarts

felt

no inclination

to

he been a Coolidge supporter, the methods

used to elect him would not have mattered.

"Accept Defeat Like a Man" In the Solid South, the general election was never as important

Democratic primary. In some of these pivotal Senate would be called to

make some

1930 Democratic primary incumbent, Senator

J.

in

races,

as the

even the U.S.

difficult political decisions.

In a

Alabama, John Bankhead defeated the

Thomas

Heflin. Heflin contested the election

before the Senate, claiming Bankhead's victory had been obtained by illegal registrations,

and the

illegal

Alabama

fraudulent absentee ballots, miscounting of votes,

payment of

legislature

poll taxes

by the Democratic

party.

The

was indignant that Heflin would make such

charges, claiming that he refused to "accept defeat like a man."

When

the Senate committee

on

Privileges

and Elections

gated the case, the Republicans on the committee

felt

investi-

that the fraud

"The Lowest Layer OF Corruption"

had been

159

so massive that the Senate should declare that

had taken

place.

Alabama law,

The Democrats on

like so

many other states,

the

no election

committee noted that

declared that no election could

be voided unless the number of votes proven to be fraudulent was

enough that

to

change the outcome of the

Bankhead would

still

have

won

race. Since

even

Democrats claimed

if the illegal votes

were dis-

carded, they urged the committee to seat him. In April 1932, the

Senate voted 64 to 18 to allow Bankhead to retain his

Alabama

how the primaries. The

election initiated an important precedent for

considered instances of election fraud in party

committee wanted no part of investigating primary ruled that in future cases

"The

legality

seat.

of the primary

Senate Senate

elections, is

The

and

not a proper

matter for the consideration of the U.S. Senate."

While

the

first

reforms aimed Senate's

move

at

decades of the twentieth century saw a number of

expanding the electorate and curbing fraud, the

in the Southern primaries demonstrated

other changing political and cultural winds.

By

some of the

the 1930s, politicians

and judges were ready to look the other way when confronted with

evi-

dence of election fraud rather than apply the remedies used in Terre

Haute or Adams County. With fewer courts and fewer Congressional committees prepared to challenge election to leave local elections to their

Depression, a

larceny, the general trend

own devices. With the

was

onset of the Great

new era in American elections was about to commence.

"

Chapter Seven

The Real Foundations Gateway Arch "/

Fundamentally,

don \

like to he

a

elections are about

of the

dictator.

who

decides public policy and

spends public money. This concept, however,

is

usually presented

abstract political understanding devoid of human

as little

more than an

details.

Even seemingly insignificant elections can have profound social

consequences that can eventually demolish neighborhoods, close businesses,

and overturn Uves. Elections have the singular power to carve in

stone policies that cannot be reversed without gunfire.

Sometimes, elections allow financial agendas

—

to use

skilled pols

—with

their

own private and

any means necessary to win an election while

seemingly covering their larceny in the most democratic manner. After aU,

nothing

is

as

from the people

powerful

—even

case, election crimes

tural masterpiece.

To

if

as the

claim to a mandate rightfully earned

the people did no such thing. In at least one

have been buried underneath a soaring architecsee

how this can happen, we turn our attention to

an obscure bond-issue referendum in depression-era

St.

Louis.

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

The

St. Louis Tradition

Even

in the best

when

times are bad, that desire

161

of times, the desire to win can be consuming. But is

compounded. This was never more

the case than during the Great Depression, as production levels,

wages, and stock prices plummeted and unemployment, bank

and misery

rose.

activist federal

change in the

With

failures,

Franklin D. Roosevelt's victory in 1932, a more

government took power and soon produced and economic

political

Ever since the

city

lives

a sea

of all Americans.

of St. Louis had seceded from the county in the

1860s, Republicans had essentially controlled City HaU. Because of its riverfront location

and the

itinerant nature of

Louis, virtually every city election was

some who

lived in St.

met with charges of

illegal

voting and widespread fraud. Democrats claimed that one of the reasons Republicans had

was due voters,

won

in St. Louis, especially in the early 1900s,

African-American

to the massive "colonizing" of illegal

from across the

East

river in

St.

Louis, Illinois. Although the

evidence suggests this was more a tool by white Democrats to intimidate and suppress legal black voters, the racist tone of the charges carried over to the

summer of

1917,

when white

anger over hiring

practices in East St. Louis resulted in a riot that killed

Americans and nine whites ican history.

The

Rudwick has

—one of the bloodiest

riot "could

39 African-

race riots in

Amer-

not have occurred," the historian Elliott

written, "if people

'rotten' politics." Politics in St.

had believed there was law instead of

Louis was a deadly serious business, and

underneath the customary partisan acrimony were layers of racial and

economic frustration that were

ripe for political exploitation, especially

on Election Day. In a 1922 Republican primary, state party boss and former Con-

gressman Fred Essen pulled out the stops to keep

a Fusionist ticket

sponsored by the Clean Election League from winning control of the city.

Essen

lost

and was

later indicted

with seventy-three other

men

for

Tracy Campbell

162

The jury was

election fraud.

presented with evidence of massive tam-

pering with ballots, of which

behind the polling

places.

Deliver the Vote

/

many were

By

literally

found

in cesspools

the onset of the Great Depression,

Democrats had gained control of City Hall, and were not above using

some of Essen's methods

to stay there.

Developevg the Riv'erfront For years,

St.

Louis

officials

town property near the been

raise

to refurbish

some down-

Since 1889, a dream of city leaders had

river.

development project that envisioned various pro-

a riverfront

posals to bring

had been trying

more people

to

downtown

property values and tax revenue.

St.

Louis and, consequently,

The overwhelming problem was

in securing the funds necessary to build these projects,

had been estimated

at

approximately $50 million.

which

The

in

city

1928

simply

could not afford to issue a bond for the entire amount, since that

would absorb ects could

ways

all

of the

city's

debt load and ensure that no other proj-

be funded. So city leaders tried some inventive,

to proceed.

One

if not illegal,

suggested approach involved condemning land

not used for the project and subsequently selling or leasing that property at increased rates because of the proposed development.

process involved

amending the

state constitution to

termed "excess condemnation," but that

failed.

With

Such

a

permit what was the onset of the

Depression, the ability to finance the project in any

way seemed

remote.

Yet by 1933, some city leaders, led by a local attorney, Luther Ely Smith, saw opportunities emerging with FDR's

seemed

to

make

Smith envisioned

would become went

to

New

Deal that

the possibility of a riverfront project more a

commemoration

to the Louisiana Purchase that

a riverfront park. In 1934, a

Washington

likely.

committee of city leaders

to ask for a Congressional resolution calling for a

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

commission sevelt

to plan such a park.

supported the resolution,

ernment was "not

liable for

While Congress obliged and Rooclearly stated that the federal gov-

it

any incidental expenses." City leaders

assumed the project might be considered tion development, yet the president "this

is

Works Administra-

a Public

made

clear to city leaders that

PWA." Not to Harold Ickes, who

scarcely the type of project that falls under the

be deterred,

was

163

city leaders

went

to Interior Secretary

made no promises of

also interested in the plan but

funding. Yet with

Smith and

little

more than

his supporters forged

riverfront project

In July 1934,

might

W.

federal

a mild resolution in their hands,

ahead and started planning what the

entail.

C. Bernard, the city engineer, presented another

plan for the riverfront. In Bernard's estimation, the problem with the riverfront "is strictly economic."

With

central part of the city, the riverfront

the Depression hurting the

was

in even direr straits.

answer was a riverfront freeway that would bring more city

and would

the park

also include a "pedestrian park."

would be highlighted possibly by

he even thought would be "described

Numerous blocks would have

a

as the

traffic to

His the

Bernard hinted that

"monumental

arch" that

'Gateway to the West.'

to be cleared, but

Bernard saw

"

this as

another advantage, since some destitute families living in the area

would be cleared away

as well. Bernard's engineers

study and found 1,248 people living on the riverfront

them had no plumbing. "Unless bilitation

of these people,

made

site,

movement

this condition will eventually

the worst slums in America."

freeway "should be

corrected by a

had conducted

To

a

and most of for the reha-

produce one of

Bernard, the construction of the

the occasion for an enforced slum clearance

program." Bernard's proposal, however, was accompanied by a whop-

ping price tag that exceeded $20 million. All of these plans lacked any realistic plan to secure the millions necessary to fund a riverfront park.

ering

how

But one

possibility remained.

Consid-

the federal government provided massive sums for

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

164

monuments

to

former presidents,

took another

city leaders

asking the federal government to help the city create a

Thomas

Jefferson.

As

the city leaders saw

it,

monument

opment

project suddenly

bill.

The

to

memorial could be

a

erected depicting Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, and they

the federal government might foot the

tactic,

hoped that

stalled riverfront devel-

became the Jefferson National Expansion

Memorial, and was quickly approved by Congress and President Roosevelt in

June 1934. The funding mechanism would have the federal

government match the

city at a 3 to 1 ratio. Since the

$30 million, the

project estimated a cost of million.

This would be the only chance

to have their riverfront project

government.

and have

the bonds, the city

remained:

it

—

Louis

funded mostly by the federal

a spacious

would need the approval of the

called for September. Yet

To win,

of the voters

to raise $7.5

was an ambitious plan that involved clearing 37 blocks

It

was

needed

for the developers in St.

of riverfront properties to make way for

election

city

proponents of the

the

bond

issue

memorial.

voters,

and

To

float

a special

one significant obstacle

needed more than the mere approval

to pass, city statutes required a two-thirds majority.

The Dictator While Luther Ely Smith was ical

the front

man

for the project, the polit-

muscle was provided by Mayor Bernard Dickmann, the former

president of the St. Louis Real Estate Exchange. In Dickmann's esti-

mation, the project was a crucial ingredient in the

city's

Cities aU across the country were starting to receive

New Deal

to put people

on such

rial's

fiinds

back to work, but none was requesting funds for a project

a scale.

this election

resurgence.

Much was

riding

on whether Dickmann could

—the public works jobs

construction, and,

that

would come from the memo-

most of ail, the money that would flow

developers and merchants of downtown

deliver

St.

Louis.

to the

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

Dickmann was prepared

Accordingly,

at the polls.

powers to secure victory

165

to use all of his mayoral

Here, the Depression aided him.

With unprecedented unemployment levels, Dickmann's him more

jobs gave

clout than usual, and the fear of possibly losing

coveted jobs provided another political arts.

security

weapon

was leveraged

Dickmann's

to deft practitioners of the

Yet the city government was not the only place where job to coerce voters.

Columbia Terminal Company,

the

control of city

aides,

"You

An

assistant vice president of

company, wrote to one of

a railroad

are famiUar

with the manner in which

we

attempt to acquaint our employees with any worthwhile issue in order to insure

[sic]

a large percentage actually getting to the polls."

would provide many

executive promised City Hall that his workers

votes for the

bond

"While we have never attempted

issue.

coercion," he added, "almost

the issue in the

manner

in

100% of those

The

to use

any

voting actually supported

which we asked them

to."

Despite the supposed civic-mindedness of the project, the odds of

winning the necessary two-thirds majority seemed

mann knew

that Republicans

of incurring such a debt

at a

unlikely.

Dick-

and conservative Democrats were leery

time of economic misery, and the project

offered dubious benefits to the

city.

Dickmann countered by launching

an aggressive public-relations campaign, and claimed that the bond issue

would immediately bring jobs

to the city

of unsightly and mostly derelict warehouses. that the

mayor was

"also a real estate

and

The

clear

away blocks

Post-Dispatch noted

man" who had expressed

confi-

dence that the memorial project would "make property throughout the city

worth more than

at present."

Less than a month before the election. stakes. All

the

bond

Mayor Dickmann

raised the

7,000 city employees were utilized as campaign workers for

issue. "Attitude

of the employees toward the issue will be an

evidence of their loyalty toward the administration," the mayor said in

language that usually goes unspoken in most American elections but tacitly

acknowledged by those on the patronage

payroll.

is

With thousands

Deliver the Vote

166

Tracy Campbell

on

waiting desperately for a job, a job within the city adminis-

relief rolls

tration

make

was more coveted than

/

and Mayor Dickmann wanted

ever,

to

sure that he used this to his advantage in securing the necessary

votes. It also created

that would surface

some

come

among

bitter feeUngs

his fellow

Election Day.

Despite the supposed civic-minded appeal of the bond

mann had some

Democrats

staunch opposition.

One

issue,

group, led by

Dick-

Marquard

Brown, organized the Taxpayers Defense Association, which claimed the

bond would not

immediate jobs promised, that

deliver the

remove property from the tax

rolls that

made no

ment

The Taxpayers

to starting the beautification project.

promised that in the end, the project would be block mudhole" or a "glorified parking

lot."

little

bond

bond

the Eleventh and Twelfth wards,

issue

better than a "37-

city's

workforce or

to prospective voters. Just

poU

early

was enormously popular. In

Dickmann claimed

straw vote gave the supporters of the

commit-

association

Dickmann began announcing

results that indicated that the

bond

that a recent

of 13,000 "yes"

issue a lead

votes to 2,100 "no" votes. Already at this early stage, associates

definite

However, the Taxpayers

group could not match Dickmann's control of the

days before the election,

would

accounted for $200,000 in rev-

enue, and that the federal government had

his public-relations skills in selling the

it

Dickmann and his

were cooking the numbers in hopes of obtaining their two*

thirds majority.

.

If swelling straw-vote results

—

to put

it

men

not enough, large ads exhorting voters to "put 5,000

were pubHshed

in the local

—

mildly

to

^were

work"

newspapers days before the election.

ads further claimed that actual

work on

the memorial

would

The

start ten

days after the successful passage of the bond issue.

The most powerful group selves the Citizens'

This group

On

felt

contesting the

bond

issue called

them-

Non-Partisan Committee, led by Paul O. Peters.

that Dickmann's claim of providing jobs

was overblown

Election Day, the "no" votes actually defeated the "yesses" in the Eleventh and

Twelfth wards by a combined margin of 6,938 to 5,937.

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

167

and would only saddle the citywith more debt. The Non-Partisan committee informed city voters that bankers would be the only ones to ulti-

mately benefit from the project: "The Shylocks of finance must get their

pound of flesh before we can say 'It's paid for and it's ours.'

also

used another proven

warning that

"it

Dickmann

tactic

designed to

"

Peters

popular support by

kill

would only benefit the colored people."

also

had some

allies

who were

not on the city payroll.

Bertha K. Passure wrote Luther Ely Smith that she was willing to "take charge" of various

get

them

women's groups and "foreign born

to vote for the bond. Passure expressed

lying concerns these groups

had about the bond

citizens" to

some of the under-

issue.

"They must be

convinced that a small tax increase must not stand in the way of such a splendid achievement." To

when

make up

for lost revenue that

the proposed property was condemned, association advocates

predicted that

all St.

three cents per

coming

Louis property owners would pay an additional

$100 of assessed value the

would reach 12 cents

sliding rate that

first

ten years, and then a

in ten years.

Lietchen, for one, asked

why

Dickmann

iron dinner that performed skits poking fun at

In a rather ironic twist,

Dickmann

would be transformed

if

Dickmann joked

tion begun.

city.

the

participated in a grid-

some

bond

that he

issue passed

was ready

that he expected to spend his old age

and dead animals

going

to a

riverfront.

was

it

of the day.

to

on the

and the reclama-

"wreck home owners started,

and added

riverfront,

"watching

muddy Mississippi." Yet this Louis citizens, who worried about the

down

number of St.

fiirther into

finances, nor

float

issues

played the role of the levee district

and cripple business" in the area once the project

was no joke

Councilman Otto

his constituents should "have their taxes

Several weeks before the election,

city

increases,

downtown merchants and property owners?"

increased to benefit the

crates

Such

in the middle of the Depression, obviously worried small

householders and landowners throughout the

that

would occur

the

debt and the consequent strain on the

humorous

to those

who

lived

city's

and worked on the

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

168

A pamphlet printed by Dickmann's supporters clearly stated that if bond

the

clear

Louis would "get U.S. funds; cut reUef rolls;

issue passed, St.

37 blocks; put 5,000

men

work; build a memorial park; per-

to

petuate our nation's history," and, sweetest of

all,

the memorial

would

be "maintained by the federal government." Yet there were other reasons provided by additional groups.

The

leaders of forty local trade

unions were staunchly in favor, saying that jobs would come to the skilled laborers

of

St.

Louis. Yet stuck in the middle were African-

Americans,

who wondered what

O.

warnings

Peters's

leaders wrote to

Louis

is

labor to

benefits

aside. Several

Smith and

would come

of the

his associates:

city's

to

them, Paul

African-American

"Knowing that the

city

of St.

dominated by union labor and knowing the

attitude of union

"What

will be the status

Negro workmen," the

leaders asked

work

of the Negro

workmen

bond

approved and the memorial completed, what will be the

issue

is

attitude toward

Negro

to the

in general?" Additionally, "If said

citizens as to their rights

and

privileges in the

enjoying of said improvements?" Despite these concerns, the

city's

African-American newspaper, the Argus, endorsed the bond

issue,

saying, "It

who

means bread,

clothing,

and other sustenances of life

to those

have been without work for some time."

Worried that the bond-issue vote was in jeopardy, Dickmann's rhetoric

grew more heated and threatening

those on the city payroll, will

know who

day

after the election,

maybe. he

mann

Dickmann

who may

approached.

could not have been clearer.

shirking because there

matter

disloyal

is

I

No

is

Dickmann

as the election

is

"We

going to be a checkup" the

claimed, adding, "and

I

don't

mean

have recommended any city employee,

if

he will be got rid of" In a nakedly brutal sentence, Dick-

explained:

don't like to be a dictator, but

interfere

To

I

and break down what we

gressive city.

don't

want

six

are trying to

or eight people to

do

to build

up

a pro-

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

169

Despite the mayor's efforts to the contrary, the appearance of a dictator

running the bond election was not

bond

issue.

lost

on wary opponents of the

Meanwhile, another canvass of the various

seen by the mayor's cronies, revealed that the

than

ever.

precincts, over-

bond was more popular

In sixteen wards, the bond was favored by a whopping

67,678 to 19,984, easily more than the necessary two-thirds vote. Despite these glowing numbers, the precinct captains were not taking

any chances. Captains in 669 precincts conducted door-to-door canvasses in late August, getting signed pledges in support of the

bond

issue.

With

these signatures in hand, the cap-

tains could reassure City Hall that the votes

the

bond

from prospective voters

were there for passage of

issue.

Delivering the Vote

The Chamber of Commerce, which endorsed

the

bond

issue,

surveyed

290 businesses within the area that would be demolished, and found that thirty-four of those businesses' owners said that they nitely

go out of business

missed such claims

if

the

bond

as "ridiculous."

After

all,

the memorial St.

at less

expen-

any displaced businesses located in their current "cramped

and forsaken quarter" would have better opportunities the supporters of the

While

would only

Louis was calcu-

25 miles long, "with ample and better locations

sive rentals,"

defi-

passed. Dickmann's forces dis-

be a few blocks long. Since the riverfront around lated at

would

bond

issue,

no one could possibly

to relocate.

To

lose.

the area was portrayed as a wasteland of destitute and aban-

doned buildings ravaged by time and the Depression, the Chamber of

Commerce

study revealed another story. Fully 55 percent of the area

was occupied by "substantial businesses" that employed between 3,000 and 5,000 workers. The types of businesses companies,

fiir

and wool

traders, seed

in the area varied: printing

and feed

distributors,

and some

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

170

The Chamber of Commerce then

wholesale grocers.

heart of their study: that if the project

There

will

arrived at the

commenced,

be a definite tension placed on industrial

real estate avail-

able outside the riverfront area if the proposal to erect a

Plaza

is fulfilled.

Just

how much

tension,

it is

Memorial

difficult to express

precisely.

For the owners of

this

property outside the riverfront, the only "ten-

how far to raise the

on the displaced

sion"

would be

The

study noted that "The absorption of this large amount of space,

in

rents

businesses.

together with the short period of time available for procuring

new

and perhaps, permanently, increase

real

locations, will temporarily, estate values in St. Louis."

A

crucial

moment

occurred the day before the election,

city elections supervisor,

when

the

James Waechter, stated that he expected

110,000 to 115,000 people to vote in the special election. If approximately 75,000 votes would be needed to approve the

on Election Day, over 94,000 votes had been

cast

When

an

the poUs closed, the "yes" votes

won by

by 4

official

so,

then

issue.

Yet

P.M. alone.

margin of

123,299 to 50,713, the supporters of the bond issue receiving 70,9 percent of the vote, over four percentage points

number of votes

in the election

people on

its side,

project seemingly

and with

it,

necessary.

The

exceeded 174,000, a considerable leap

from Waechter's estimate. With the bond

Memorial Expansion

more than

issue approved, the Jefferson

had the democratic wiU of the

now be

the bonds could

floated to start

the bulldozing.

The when

relative

calm was suddenly disturbed

shots rang out in City Hall.

exchanges within the Democratic supporting

The

Committee, and when

it

was

violence

on Election Day,

stemmed from heated

factions in City Hall,

Mayor Dickmann and

guns were drawn in the private

late

those

office

who opposed

of the

over, four

city's

namely those his rule.

The

Democratic City

men had been wounded.

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

including a Missouri state representative.

Dickmann's but

men

who had

171

Two

of the wounded were

responsible for delivering the Twenty-fourth

failed to

Ward

do so with appropriate margins. The blood on

the floor of City Hall testified to the intensity of the arguments

behind the bond-issue election and the pressure some partisans

felt to

deliver the votes to the mayor.

Elsewhere, some of the precinct handlers had succeeded in securing

thousands of votes,

many more than were

expected.

committeewoman was Mrs. Charles Carnali of Ward. She proudly noted that the vote

ward was 3,419

humbly with

to 426,

The

—

will claim that they fought

diate jobs that

downtown

The

more

"We

theft,

nullified a

Committee,

the election

enough

selling

after

retail

corner in the

for one,

rest.

knew

they had

Committee

leader Paul

who

cared, even

anyone

Franklin Roosevelt, asking that the results

due to extensive fraud. The Non-Partisan

pamphlet outlining the enormity of the vote

adding that "Money flowed

vile

NO." After

D'Arcy was more candid

to get the attention of

workers, judges, and clerks

were

let

letter to President

Committee printed

woman who

valuable," he boasted.

had been trying

of the election be

or a

of the project and the imme-

have made every

Citizens' Non-Partisan

sending a

connected

all

longer did he stress imminent jobs or the

been robbed and refused to Peters

in her

William D'Arcy,

man

that they even voted

to St. Louis,

No

to Jefferson:

area

it

historic value

would flow

the election was over.

monument

work of

publicity chairman of the project,

on the supposed

bond issue

an approval rate of nearly 89 percent. She

proclaimed: "In a few months you won't find a

the city

such precinct

the Twenty-third

in favor of the

attributed the result to "the untiring

it."

One

who

like

water amongst those political

not only supported the bond issue, but

to deliberately stuff ballots or

The committee began

make

investigating registration

false counts." lists

and soon received the considerable support of the

St.

in St. Louis,

Louis Post-

Dispatch. It did not take long to discover the enormity of the false registrants.

At

first,

"hundreds" of names could not be found residing at

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

172

the listed addresses, which were often abandoned buildings or vacant

tenements. In other cases, unanimous votes in favor of the bond issue

were found in some precincts, including Police Commissioner

William

Igoe's precinct,

where the bond passed 505

to 0. Thirty-four

precincts recorded over 97 percent of their votes in favor of the issue,

and

nificant

all

bond

nineteen wards that favored the resolution witnessed sig-

amounts of false

registration

and vote steaHng. Within these

wards, the vote favoring the bond issue was a combined 8,753 to 330, yet the Post-Dispatch easily found 543 voters davits that they

who

had voted "no" or were willing

their negative vote that

either signed affi-

to testify in court of

had obviously not been recorded

As

as such.

the investigation broadened, the scale and scope of the vote-stealing in St.

Louis were exposed.

The

stories

were compelling. In one barbershop on Franldin

392 names were placed on the

Street,

registration rolls in a thirteen-hour

period as residing there. In an abandoned building that had not been

occupied for over a year, 137 people were registered to vote. Atlantic Hotel, 160 people were registered, yet the hotel

claimed only

six

had ever resided

have registered in

there.

two separate

at least

When

a couple

residences,

it

At

the

owner

was found

was not

lost

to

on

anyone that one of the residences belonged to Robert Hannegan,

a

former chairman of the City Democratic Committee. In order for the massive duplicity to occur, election judges were shifted at the last

minute to areas where they were not familiar with

the local residents,

making

when

judges were not exacting

and proper

registration.

admitted that he

just take

it

came

to

down

seem

their

Bernstein, claiming, "It

demanding

Leonard Bernstein was an

knew none of the voters

assigned, but did not

"We

false registration easier to

is

identification

election judge

in the precinct

who

where he was

particularly worried about the situation.

names and

up

puU off The

let

them

to the clerks to

sign the books," said

check up to see

if they are

qualified voters." Bernstein disclosed that he received his placement

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

Even in the midst of a vote fraud investigation,

State Sen.

Michael Kinney (middle, facing opposite of

camera), one of the bosses of St. Louis politics, openly distributes the polls in a 1936 election. Kinney won his

173

ward 3,652 votes

money to

prospective voters outside

to 2. Credit: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

orders from a state senator and St. Louis city boss, Michael Kinney,

who had

given

being asked a

him

a job in the

series

City License Collector's

with Senator Kinney. Election overseers

stay in cial

After

of embarrassing questions by a reporter for the

Post-Dispatch, an obviously troubled Bernstein

that their job

office.

on Election Day was

good favor with people

dynamics in building a

went off

Bernstein understood

like

to look the other

like BCinney.

false registry list

In

to consult

all,

way

in order to

these were the cru-

of thousands of voters.

To those on the ground in St. Louis, these tactics were nothing new. A former member of the

St.

Louis Board of Election Commissioners stated

that ward heelers were well educated in padding registration

Ward and

precinct heelers collect persons from

lists.

How?

rooming houses and

boarding houses and other persons willing to earn a few

dollars.

Tracy Campbell

174

They give each of these people names list is

are the persons' real

retained by the

having either a

flat,

a

name and an

names, some are

ward

He

heeler.

a residence or a

Deliver the Vote

/

address.

fictitious.

Some of the

A copy of this

then arranges with a friend

rooming house, and,

sideration to the friend retains a copy of the

list

for a con-

with the names of

persons supposed to be registered at the address.

At other

times, a resourceful

ward

heeler

residing in neighboring counties or states tration day, swear that they

would have

come

vote, providing the address of the

ward heeler

who

dence. If asked by an election inspector

heeler.

On

Election Day, then, those

city,

and

register to

as their place

of

resi-

lived at the residence, the

conspiring voter would simply present the

ward

Louis on regis-

to St.

were residents of the

his relatives

provided him by the

list

who had

registered

under

the process could go to the polls, or repeaters hired for this purpose

could then vote as the individual registered

Over the next

illegally.

days, the Post-Dispatch revealed

more of the

latent

corruption in city elections. In some precincts, over thirty percent of the registry rolls were fraudulent, and the total trants in the city ballooned.

"Irregularity

seemed

number of false

As one RepubUcan

to be the rule.

At

poll watcher claimed,

the very start a

stepped outside, re-entered and registered again." friends cautioned

ran by warning

him about challenging

him not

"to see too

regis-

man registered, The watcher's

the ways St. Louis politics

much."

An

even more revealing

glimpse inside the vote-steaUng machine was unearthed by investigators.

By law, each

ballot boxes

precinct

was required

to

show

the time at which the

were returned from each precinct. Using

card" record, then, allowed investigators to learn precinct officers to

went

to the

make

their official counts.

Board of Election Commissioners

election requesting this record, they

could not be found.

Not

this "condition

how

When

long

it

took

investigators

a year following the

were informed that the record

to be outdone, the Post-Dispatch carefully

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

175

pieced together a time sequence that the missing records would reveal.

When

the paper had sampled precincts at 9 A.M. on Election Day,

they found that 21,000 ballots had been cast so

far.

That meant an

average of 7,000 ballots per hour were cast in that period (the polls

opened

6 A.M.).

at

At other

early afternoon, the average

intervals

throughout the morning and

remained between 7,500 and 17,300 per

hour. Considering that over 173,000 votes were officially cast, the investigators election,

to surmise that in the fmal three hours of the

were able

an average of over 26,600 votes were cast each hour. Fully one

third of the entire vote

was supposedly

the election. Considering

how little

order to accomplish this number,

cast in the

fmal three hours of

time each voter would have had in

it

was patently obvious that thou-

sands of votes had been stuffed in the fmal hours;

it

was not surprising

that records that could have revealed this were suddenly lost by the

Elections Board.

Part of the problem was that the city Elections Board merely

accepted the recommendations of the parties for precinct officers, rather than assigning qualified officials itself

Not

surprisingly, the

Elections Board was not pleased with the exposes of the Post-Dispatch

and refused

Waechter

to inspect the city's registry roUs. Rather,

said the

board chairman

board would only agree to investigate those cases of

fraud exposed by the newspaper, and refused to expand the inquiry

After Governor

purge the

rolls,

Guy B.

Park intervened and demanded that the board

the board relented and ordered the recheck to proceed.

By the end ofJuly 1936, the numbers of false registrants were beginning to the

startle

even the most cynical observer. In their investigation into

city's false registrants,

the Elections Board found 46,301 registrants

to be listed as "not found." This constituted nearly twelve percent

electorate of St. Louis.

public face

on the

Chairman Waechter, hoping

of the

to put the best

findings, dismissed any suggestions of "wholesale"

fraud and claimed 20,000 of these were probably due to deaths or

people leaving the

city.

A Democratic member of the Elections Board

Tracy Campbell

176

went even dying

further, claiming

at the rate

died the entire

/

Deliver the Vote

"Why, during the heat wave, they were

of 400 a day"

—

^which, since only an estimated

summer from the summer heat wave, was an astonishing

medical calculation. In wards Four and Five, controlled by

number of false

Kinney, the registry

350

Mike

registrants reached over half of the entire

list.

"Voted 'Em Like Soldiers" The

of the

details

St.

Louis bond issue are insightful

when

trying to

understand the larger culture that pervaded American politics time. Michael Krautchel ran a barbershop in the Sixth

was used

as a polling place

that the Democratic

Throughout the istration list

that he issue

was

not

sick, or

man and

"this at

that

man would

in the box,

be checked off as having voted." In votes stuffed in such a manner.

election officials

not be in to vote,

and those voters

for the

The bond

bond

names would

Krautchel saw at least

all,

fifty

issue passed in the precinct

housed in Krautchel's barbershop by 312 to

Some

examine a reg-

home, and a bunch of ballots

would be marked, put

later related

like soldiers" in his shop.

day, Krautchel observed poll officials

and say

Ward, which

on Election Day. Krautchel

machine "Voted 'em

at the

12.

added to the growing chorus. Robert E.

Puis, a Republican election official in the blatantly corrupt Fourth

Ward, claimed printed

One list

list

that

Democrats

in his

of registered voters in the precinct":

of the Democratic precinct

officials

goes through the printed

of voters and copies off certain names they intend to vote. Prob-

ably they will begin at the top of the

fourth name. list,

ward had made use "of the

They draw

and assign a

ballot

list

and copy off every third or

a line through these

number

to each one.

names on the printed

Sometime during the

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

day they

retire to the

which the judges and

number

177

back room, taking a supply of blank clerks have initialed,

ballots

and there they mark and

the ballots which are later deposited in the box.

If a genuine voter arrived a process available

whose name had been crossed

out, there

was

whereby no one would suspect anything was amiss.

Puis described:

A precinct official fmds the name on his printed been voted, but "hold,"

voted.

which

He

number

is

is

calls

out to his feUow

a signal to

them

hands the applicant placed following the

the applicant.

a ballot first

They always have

sees that

it

has

and adds the word

officials

that this

list,

name has

and when

it is

already been

numbered the

unvoted name following that of

plenty of names to take care of the

genuine voter.

Puis noted that those registered did not need to actually vote, "because

they know they don't have to

come to the polls to vote. Everything is done

beforehand." He then described

how the counting of votes took place:

They

don't actually count the ballots.

table

and

sort the

piles, so that

they

They dump

Democratic and Republican

know how many

ballots

the ballots on a

ballots in separate

were in the box. Then

they arbitrarily give each candidate a certain number of votes.

To Chairman Waechter and his men on

the Elections Board, their dis-

missal of the excessive "not founds" were aggravated by an August 1936

primary, in which only 2,852 of the "not founds" leaving well over 40,000 fraudulent tion Usts. In

Mike

showed up

at the polls,

names from the previous

registra-

Kinney's bid for re-election to the state senate, he

received 3,656 votes to his opponent's

two

in his

home

Fifth

Ward.

When the details of the fraud were fuUy exposed, the outcry against

Tracy Campbell

178

the results of the

bond

Deliver the Vote

/

issue election naturally intensified.

The Wash-

ington Post concluded that considering the extent of the false registration,

it

was obvious that "The people of

spend $7.5 million."

to

"must not be allowed to air,

and that "The

of a great

city

The rest

Louis

St.

not vote

Post-Dispatch declared that the election

under

this

doubt" of fraud hanging in the

can not afford to have

monument with

really did

said that the building

it

the people's flinds

being promoted by

is

fraudulent methods." Yet back at City Hall, City Counselor Edgar

Wyman there

argued that even

was no recourse

statute existed

overwhelming evidence of fraud

to overturn the

on fraud

meanwhile, fired the

if

St.

bond

existed,

issue election because

that covered bond-issue races.

no

Governor Park,

Louis Election Board, citing that

it

was "nec-

essary for the betterment of the public service." Before doing so, Dick-

mann and Bob Hannegan old board "for the that

good of the Democratic

Hannegan had made

Due

to the

tried to persuade the

work of

his plea "based

governor to keep the

party."

on

Park told reporters

practical politics."

the Post-Dispatch and protests by various

groups, a grand jury convened to investigate the bond-issue election.

Whether

the grand jury could actually examine the ballots used in the

election, however, ballots in

was

a matter of

some

debate. State law held that

all

an election had to be destroyed within one year after the

contest, unless an investigation

was

started within that year. Yet the

grand jury surprised everyone and decided not to investigate because a number on the jury

good thing"

for the city

felt

and best

at all

the riverfront project "would be a

Paul Peters's Citizens'

left alone.

Non-Partisan Committee, which had been the

first to call

attention to

the fraud, was outraged, and rallied at the Municipal Auditorium in protest. Peters stated the obvious city hall

when he

said:

employees were coerced into going

"An

down

election in

which

the line by the

city's

chief executive could not be called a free and fair election." Yet the

motives of the grand jury

development.

The grand

may have extended beyond community

jury foreman, Patrick Fitzgibbon, had a

The Real Foundations op the Gateway Arch

nephew who was an of St. Louis.

in all

The tive

also

project stalled in

Homer Cummings

had three other

Washington

Dickmann

on the

relatives

as well,

when Attorney General

work on

the St. Louis project. Yet

threatened to campaign against

FDR in St. Louis, the

administration changed course rather quickly, and to find language in the

newly minted Historic

Cummings was

Sites

The

we ought Even

we

to

work on

the

administration issued a one-year appropriation of $9 mil-

lion to clear the 37-block area.

that "since

able

Act that author-

ized the president to issue an executive order to start project.

city payroll.

ruled that the president could not issue an execu-

order permitting the start of

after

one of the most fraudulent wards

election judge in

He

179

are

all

committed up

go through with

after

A disgusted Ickes confided in his diary

it

on

to our eyes

think

this project, I

under whatever guise."

another grand jury indicted sixty-six people in the after-

math of the Post-Dispatch

revelations, a city

primary election in Sep-

tember 1936 saw even more widespread fraud and election corruption.

An

incredulous Post-Dispatch called the frauds in the newest election

"amazing," and concluded there was

and the actual vote" in eleven

St.

"little

relation

between the count

Louis precincts. Six Democratic nom-

many

inees for circuit judge, in fact, were credited with nearly twice as

votes as were actually cast.

Throughout the

ticket,

either severely under- or over-counted. Poll officials

candidates were

were hardly both-

ered by the recent exposes and acted with impunity. "So brazen was the fraud," wrote the Post-Dispatch, "that in

made

most instances no

to reconcile the certified count with the

boxes." Instead, poll officials

and divided the votes

number of ballots

made a rough estimate of the

as they pleased.

When

effort

a

was

in the

overall count

grand jury opened the

boxes to actually count the votes, they found that countless precincts

had simply made up

their vote totals. In

one race

for circuit judge in the

Eleventh Precinct of the Fifth Ward, one candidate was credited with having 170 votes. His "leader"

had only 12

sbc

votes,

opponents received none. In

and

his

opponents

split

actuality, the

the other 158.

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

180

Despite the fact that the details of

St.

Louis elections had been

exposed, the cheating only grew more open, and

own

paid no price at the ballot box for his issue count. In 1937, lican

opponent

when Dickmann

Dickmann himself

role in rigging the

ran for re-election, his Repub-

tried to highlight the fraud involved in the

1935 bond-

A

thoroughly

issue matter, saying the election

had been

"stolen."

unimpressed Dickmann cruised to an easy re-election

"A Miscarriage of The

suits

victory.

Justice"

supporters of the memorial encountered

pending

bond

more

resistance.

Due

to

launched by the Citizens' Non-Partisan Committee,

banking groups refused to bid on any of the bonds offered in April 1936. site

The

next month, thirty-six property owners within the proposed

sued to stop Interior Secretary Ickes from releasing any federal

funds to begin the project.

Edmund Toland,

erty owners, claimed that the project this

was

"a

the attorney for the prop-

grand scheme to get

rid

of

property at the expense of the Government of the United States."

Toland outlined the general zones of downtown businesses, and argued that promoters of the project "decided that the riverfront

district,

if they

could vacate"

"then the leaseholders would have to move."

Toland summarized:

That's the scheme.

It's

not intended to memorialize

ferson or anyone else.

It's

a

scheme

After a federal judge threw out the

promote

to

suit,

government

until

real estate value.

the plaintiffs appealed, and by

August the U.S. Court of Appeals had issued against the federal

Thomas Jef-

it

a

temporary injunction

could hear the case in

full.

Property owners along the riverfront were delighted, and reported that business was "brisk," and that several

new companies had even moved

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

into the area.

The

181

business owners were also buoyed by the impending

investigation into massive election fraud that also threatened the

of the bond

legality

Responding

issue.

to charges of fraud,

Luther Ely Smith remarked that

"mere evidence of fraud" could stop the issuance of bonds, then future

bond

would be postponed

issues

all

until after the required year

for the ballots to be destroyed. Paul Peters asked

had passed

if

Smith

where the memorial's supporters stood "when the mask has been torn and the fraud and corruption connected with the election made

aside

public?"

What

angered Peters so

much was

that crossed a certain acceptable line.

To

the enormity of the fraud

Peters,

it

was "Fraud not of

the occasional type, but fraud, so widespread and so

became almost

cials

how even

seemed

that

it

general, has been estabUshed in each of the nineteen

wards in which the bond ning to see

common

carried."

Furthermore, Peters was just begin-

after the stories

to look the other way,

of fraud were revealed, most

none more so than those

offi-

at the

National Park Service, whose interest in building the project rendered it

"entirely indifferent to the fraud."

may have been some sure that

it

that

any

certainly very far Peters's

when

irregularities" in the

replied that while "there

bond-issue election, he was

"was freer from fraud than are most elections." Using a for-

mula that allowed fident

Smith

so

many to

dismiss rigged contests. Smith was con-

"irregularities"

from being

in

the bond-issue

election

"were

sufficient to affect the result."

attempt to overturn the election ended in

March

1937,

the federal appeals court denied the property owners' appeal for

an injunction.

The

court's opinion, written

by Judge Josiah A. Van

Orsdale, issued a thunderous declaration of the validity of the bondissue election:

We think that the action of the city of St. Louis in raising its portion of the

money and paying

it

into the Treasury constituted an accept-

ance of the offer of the United States and resulted in a contract.

— Tracy Campbell

182

/

Deliver the Vote

court declared that the city of St. Louis, by passing the

The

had

issue,

essentially entered into a binding contract

government.

The

regardless of

property owners tried one

The

election served as the

whether that signature was forged. The

last appeal, this

time to the U.S. Supreme

Court, which refused to hear the case. Considering spired, the Post-Dispatch

with the federal

necessary margin was achieved by

fact that the

wholesale fraud was considered irrelevant. city's signature,

bond

withdrew

its

all

that

had tran-

endorsement of the project

something the paper did not loudly proclaim decades

when

later

trumpeting the benefits of the Gateway Arch.

May

In

1938, the Missouri Supreme Court halted any further

examination of the widespread fraud in the bond-issue election. court found that since the one-year Hmit had expired

was

first

when

heard, the ballots should have been destroyed.

The

the case

Even though

the ballots were safely locked in a vault and ready for inspection by a

grand jury, the court ruled that for lots

all

intents

and purposes, those bal-

did not exist and could not be used as evidence.

admitted: "This

may

result in destroying evidence

fraud." Yet Missouri law clearly stated the ballots in order to preserve the secrecy

frauds, coercion,

and the

even more possible guarded." tice"

The

sale

of the

ballot.

The

court

and covering up

were to be destroyed

"On

the other

hand

of votes," the court reasoned, would be

"if the secrecy

of the ballot box were not

strictly

Post-Dispatch called the decision a "miscarriage of jus-

and "one of those instances where good law

conflicts

with justice,

the interest of the community, and ordinary horse sense." Despite the

overwhelming evidence that fraud had carried the bond-issue state

and federal courts refused

and the

To

election's results

those

to intercede for a variety

race,

of reasons,

were carved in stone.

who had sued to

stop the bonds, they really

had no chance,

Not only were

the courts pre-

considering what they were up against.

disposed to dismissing what had happened, the power of those

stood to gain from the memorial project could not be denied.

who The

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

183

were businesses

substantial group opposing the project

most

like the

Levison and Blythe Manufacturing Company, Hill Brothers Fur, and

G.

Robins Company, firms that leased property owned by real

S.

companies and stood

They would

to receive

estate

nothing fi'om the federal government.

either have to relocate,

pay higher

rents, or

go out of busi-

ness altogether.

"It Stevks"

The

frustration felt

who saw the fraud surrounding this One member of Congress was not ready to

by those few

"contract" did not go away.

spend the millions on

a project that reeked

of election fraud. Repre-

William Lambertson of Kansas proclaimed on the House

sentative floor that

"The

St.

Louis proposal smells.

It stinks."

Lambertson

dis-

cussed the revelations of fraud in the bond-issue election, and noted that throughout the rulings of the federal courts

on the

lawsuits chal-

lenging the project, "The matter of election frauds was given no con-

whatsoever."

sideration

To Lambertson,

essentially "a real estate proposition,"

by

St.

the

entire

was

affair

Louis real-estate pro-

moters "to unload 37 blocks of business property in downtown

St.

Louis onto the Federal government."

As

a

member of the

Interior

subcommittee that oversaw funds

for

the National Park Service, Lambertson was indignant that the Park Service

would acquiesce

to being associated with such a project.

"Think of the National Park Service leaving the Yellowstone to dip into the cesspool of

St.

lofty

Louis."

grandeur of the

The

very notion of

using the pretext of a memorial to Jefferson struck Lambertson as odd.

"There

is

no more sense

would be

to advance

condemn

half the

fire

created

in tearing these buildings

on the

city

downtown

when Mrs.

down than

there

of Chicago, and demand the right to

area as a

O'Leary's

memorial

cow kicked

to the great historic

over a lantern in 1871."

Tracy Campbell

184

Lambertson's

/

Deliver the Vote

hope was that President Roosevelt would

futile

inter-

vene and suspend the building of the memorial until the bond-issue

no one would want

to pro-

ceed with the building of a $30 million memorial to that great

Amer-

election

ican,

was properly

Thomas

investigated. "Surely

Jefferson,"

Lamberston claimed, "whose

principles of

honesty and democracy are beyond question, and have future generations point to

it

monument

as a

Another congressman, Robert said

the

machine

entire

and waste."

Rich, a Republican of Pennsylvania,

F.

was "Pendergastism, Dickmannism, and Rich pleaded with

politics at its worst."

allow "the

bond

project

to fraud, corruption, graft,

memory of the

his colleagues not to

fraud and corruption behind the St. Louis

issue election to fade out

with the memorial in the eternal

shadows." In time, Rich's fears would be realized.

Was Lambertson deal?

Were

Was

right?

the 37 blocks of

the project principally a real-estate

condemned property

as destitute as

advertised? In order to understand the origins of the bond-issue vote, a central question

who would is

lose?

is:

To

Who would benefit see the

most from the

memorial project

project,

and

in its fullest context,

it

necessary to go back months before the bond-issue referendum. In

January 1935, backers of the memorial project met with Dickmann's old board, the St. Louis Real Estate Exchange.

The

city's real estate

from the leader of the project to

leaders heard an urgent appeal

solicit

contributions in order to facilitate that Association's purpose of

building a riverfront memorial. During the discussion, one of the real estate brokers

mentioned,

"I

disposition of the properties

have been very .

.

.

for several years.

a selfish standpoint, as a real estate

Of course, St.

Louis

this

is

is

much

man."

He

I

interested in

am

some

speaking from

continued.

not supposed to be a real estate venture, so far as

concerned, but

it

will enter into

it

more or

in taking the historical features in connection with

happens that that section

is

a section that has

the property owners, real estate

men,

for a

less,

it, it

because

very well

been on the minds of

good many

years.

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

185

Claude Ricketts, chairman of the Real Estate Exchange, was even

more candid: he

had

told those in attendance the project really

nothing to do with jobs or memorializing

Thomas

Jefferson.

Those

items served as essential political cover for the real point, to increase real-estate values

could

downtown.

make Fourth

has always been

"It

my

idea that if is

absolutely

would continue

to get the

Street valuable," Ricketts claimed, "it

and Seventh

a certainty that Sixth

streets

rent that they contracted to get for the next thirty-five years."

member of the board spoke of seeing

When

Emmanuel.

saw

it

members of

But

it

took

a

the real-estate

bond

issue

Rome

Another

to Victor

monument monument

government cleared the area and,

Mussolini to do

community

help the memorial project, since

passage of the

in

to the glorious

Louis broker, "that wonderful

St.

all its glory.

shame

as a

to them. Luckily, Mussolini's

in

memorial

he noticed old buildings near the

standing, the broker

words of the

a

it

monument

it."

St.

still

next

in the

stands there

Ricketts implored the

to contribute all

it

could to

would ultimately benefit from the

more than any other

Perhaps what motivated the

we

interest.

Louis Real Estate Exchange was

something more than increased land values or the "tension" of accom-

modating more businesses simple

fact:

in available space.

Even more

basic

was

a

Real estate companies held a sizeable amount of property

in the 37-block area,

and stood

to

make

a considerable profit

from the

government's condemnation and purchase of land. Real estate companies

owned

eighty properties, nearly 28 percent of the total, and their

combined assessed value was $1,479,950. Banks and investment firms

owned an

additional 29 properties valued at $360,540. All told, the

city's real estate

and financial sector owned 109 properties and 35 per-

cent of the "blighted"

area's assessed value.

in the top five largest property

and

real estate

Three

owners in the

real estate firms

area,

and eleven

were

financial

companies were within the top twenty-one. Consid-

ering that the project's legal committee had been advised by "experi-

enced

real estate

condemned

men"

at a rate

that the property in the proposed area

would be

25 percent in excess of the assessed value,

it

was

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

186

math

simple

for the real estate

mostly industrial area

as a

companies of

new

values.

The

In the

Louis to look upon a

source of immediate income. In turn,

condemnation would immediately

its

St.

neighboring property

raise

would pay higher

residents of the area, of course,

month before the bond-issue vote, the Post-Dispatch noted that

hundreds of firms would be forced to move from the

endum

passed. "Real estate

ings will absorb

What

rents.

all

men

are uncertain

whether

site if

the refer-

available build-

the concerns in event of evacuation of the riverfront."

one anxious

revealing than he intended.

New

accommodate the migrating

may have been more

then said

realty executive

structures

would have

to be built to

was

businesses, he noted, but there

problem: "Tenants east of Third Street have for

many years been

a

accus-

tomed to low rents and possibly may not be willing or able to pay enough volume of new construction." Rather than empty ware-

to create a large

houses or destitute buildings, area,

from the

it

seems one of the major problems of the

real-estate sector,

was whether some of the businesses

were capable of paying enough rent to

Four months

suit their aspirations.

after the election, the

Real Estate Exchange produced

another resolution backing the project

grounded people.

their

economic

"Whereas the

interests

city

of

—

this

time in prose that

with the democratic consent of the Louis, by an overwhelming vote,

St.

authorized the issuance of bonds," the board wrote, by "wiping out this blighted area,

it

will

undoubtedly produce renewed and extensive

activity in the real estate market."

summer of 1939

readers as late as the rial

project

—not only because the

had been obtained by

results

it

now opposed

the

for the jobs that

came

when

to nearly

the final appraisal

$7 million,

a

its

memo-

of the bond-issue election

would

had been promised.

indicator of the real condition of the "blighted" area

veyed in 1939, erty

that

Post-Dispatch reminded

fraud, but also because "most of the funds

go for property," and not

An

The

bill for

the

was con-

condemned prop-

whopping 65 -percent

increase over

the 1938 assessed value. Interior Secretary Ickes, in fact, threatened to

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

187

cancel the project because of the "excessive" nature of the

warned that the real estate

selling a

federal

boom

government would not support

how much

based on

a

landowner could get through

holding to the government."

Commerce, the were living

of the riverfront

reality

some abandoned

in

nesses in the area that

employees.

To

riverfront,

to relocate, along with their

whose homes or businesses hap-

way of Dickmann's

presidential memorial.

unemployed

would have

name of urban

turned in the

The

renewal,

relief that

laborers also did not

which included

only real outcome of the

project, their lives all

in order to

was promised

pan

out.

The

several historic sites,

and nothing was developed

in

its

initial

make way

for a

to thousands of

property along the

was summarily razed

The

spent on the project was the

Between 1939, when the area was

cleared and nothing but a parking lot remained, little

were over-

place for nearly three decades.*

money

clearance of the 37-block area.

obviously produced

Chamber of

was mixed. Homeless people

buildings. Yet there were 196 busi-

the forgotten people

to be in the

rial site

Ickes

"a speculative

Despite the claims of the city administration and the

pened

bill.

income

and 1959, the memo-

for the city. In fact, during

these years the city lost an estimated $5.4 million in property taxes.

Who were

some of these forgotten people who stood

the memorial?

One was A. W.

city's offer for his

Albrecht,

who was

sum

for the

way of

not pleased with the

property. Albrecht's business netted

year, a rather impressive

in the

him $3,000

middle of the Depression. The

a

city

assessed his property at $7,900, at which Albrecht wondered, "Will you

please

tell

me where

$3,000 per year?" fur

*

and wool

The

I

can invest $7,900 to bring

Some of the

traders, along

riverfront area razed

me

an income of

angriest voices along the riverfront were

with a number of manufacturers, whose

by the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial included the

courthouse where the Dred Scott case was for their distinctive architecture

first

heard, and several historic buildings noted

and once occupied by luminaries such

as U. S.

Grant.

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

188

dislocated businesses

would never return anything approaching what

they were then earning.

Mrs. Elsa Pappas rented

Second and Valentine.

a grocery store at

She noted that she "supposed the memorial plan marked progress," but had no idea where she would for renters," she added.

have been thick in

go.

While

"The government made no allowance the area noted that "real estate

this district" as the appraisals

men

were conducted, the

same could not be said of the businesses that were being driven away.

As one

observer noted, the area was beginning to look Hke a ghost

town, compared to the activity in 1935

—the same time when sup-

porters of the project said the area was virtually

empty and "bHghted."

"The Greatest Memorl\l Since THE Eiffel To\\t:r" After rial.

World War

An

won

II,

Luther Ely Smith revived the plan for

architectural competition ensued in 1947,

memo-

a

and Eero Saarinen

the contract to design the memorial. Saarinen proposed an

inverted catenary arch

hundred

feet.

Hopes

made of stainless

steel that

would

for constructing the Arch, however,

rise

over six

were dashed

by the outbreak of the Korean War. Only by the 1960s did the government spend the necessary funds thirty years after the

came

to St. Louis.

bond

issue, the

When the

federal

to begin construction. Nearly

promised construction jobs

keystone was completed in 1965,

finally

among

those attending the grand opening was former mayor Bernard Dick-

mann, who boasted

that the

Arch was

"the greatest

memorial since the

Eiffel Tower." Interestingly, in the late 1960s,

sented to the voters of

St.

two more bond

Louis concerning the arch.

and federal funds exhausted, the money rounding the arch was gone, and in 1966

to a

issues

were pre-

With both

local

complete the park sur-

bond

issue

was put before

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

the voters that project.

would

float

189

$2 million in order to complete the entire

again needing a two-thirds vote, the referendum failed

Once

to pass, getting only 59.5 percent of the vote. Yet just four later,

bond was approved

the same

ting 69.5 percent of the vote.

months

in a special election, this time get-

Heading the campaign

to pass the

second bond-issue election was none other than former mayor Dick-

mann, who

told reporters afterward: "Never at any time did

I

think

it

wouldn't pass."

The

story of the St. Louis election fraud investigation produced a

sweeping purge in the

city's registry rolls,

and won the Post-Dispatch

a

Pulitzer Prize in 1937. Yet the remnants of the corruption remained

unimpeded by

either judicial intervention or journalistic outcries.

buildings were demolished and the businesses removed.

Many

The

of the

accomplices in stealing the election rose to substantial posts on the national scene.

Dickmann went on

Robert Hannegan became chairman of the

Democ-

National Committee, and fellow Missourian Harry

Truman

for fifteen years. ratic

to serve as postmaster of St. Louis

appointed him postmaster general for his efforts on behalf of the party. (In the bond-issue vote, Hannegan's precinct delivered 1,486 in sup-

port of the bonds to only 52 votes against. Later, 321 people swore

they voted "no" in Hannegan's precinct.) Luther Ely Smith's dream of a riverfront

hopes.

The

development was eventually realized beyond story of the thirty-year drive to build the

complex one, lessly to

as

some civic-minded

their wildest

memorial

citizens of St. Louis

worked

is

a

tire-

produce one of the most spectacular architectural and engi-

neering triumphs of the twentieth century.

Yet that building a

is

not the entire

monument

story.

Dickmann's public expressions of

to the spirit of westward expansion

flage for less lofty motivations.

was camou-

His pronouncements about providing

jobs were, at best, disingenuous, considering that the project actually

contributed to the

shut

down when

city's

wwemployment,

as

dozens of businesses were

property was condemned. Dickmann's maneuverings

Tracy Campbell

190

may be

Louis benefited

St.

Deliver the Vote

perceived as acts of inspired politics to exploit the opportunity

afforded by the largess of the

of

/

New Deal, but most contemporary citizens

little

from the memorial. Those

living in the

downtow^n area paid higher rents for their homes and businesses. That

was why they had opposed the bond issue in the first place. The only real, immediate winners were Dickmann's old proteges, the

real-estate

panies,

which owned

a

returns

on the

money spent to buy their property.

Even

if

"dictator,"

federal

good deal of the "blighted"

Dickmann had not

area and

made good

intimidated city workers by acting as a

and had been motivated by nothing more than

mindedness; even

if it

had been nothing but

gram bogged down by

com-

his civic-

a well-intended jobs pro-

federal bureaucratic red tape, or a desire to

beautify the riverfront with a dazzHng architectural triumph; in the

end, one thing remains. In 1935, the

by the voters of St. Louis. The

bond

issue

was

electoral victory for

actually rejected

Dickmann and

his

Once

supporters was obtained by intimidation and massive fraud.

done, there was no looking back. Indeed, rather than overturn the election, the courts validated

what had occurred and described

it

as

an

agreement to a contract. The Jefferson National Memorial was created in spite of the election,

people

who

lived

and

it

profoundly changed the

and worked on the riverfront

elections rarely approach. For those

who

in

ways that normal

exposed the fraud and were

dismissed at virtually every corner, they learned a painful lesson

an accurate election count sometimes After the Gateway Arch was

built, it

people. For the citizens of St. Louis, Eiffel

Tower had

monument

Paris or the

is

of the

lives

—

that

beside the point.

became many things

it

to

symbolized their city

Colosseum Rome. Some hailed

many as the it

as a

to Jefferson, or the Louisiana Purchase, or the hearty spirit

that fueled the pioneers. In time, to the West,

it

was known simply

and one of the most recognized

as the

Gateway

structures in the world.

For tourists visiting the Arch, the pamphlets read that the people of St.

Louis had started everything back in 1935,

when they approved

the

The Real Foundations of the Gateway Arch

bond

issue.

In the end, the Arch stands as a

more than what plays the

is

monument

usually carted out for tourists.

power of

a

determined

real-estate interests to

city hall

overcome staunch

191

to

something

The Arch vividly dis-

and the clout of the political opposition,

city's

and

stands as a reminder of what a stolen election can sometimes produce.

Chapter Eight

"Consistency,

Thou Art a

JeweF' "You have no idea

how

the people are

intimidated, especially in depressed times.

Due

to

the lingering financial crisis produced

Depression and the increasing power of those

by the Great

who

could curry

favor with the Roosevelt administration, the need to acquire and retain political

the

power was magnified

more seasoned

at

every

level.

Consequendy, some of

practitioners of the art of delivering votes

the fore. In their wake, the civic

life

came

to

of the nation was battered in ways

not seen in such open displays since the Gilded Age.

Pendergl\st

After the exposes concerning the

St.

Louis election, one might con-

clude that that city was the nation's most corrupt in the 1930s. Yet one

could

make

a strong case that St. Louis

rupt city in Missouri.

That

distinction

was not even the most cor-

fell

to

Kansas City, run by Tom

193

"Consistency, Thou Art a Jewel"

Tom

Pendergast of Kansas City. Credit: Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri

Pendergast, a

man whose

able dividends.

While

St.

control of city politics generated consider-

Louis would one day boast of the Gateway

own

Arch, the Pendergast machine would claim one of its

as

occupant

of the Oval Office.

Tom Pendergast inherited his position from his brother, "Alderman Jim" Pendergast,

who had

built his

power base

of Kansas City's First Ward.

districts

When Jim

took over and expanded the ring and chest, a quick temper,

and

a

friends,

Through

and receiving

trough. His concrete

its

died in 1911,

patronage.

penchant for gambUng and

viving Pendergast looked like ical big-city boss.

in the working-class

what we think of today

With

Tom

a barrel

cigars, the sur-

as the stereotyp-

favorable contracts, lobbying his powerful

bribes, Pendergast

company generated

tracts

he secured to build the

rium.

At

city's

new

had grown

rich at the public

a small fortune

airport

from the con-

and municipal audito-

the height of his power in the mid-1930s, Pendergast built a

Tracy Campbell

194

home

palatial

Deliver the Vote

/

Kansas City whose costs were estimated to exceed

in

$125,000. Pendergast's source of power came specifically from the

northern wards, which produced the gaudy vote margins to which

many local and came

state politicians eventually

winning

to

elections for his candidates,

stood that "The fundamental secret

then get

it

owed

out after

it's

is

their offices.

Tom

When it

Pendergast under-

to get the vote registered

registered. That's

all

there

is

to

—and

it."

Stealing Second Base Like aU big-city bosses, Pendergast rewarded his friends with jobs, contracts,

and access to power, and punished

these lines of patronage.

One

his

enemies by cutting off

of his better-known friends was Harry

Truman from nearby Independence. Truman was

a failed haberdasher

who, with the Pendergast machine's support, had won election county judge and, in 1934, a U.S. Senate

as a

seat.

Truman's victory in the 1934 Democratic primary was one that revealed

Day

why having Pendergast on

one's side

essential

on Election

Truman's major challenger. Congressman John Cochran of

Louis, had strong support from Bernard ratic

was

machine of the

city.

The

Dickmann and

election boiled

down,

the

who

machine worried about

a third contender, U.S. District

121,048 to 4,614, while Milligan

St.

won

alone,

City, Pendergast returned the favor,

by

Louis

Truman winning 93.2% of the

Truman

just over 10,000 votes: In a total St.

to

Louis vote. In the

Truman's

and Truman

a total of 137,529 to Cochran's

Attorney and

Louis, Cochran beat

won 89.1% of the Cochran won 5,568

three-way race, Cochran

Ward

St.

could create the most votes." Neither city

Pendergast foe Maurice Milligan. In

Fourth

Democ-

in the historian

Alonzo Hamby's words, "between the Kansas City and politicians to see

St.

8.

In Kansas

won Jackson County

1,525 and Milligan's

8,406—

total vote. (In a previous race in 1932,

"Consistency, Thou Art

Cochran

A

195

Jewel"

—then enjoying Pendergast's support—won Jackson County

by 95,000

votes.)

Elsewhere in the

state,

tainted with a certain degree of honesty,

where the vote

totals

Truman won 134,707

were votes,

Cochran 113,532, and Milligan 128,401, an indication of just how formidable Milligan would have been had honest elections been con-

ducted in

St.

Louis and Kansas City. In

all,

Truman

beat Cochran by

over 40,000 votes. In the words of the historian Richard

S.

Kirkendall,

Truman's victory erased "any doubt that Pendergast was the most powMissouri

erful figure in

For the

rest

politics."

of his poHtical

life,

national

by

he climbed from the Senate to the

White House, Truman was known

vice presidency and, finally, the derisively

as

gentleman from Pendergast."

his critics as "the

committeeman Barak T. Mattingly

said

GOP

Truman occupied

the

presidency due to "70,000 ghost votes" he had received in 1934 from Pendergast's machine. "Without those votes," Mattingly claimed,

"Harry Truman's term

as

The to

would have ended with the end of his

Jackson County Judge." details

which

voters

political career

his

on the

of Pendergast's methods reveal the extent of the fraud

machine would

resort.

Even with over 50,000 phantom

registry roUs, Pendergast used carloads

of armed thugs to

carry a 1934 municipal election against a Fusionist ticket of disgruntled

Democrats and Republicans. The chairman of the county Repub-

lican in

committee wired Governor

Kansas City

Guy

Park describing the conditions

as "intolerable," saying that

more bloodshed would

follow unless "this orgy of wholesale slugging and intimidation of voters

is

stopped." In a runoff race held later in the month, the situa-

tion only

grew worse. One precinct captain was

with thugs patrolling neighborhoods in In other areas of the

by the

carload.

city,

ballot

killed in a

gun

battle

a car.

books were stolen and repeaters voted

A driver simply taking voters to the polls was assaulted,

and one reporter was chased by gun-wielding men. The Kansas City -S/«r

decried the "reign of terror" that had seized the

city's elections.

A

Tracy Campbell

196

citizens'

to

Deliver the Vote

group supporting the fusion ticket went to police headquarters

demand

met by

protection for their voters, where they were

police chief's secretary

who

the

responded, "You're getting protection" and

By

refused to do anything more.

dozen

/

men had been beaten, one

the end of the day, approximately a shot,

and four

of which was

killed, all

incidental to the city's acknowledged political kingpin. Pendergast

remarked he was "tickled

to death" over the election, as his candidate for

mayor won by nearly 60,000

mented ings,

votes.

that while the Pendergast

"we sent marines

A

small Kansas newspaper

machine won by

com-

and beat-

killings

to Nicaragua to supervise elections."

The manner in which election judges were appointed in Kansas City was equally corrupt. Although judges of both major

on hand

at the precinct as a

parties

were to be

check on one another, the Pendergast

machine managed

to evade bipartisan accounting for a less

system. Since ward

committeemen were responsible

names of precinct

officials,

"RepubHcans" on the

lists

who were

lots,"

parts,

he

all

loyal

Democrats.

to a reporter

posing

as a

"We

all

my life." One member of the

Democratic

Pendergast machine

don't have to bother about voting

them from vacant

said, adding, in a not-so-delicate jab at his St.

"we

One African-

she would look out to protect party concerns, since "I've

been a Democrat responded:

for submitting the

the machine surreptitiously placed over 250

American woman confessed official that

troubhng

just see to

it

Louis counter-

that the election officials are 'right.'

"

To one

observer of the situation, the system of widespread fraud was well

known in Kansas City and was so

many

much

voters

major contributor to the cynicism that

had toward voting and

politics. Vote-stealing

was so

a part of the political culture of Kansas City that average voters

had come

to regard "the stealing

in a baseball

of a vote akin to stealing second base

game."

In the general election in in

a

November 1936, no bloodshed occurred

Kansas City, but behind the apparent peace and calm was yet

another electoral crime. In

many

precincts,

all

the candidates, from

"Consistency, Thou Art

a

197

Jewel"

constable to President of the United States, received the exact same

number of votes. To

U.S. District Attorney Maurice Milligan, under-

how

standably sensitized to

fraud could be used to defeat candidates,

this

was too obvious. Milligan brought the case before

The

legal proceedings

began by opening a sack of 95

been altered from a straight RepubHcan one.

The grand jury learned

that

grand

a

jury.

ballots that

ticket to a straight

when one WPA worker

had

Democratic

refused to go

along with a machine plan to use names on a hotel registry in an

attempt to falsely register fraudulent voters, he was told by a Pendergast

man, "If you want

Chloe Albright,

to eat, help out here."

testified that after the polls

fronted by a Democratic election matter-of-factly,

When

"You know we

One

had

precinct worker,

was con-

closed, she

official,

Edson Walker, who

are not

going to count those votes."

told her,

she refused to turn over the books. Walker threatened to take

her "on a one-way ride." In time, Milligan convicted 259 people in the

Jackson County area for election fraud. His work in uncovering the prevalence of fraud in city elections was not well received by Pendergast's

as

Senator Truman,

who

after his presidency referred to

MiUigan

nothing more than a "dumb cluck." In 1939, Pendergast went to prison for income tax evasion, a charge

often used against powerful figures. prison, a

new day

for

Even

after

Pendergast was sent to

Kansas City elections did not

arrive.

In a 1946

Democratic primary, remnants of the Pendergast machine revealed that said

machine was not quite

finished. In races for county

commis-

sioner and attorney, the "leaders of the resurgent machine" sent to support selected candidates for the respective offices.

votes were counted, two Pendergast candidates

word

When

won by 545 and

the

1,011

votes respectively, out of nearly 125,000 votes cast. Veterans of Kansas

City politics recognized what had happened

when

the machine wards

returned votes for the machine candidates of over 95 percent.

The

Kansas City Star sent reporters and hired students from a local law school to investigate, and eventually 5,000 people were interviewed.

Tracy Campbell

198

Some

/

Deliver the Vote

patterns began to emerge. Approximately 45 percent of the

election judges did not even serve in the primary; in

some

precincts

the poll takers deliberately miscounted the votes, and in others there

was no count taken tickets

at

all:

they were simply "announced" as Pendergast

(meaning that machine candidates received the number of

votes equivalent to the

number of ballots); and

there

was always the

usual assortment of false registrations and voting the dead. Although

Pendergast himself was gone, the remnants of his machine to continue in the tradition

of Kansas City

knew how

politics.

OUTDUMMIED

Tom

Pendergast and his machine

the hierarchy of corruption. After

and U.S. Senator Huey

P.

still

all,

took a backseat to Louisiana in

this

Long ruled

was the

state

where Governor

the state like no other individual

had ruled in American history. The "Kingfish" may not have created the political culture all

kinds to

of his

state,

but he and his cohorts took corruption of

new heights, and

were where

elections

Huey Long had grown accustomed

it all

began.

to charges that he

and

his

dabbled in election fraud. His brother, and future governor. Earl, fied before a Senate

Huey was on

the

committee that a day

phone with

a crony

after

one particular

men testi-

election,

from the notorious Plaquemines

Parish about a Congressional race between James

O'Connor and

"Bathtub Joe" Fernandez. Huey's discussion, according to Earl, con-

how the vote should be counted in the Parish. At first, O'Connor seemed to have won the race by 3,500 votes. But after Huey's phone call, when the Plaquemines count came in, Fernandez suddenly was the victor by 1,500 votes. The Long machine's hold over the St. Bernard cerned

Parish was

on

vivid display in a January

1932 gubernatorial primary,

where Long's handpicked candidate, O. K. Allen, won 3,152 votes parish.

His four opponents did not win a

single vote there.

in the

"Consistency, Thou Art

Jewel"

a

199

Long's support in the Plaquemines and

nated with a

rival boss,

St.

Bernard parishes

Leander Perez. Few people

had the command of a

community

local

in the

United States

Perez did, and his hand-

as

picked candidates often received majorities of over 95 percent.

Long

origi-

When

ran for the U.S. Senate in 1930, he received 3,977 votes in

St.

Bernard, even though there were only 2,454 registered voters. Alphabetical voting

was

endorsement,

rival

common

two

parishes,

and without Perez's

candidates saw their chances for winning disappear.

Anti-Perez candidates, in ballot in

in the

Plaquemines and

fact,

St.

sometimes could not even get on the

When

Bernard.

one candidate sought a

qualifying form, he was told at the courthouse that none remained.

Others

who were

able to complete the forms were later disqualified

because they had not paid the proper filing and postage five anti-Perez

their

way onto

candidates suffered this

names on the

same outrageous margins swirled about virtually

all

the state since the 1920s,

Long As

in

as

of Long's it

ballot,

had so many

own

would be

fees.

Twenty-

while others tried to fight

the ballot by appealing to the state

successful at placing their

erendum

fate,

Supreme Court.

If

they simply lost by the

before.

Although rumors

elections to various offices in

a constitutional

amendment

ref-

1932 that would produce the most revealing reaction from

against inquiries into Louisiana elections. a

freshman senator. Long had to answer charges before a U.S.

Senate special committee involving his

own

September

colleagues. In

1932, Long's candidate, John Overton, ran against the incumbent

Democrat, Edwin Broussard,

for the party's nomination.

As

in

most of

the Southern states, the Democratic primary was the only election that really mattered: the

winner would either run unopposed

or against a hapless Republican case,

who had no

in

November

chance of winning. In

Overton won handily, but Broussard contested the

results

this

and

requested that a Senate committee look into the Overton campaign. Broussard's specific charges claimed that state employees were coerced into supporting Overton, as well as other tricks used

by the Long

Tracy Campbell

200

Leander

forces to intimidate voters. In

example, Overton

committee began

mind

won

its

Perez's St.

/

Deliver the Vote

Bernard Parish, for

3,080 votes to Broussard's 15.

As

the Senate

work, there was no doubt in any astute observer's

was not John Overton, but

that the real subject of the committee

the senior senator from Louisiana.

The skillful

strongest charges against

Long and

concerned the

his forces

manipulation of the state election laws through the use of

"dummy

candidates." This

was

a familiar tactic in Louisiana.

sometimes hundreds, of candidates the ballot, most of

for local offices

a tactic

was straightforward: Local

missioners were chosen in Louisiana by local office could

would be put on

them with no intention of ever serving

The purpose of such

lot,

Dozens,

if elected.

com-

election

and every candidate

for a

put forward one name for the pool. Long's forces

paid the filing fees for thousands of such candidates in order to increase their chances of having favorable election commissioners

chosen

at

random. In

dates were

on the

New Orleans,

ballots,

and each put forward a name

for election commissioner. All

had only

sixty.

over a thousand such fake candito be

were Longites, while Broussard's side

Such methods, of

course, greatly increased the odds,

ostensibly legal, of Long's supporters packing the election sion.

Thus armed,

Huey vowed nents. Julius

chosen

commis-

the Longites could then control the election

that he

would never be "outdummied" by

Long, another of Huey's brothers,

50,000 votes were controlled by asked what effect Long's

his

itself.

oppo-

testified that at least

Long throughout

Louisiana;

when

dummy candidates had on the election, Julius

was candid:

You would this state

ordinarily think they

would stampede, but the people of

have been in such desperation for two or three years that

they are absolutely afraid to go against the

whether he

steals it or not.

.

.

.

They

Don't you see what would happen?

I

man who

said

is

going to win,

"You cannot beat them.

will lose

my job

and starve to

"Consistency, Thou Art

death."

You have no

A

idea

Jewel"

how

201

the people are intimidated, especially

in depressed times.

The committee

reported

Overton and Long took tigation

was

its

findings without any recommendations.

their seats,

and both protested that the inves-

politically inspired.

The Proper Protection In

November 1932,

amendments were on

fifteen constitutional

the

Louisiana ballot, including two that were vehemently opposed by

Long's opponents

—one

that issued

bonds

to cover

Board of Liqui-

dation expenses, and another that would enable the city of

Orleans to purchase a

ferry.

Neither of the amendments seemed

especially significant at the time, but both

and both involved big money

New

were supported by Long

for the right insiders. All

of the pro-

posed amendments passed, but the self-appointed Honest Election

League looked

a bit deeper into the returns,

teen precincts in

important to

New Orleans, the votes

to approve the

Long were unanimous, and

vote totals were

all

identical.

As

in six-

amendments

in twenty-eight others the

Orleans Parish District Attorney

Eugene Stanley began presenting evidence sive fraud

and found that

to a

grand jury that mas-

had occurred.

Stanley began his work, he soon encountered

some of the means

by which Louisiana poUtics was protected from charges of stolen tions. The

to ask

him

elec-

Louisiana Attorney General, Gaston Porterie, called Stanley to drop the case, claiming that

of the bond

issues.

When

it

would hurt the legitimacy

Stanley demurred, Porterie reminded

him

that under state law, the attorney general could supplant a district attorney in the prosecution of a case.

did just that.

He

On November 29,

1932, Porterie

then met with the grand jury and soon announced

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

202

that

no action would be taken in the vote fraud

doubted

The

who was

really

behind

bill,

No

one

Porterie's actions.

tension within the grand jury

returned a "no-true"

investigation.

room

increased.

effectively saying there

When

the jury

was no case of fraud,

the presiding judge, Frank T. Echezabal, refused to accept the verdict.

The grand

jury was ordered to go back and inspect the ballot boxes

and conduct

a

"thorough" investigation. In June 1933, the jury once

again returned a no-true nell,

bill,

angrily refused to accept

and another judge, Alexander O'Donit.

O'DonneU ordered an "open

court

inquiry" into the election, and appointed Stanley to conduct the investigation.

By

this time, the Kingfish

himself had returned to Louisiana

and seemed worried about the turn of events. Soon, the Registrar of Voters was accused of scratching out the

names of

legal voters

from the

episode were raised again. ferred with

registry rolls,

Huey felt

that he

Governor O. K. Allen on July

ernor declared martial law in in response to the request

New Orleans.

had

and the stakes to stop

it all.

in the

He

con-

30; the next day, the gov-

His action allegedly came

by some of the grand jurors

for protection.

who saw beyond this ruse, Allen's actions were nothing more than the Long forces using the state militia to intimidate the court system. One witness claimed he saw Allen sign the order in Long's hotel suite. What the usual amount of election fraud and polit-

Yet for those

ical

covering-up could not accomplish, the National Guard would.

O'Donnell and Stanley proceeded without being

bullied,

and the

remarkable sight of grand jurors opening up ballot boxes was con-

ducted while national guardsmen placed machine guns on the registration desks. Realizing

how

this appeared,

Allen suddenly reversed

course (no doubt under orders from Long) and recalled the troops.

worried election

officers.

Long boasted

that "no one need fear that any

election commissioner will not have the proper protection to is

To

which he

entitled."

Meanwhile, a new grand jury was impaneled and

their investigation

"Consistency, Thou Art

proceeded.

As

a

203

Jewel"

the ballot boxes were opened and the votes carefully

counted, wide discrepancies became apparent. In one precinct, the certified vote

had given the amendments

177

a vote of

for

and 68

against.

In the grand jury's recount, however, the actual vote was 59 votes for

and 154

against.

New

Throughout

ments was reduced by over 18,000 turn the election, but

done

its

it

New Orleans

ments against 513

In December, three

were convicted of

Long bill

votes.

amend-

This was not enough to over-

was suggestive of how

By September

counting.

Orleans, the vote for the

creatively the city

had

1933, Stanley had brought indict-

election officials.

who were members of Long's circle returns. With the pressure mounting,

officials

falsifying

acted quickly, and had a special session of the legislature pass a

saying that for election fraud to be proven, even ex post facto, pros-

ecutors

would have

to

show

that the fraud

Lacking the undisputed power

had been done

"wiUfiilly."

to read minds, prosecutors

dropped

charges against the remaining 510 defendants, and Governor Allen

pardoned the three convicted rapher T. Harry

officials for

WiUiams summed

it

up:

good measure. Long's biog-

"Huey had kept

his

promise

to protect the commissioners."

The New Orleans

case

and Long's handling of

number of questions among Long.

Why would

have raised a

and Huey

scholars of Louisiana politics

Long and

obscure amendments, and the

were not especially

it

his

machine worry so much about the

New

Orleans investigation,

crucial to Long's overall ambitions?

when

The bonds had

been issued and Long could explain the discrepancies counting done without "willful" intent. So

Why

why

at the time,

and saw the

as

hasty

block the grand jury?

declare martial law? Williams concluded that

"abnormal depression"

they

Long was

ballot

in an

box episode

as

"another attempt to destroy him."

A better case can be made that Long also understood how his power ultimately rested

on winning

elections,

and

how

even a seemingly

insignificant race could possibly reveal the widespread

methods of

Tracy Campbell

204

cheating that were so itics.

common and truly at the

/

Deliver the Vote

heart of Louisiana pol-

may not have been enough to amendments, but Long didn't need or welcome

Eighteen thousand stuffed ballots

change the vote on the investigations

by grand

New

juries into the

mechanics of

While he may have been

worked

in

worked

feverishly to have a special session

Orleans.

to indict election cheaters,

By the end of 1934,

all

make

it

how

elections

depressed,

much more

Long

difficult

and to protect the convicted commissioners.

was back

to "normal" in Louisiana; without

the glare of the press and an investigating district attorney. Governor

Allen could claim to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that the 1934 pri-

mary

election

years."

was "the most peaceful

election held in

New Orleans

in

That "peace" would be disturbed the following year when Long

was assassinated

in the state capitol.

Women and the Honest Election League Not aU citizens of Louisiana were to look the other

way

at his

intimidated by

Long or were willing

methods. The Honest Election League's

women's division understood the root cause and went

after the

election commissioners were appointed to their posts.

The

hired attorneys to train hundreds of women in tion law,

of

names from

New

division

Orleans in elec-

and many of them became election commissioners. The

women's division proved instrumental illegal

New

way

Orleans

New

in helping purge thousands of

Orleans voting

women

rolls.

(including the

In 1940, another group future

congresswoman

Corinne "Lindy" Boggs) checked poU books and conducted house-tohouse canvasses to verify registration

lists.

The Long

faction

was not

above using intimidation to harass these women, including using vicious dogs to frighten

the precincts and,

them away. Undaunted,

armed with

the

women went

to

verifiable registration Hsts, challenged

fraudulent voters.

Yet their actions made

little

headway

against the powerful forces

"Consistency, Thou Art

controlled by

opponent by

a

A

205

Jewel"

Governor Earl Long, Huey's brother, who beat two-to-one margin in the

city,

his

yet ultimately lost the

governor's race in a run-off election marred by both campaigns sinking

The atmosphere of

to ever-lower depths in race baiting.

elections less in

to

the role of watchdog.

women

The

participating in any way,

historian

Pamela Tyler

where swaggering policemen boldly flaunted

places

one

was not hospitable

faction,

Louisiana

much

writes: "In

their allegiance to

where mayhem was not uncommon, where the simple

act

of placing a paper ballot into a wooden box could be accompanied by taunts, jeers, threats, or even fisticuffs,

numbers of women

certainly

hesitated to cast votes."

EPIC The Depression

allowed some candidates far from the mainstream to

become immediately

Upton

competitive. In 1934, the novelist and socialist

Sinclair ran for the

Democratic nomination

for governor

of

California and shocked state and national observers by beating his nearest rival by a three-to-one margin.

With

than three months

less

before the general election, in which Sinclair would be pitted against the Republican, Frank Merriam, the fear that Sinclair's California program

(EPIC) might begin

End

Poverty in

a radical redistribution

of

land and wealth worried both parties in ways that dwarfed the anxiety

Huey Long's politics produced in Louisiana. One Republican organization. United for to

ward off the

Sinclair challenge.

California,

was prepared

Former U.S. Attorney George

Medalie provided some cagey suggestions to the group about challenge suspected illegal Sinclair voters, sients.

Medalie noted that while

many of whom were

illegal registrants

effective way,

compose

a

list

to

tran-

could be challenged

with the voters.

A

Medalie proposed, was for United of California

to

in court before Election Day, courts usually sided

more

how

of alleged

illegal registrants that

would be

filed

with the

Tracy Campbell

206

prosecutor.

The

one knowing

was

sealed

list

would be

Deliver the Vote

a source of great mystery, with

how many names were on

that any Democrat's

/

the

name could be on

list.

the

The important and

list,

if a

no

thing

Hsted voter

appeared at the polls attempting to vote, they could be arrested.

Medalie stressed that were on the United

list

legal voters

who were

uncertain whether they

would be "scared away from the

for California filed suit against nearly

registrants, yet all voters

who

polls."

60,000 alleged

challenged the suit in court had their

suffrage rights fully restored, giving weight to the list

On

was nothing more than an

effort to frighten

October 31, just days before the

Court issued

illegal

away legitimate voters.

election, the California

purge

a writ prohibiting further

that the Republican suit was "a

argument that the

efforts.

The

sham proceeding and

Supreme

court ruled

a perversion

of

the court process. It can have no other effect than to intimidate and

prevent eligible voters from going to the polls."

Perhaps part of the court's anger was fueled by a gruntled

member of Albert

the smuggled

letter,

Parker's

law firm released to the

press.

In

Parker revealed that the true purpose of the

Republican purge effort was simply: "to

coming near the

letter that a dis-

polls."

On

terrify

many

people from

Election Day, Sinclair lost to

Merriam by

over 230,000 votes. Although in conceding defeat Sinclair claimed "the election has been stolen," the margin of his defeat minimized any

claims of

its

actually being a stolen election. Yet

Parker's private confession, effort

would not have

it

not been for

few would have suspected that the purge

was part of an intimidation campaign

California

had

instituted

by the GOP.

a socialist governor.

Bloody Harlan As

the Depression took an already corrupt election system to

heights,

no area was more vulnerable to

new

electoral corruption than the

— "Consistency, Thou Art

coalfields

Jewel"

207

of Appalachia. Large coal corporations in eastern Kentucky

and West Virginia ran their

a

their operations like small empires,

economic leverage

to coerce local politicians to

do

and used

their bidding.

The

control the companies wielded over their workers and their fam-

ilies

was no

abstract concept.

Workers

literally lived,

shopped, and

prayed in coal camps owned and operated by the companies.

The

power of these companies was everywhere, yet was never more on

dis-

play than on Election Day.

In 1920, the Republican, Richard Ernst, edged out the Democrat, J.

C.

W. Beckham,

race in Kentucky.

Beckham was

corporation lawyer

due to some

by roughly eight thousand votes in a U.S. Senate a

former governor while Ernst was a

who was virtually unknown, yet

"late returns"

state

won his

seat

from some eastern Kentucky counties. In

Harlan County, Ernst racked up a margin of

head of the

Ernst

six

The

thousand votes.

Republican party noted the irony of the situation

GOP:

Democrats charging that fraud had made the difference

for the

"The Democratic organization of Kentucky, long the

beneficiary of

now is confronted by an organization too to be cheated." The practice of waiting until all other had reported in order to know the number that was neces-

fraudulent election practices, efficient

precincts

sary to carry the day

was

a well-established art in Kentucky,

where

Republicans controlled the eastern part of the state and Democrats the

western part. Republicans had always counted on Harlan County, and the

town of Lynch,

for special help

Located in the eastern Kentucky

home

to the R. C.

when

they needed votes.

coalfield,

Harlan County was

Tway Coal Company, which dominated

also

virtually

every local aspect of the economic and political world in which miners

and

their families lived,

and knew which

bidding in Frankfort or Washington.

politicians

When

the National

called out to patrol the streets after a series of

August 1933 primary, gunfire erupted Coal Camp. All

told,

an estimated

would do

Guard was

murders before the

at a precinct in the

five

their

R. C.

hundred rounds were

Tway

fired in

Tracy Campbell

208

/

Deliver the Vote

two hours, and machine guns and dynamite were even used "battle" in

which three men were

Three months

on the

later, in

seriously

amendment

died in a shootout at the polls in the

county

its

wounded.

the general election, where the major issues

ballot included an

election deaths,

men Harlan County coalfields. The to repeal prohibition, six

combined with the intense labor

own

in the

conflicts,

gave the

national distinction as "Bloody Harlan." Countless

other people were stabbed or beaten, yet the enormity of the violence

was

lost

on the

state's

which reported the clear to

major paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal^

killings

on page four

in a single

column. This made

what extent violence and even murder had become an accepted

part of election culture in the mountains.

In that same election in Harlan County, the race for the ability of the ratic

Tway Company

nominee, Clinton

Ball,

to deliver an election.

had beaten

his

8,212 to 8,003 votes. Standing out above

Tway precinct, where by 626 votes

Tway had

other precincts was the

all

no more than two

in that precinct.

The

election officials

acted in the open, taking ballots out of the book, marking

dating employees of the coal

own

The Democ-

Republican challenger by

to 63, an investigation revealed that

them, and placing them in the box,

knew two

showed

although the certified vote showed Ball winning

hundred people had even voted in

jailer

things for sure:

livelihoods,

number of the

as well as

company

Not

compelling and intimi-

to vote for Ball.

rigging the vote

would

and no one would dare question

false

names voting

in the election

The

cost

officials

them

their

their tactics.

came

directly

A

from

the coal company's payroll sheets.

The

National Guard was called out yet again in November 1937 to

restore order at the polls in

Harlan County, and forty-one men,

including the county sheriff and five of his deputies, were arrested on election law violations. In 1938, eight

violence in Kentucky, four in Harlan jailer

was

more men died

County

a source of considerable fraud.

alone,

More than

in Election

Day

where the race a

hundred

for

sheriff's

"Consistency, Thou Art

a

Jewel"

deputies controlled the polls,

209

making

certain that the "right" votes

were cast and throwing out any "objectionable" ones. Chain voting and alphabetical voting

and whiskey was

was

also

widely used for the Democratic candidate,

plentiful as liquid bribes. In the

Black Mountain No.

10 Precinct, the ballot boxes were stolen the night before the election, causing nearly 500 people to be disfranchised the next day. Consequently, state courts threw out the results of the

1938 Harlan

election.

"Sober, Square, and Honest" Harlan County saw

its

most notorious

election in

Democrat A.

the U.S. Senate between the incumbent, the

Chandler, and the Republican, Richard J. Colbert. local

Harlan newspaper reminded

its

1942 in a race for

On election eve, the

citizens that they

troops fighting in Europe to vote. "If you

fail

"Happy"

B.

to vote,

owed you

it

to the

are sabo-

taging the very thing they are giving their lives to preserve," said the

Harlan Daily Enterprise, admonishing

democracy by casting your

As

readers to "appreciate this

ballot tomorrow."

could criticize Harlan County day.

its

a popular incumbent.

By

all

accounts, no one

for failing to cast their votes the next

Chandler had

of Colbert in the statewide election, and

little

trouble in disposing

won by a margin

of 11,228 to

1,477 in Harlan County.

Yet Chandler's overwhelming vote margin in Harlan aroused suspicion.

A skeptical local columnist wrote that "If there were

lots cast in ballot

The

boxes for [Chandler] then

editorial in the

Harlan paper warned

I

its

am

11,228 bal-

Hitler's first cousin."

readers not to worry that

the votes might not be counted because, in words that could have been

used to describe countless American counties by the 1940s, "nobody gives a

damn

about election frauds," but hoped the FBI might inves-

tigate the election nonetheless.

A few days

after the election, a soldier

from Harlan County wrote

Tracy Campbell

210

home about

/

Deliver the Vote

the coverage he had just read about the election: "Harlan

County sends her boys

democracy and then makes

to die for

and mockery of democracy

at

home," wrote the

soldier,

a farce

adding, "Cor-

rupt elections and democracy are opposed to each other." C. K.

Whitehead, the

"Our boys

local editor, agreed:

and Harlan County gives her boys a carton of

are ready to give

cigarettes each

all,

when

they leave, for democracy, and then guts democracy by stuffing almost every ballot box in the county. Consistency, thou art a jewel."

The more

of Chandler's popularity in Harlan County drew even

details

ire

from angry Republicans. In the precinct located in the Harlan

County courthouse. Chandler Verda, Chandler the precinct's

won 432

304

to 23,

and

627 votes

in

Pansy he

votes. In the Closplint precinct.

whopping margin of 425 his majority in

received

to 2. In

all.

to Colbert's 17. In

won

all

but one of

won by

Chandler

a

Chandler received 93 percent of

Harlan from just 42 percent of the precincts.

A cynical

columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal recalled that "the crooks" stealing votes in

Harlan County "have grown bold, or old and

fat

and

lazy, for these irregularities are obvious."

Dr. O.

F.

Hume,

a

Republican national committeeman, called for a

Senate investigation of the election due to "ample evidence of wholesale

fraud and corruption," but the Senate declined. Despite the

Democratic majority's

refusal, in

1943 a federal grand jury began

investigating the charges of fraud in the Harlan

Within weeks, prosecutors had indictments

County Senate

against nearly a

race.

hundred

Harlan Countians. Indeed, careful inspections of the returns hinted that far from

winning the county by

probably would have lost in a

where Chandler had won by calculated that Chandler

had

a

a

whopping margin. Chandler

fair contest.

In four selected precincts to 70, the

FBI

eked out a mere 195 to 186

lead.

combined vote of 740

actually

Yet just as the indictments were handed

down

against the ninety-

nine Harlan defendants, Federal District Judge H. Church Ford ruled that the indictments were invalid because no federal statute specifically

"Consistency, Thou Art a Jewel"

outlawed ballot-box

stuffing.

211

According to Judge Ford, public protec-

tion against such "reprehensible election fraud"

no federal crime existed that applied

law, and, therefore,

fraud.

Three months

ruling, deciding

by

was covered by

the U.S.

later,

a 6 to 3

state

to election

Supreme Court reversed

Ford's

margin that ballot stuffing was indeed cov-

ered by the federal code. Writing for the majority, Justice

Owen

Roberts said that ballot-box stuffing violated section 19 of the Federal

Criminal Code. "For election lots,

place

them

in the

officers

knowingly to prepare

box and return them,

is

false bal-

certainly to prevent an

honest count. After the Supreme Court's ruling, the case proceeded against the ninety-nine defendants in Harlan County.

was the county probation

sheriff,

officer, a

two members of the

a

deputy court

fifty

Mary Helen Coal By the summer of 1945,

superintendent of the

precinct officers.

pleaded guilty or no contest, while

and were found

election commission, a

former county magistrate, a former county

clerk, the

Corporation, and over sixty-five

the ninety-nine

son of a circuit judge, a state highway patrol inves-

tigator, a police judge, a jailer,

Among

guilty.

others

six

Twenty-one defendants had

went

to trial

their cases dis-

missed, six had died in the interim, and one defendant's case was con-

tinued due to his military service. In

all.

Judge Ford handed down to

over seventy Harlan Countians sentences that ranged from

stiff fines

to two-year prison sentences.

Throughout these

trials,

lying dynamics of Harlan poll worker, testified that

mine manager

for the

wanted 300 votes

some of the defendants

revealed the under-

County politics. C. C. Ramey,

a

miner and a

on the morning of the election, R. C.

Tway Coal Company, had

for Chandler."

told

Collins, a

Ramey

that "he

Ramey added, "I understood it was that

my job." Judge Ford asked Ramey if that was the reason he stuffed the ballot boxes. "Yes, your honor," Ramey replied, "but my own motto is sober, square, and honest." An incredulous Ford wondered, "When did or

you begin to

exercise that motto, before or after the election?"

Tracy Campbell

212

Another

Deliver the Vote

poll official, Vess Cottrell, told the judge that Collins

approached him

from

/

as well,

Cottrell's precinct

Another precinct

and ordered

—250 votes

had

a precise count that

would come

Chandler and 17

for Colbert.

for

officer told the court that officials

from another coal

company, the Harlan-Wallis Coal Corporation in Verda, instructed

At 2:30

the precinct officers that Chandler needed a 2 to 1 majority. P.M.

on Election Day,

the precinct, asked

margin

a "contact

how

man"

for the coal

the vote stood, and

company came

upon hearing

to

a suitable

"Close the box, boys, that's the limit." Following the tes-

said,

timony of Ramey and

Cottrell, the prosecutor told reporters

considering pursuing indictments against the coal

Yet he never did. "The whole sordid business

company

reflects the

he was

officials.

inadequacy

of an election system which depends on the honesty and the loyalty of partisan representatives set to

watch one another," the Courier-Journal

editoriahzed.

One month was held

trial

of the

trial,

and that the general feeling among the county's

was rather "apathetic." Yet even and

another primary election

Harlan County, and early reports stated that voting was

in

relatively light

izens

after the close

its

damning indictment of

shadow of the recent

in the

the county electoral system,

nothing had changed. During the election, one for

running

a

move

man was

arrested

chain ballot and another for voting under a false

name. By September, a

cit-

five

more were indicted

that displayed for everyone

how

little

for election fraud. In

democracy existed

in

the coalfields, one precinct cancelled a 1947 primary election, the

second consecutive time the constituents of the precinct were disfranchised.

To

those living in the coal camps,

the precinct was located in the R. C.

it

was no surprise that

Tway Coal Company.

Part Three

The Path

to

Popular Resignation

"

Chapter Nine

Uncomfortable Majorities 7 don't think our

poll

dead

Since

managers would

let

a

man vote.

the 1890s, Southern Democrats had resorted to steaHng

elections less frequently because the

game was

already decided

by the time the prospective white voter stepped into the booth.

An

assortment of "legal" devices designed to disfranchise African-

Americans

—

poll taxes, literacy tests, white primaries

deployed to replace fraud and violence. Yet

was challenged to defend

it,

in the

South

especially

after 1945,

—had

all

been

when white supremacy

Democrats were well armed

on Election Day.

"God Almighty, Sears Roebuck, AND Gene Talmadge" In 1942, EUis Arnall, a progressive for his day, beat the incumbent, Eugene

Talmadge, to become the governor of Georgia. This was a surprising

Tracy Campbell

216

/

Deliver the Vote

development, since Talmadge was a quintessential

white supremacist,

who had even

appointed a leading Klansman to head the

highway

state

patrol.

Upon winning

governorship, Arnall pushed series

the

through a

of reforms, including lowering the

voting age to eighteen, abolishing the poll tax,

and revoking the charter

for the

Ku

Klux Klan. Yet Arnall was constitutionally prohibited from running for re-election,

1946 election approached, Tal-

Governor Eugene Talmadge of

and

Georgia campaigning

madge loomed

in 1946.

as the

as the leading candidate to

Credit: Special Collections Dept.,

assume the

Georgia State University

office

once again.

White Southerners

like

Talmadge were

on the defensive

especially

after the U.S.

Supreme Court struck down one of the hallowed instruments of white supremacy.

To

avoid federal investigations of black disfranchisement in

general elections, Southern Democrats had used the primary election in its

place. Since the Solid

Democrats

—and

—the

South was firmly in the hands of one party

the Court considered the primary election to be a

matter of "private" discrimination, the primaries were places where white

Democrats could openly disfranchise African- American voters without worry of federal intervention. However, ished the white primary in Smith vote in such a primary ...

is

this "legal" disfranchisement

some old

v.

in 1944, the

Court

finally abol-

Allwright, noting that "the right to

a right secured

by the Constitution." With

now oudawed. Democrats were

left

options. Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi expressed

the most candid of terms:

"The best way to stop

niggers from voting

visit

them

the night before the election.

than

that.

Red blooded men know what I mean."

Gene Talmadge was ready-made prospective black voters.

I

don't have to

for the

tell

campaign

with it

in

is

to

you any more

to intimidate

He vowed that if elected back to the governor's

Uncomfortable Majorities

217

mansion, no black man in Georgia

would vote

He

thereafter.

por-

trayed himself as the defender of

white rural Georgians: "The poor dirt

farmer

friends

on

boasted,

ain't

got but three

this earth,"

Talmadge

"God Almighty,

Sears

Roebuck, and Gene Talmadge."

He was

avidly supported

Following the Smith

by the

v.

Allwright decision in

1944 that outlawed the white primary, African-Americans in Adanta await to

Georgia BQan, which vowed to

register. Credit: Special

any African-American

"punish"

Collections Dept.,

Georgia State University

who dared vote. In the July 1946 Democratic primary, Talmadge ran against James V. Carmichael,

who was

aided by the tens of thousands of

African-American voters registered

after

new

the Allwright decision.

Remarkably, Carmichael beat Talmadge in the popular vote in Georgia, but Talmadge did not lose the election. In another clever device used by rural reactionaries to maintain power, the "county-unit"

system was employed in Georgia elections, whereby counties earned "points" that were often

nowhere near

Small, rural counties therefore had areas,

reflective

much

and the influence of black votes

of their population.

greater weight than urban

in Atlanta, for instance,

was

minimized. Talmadge built his career on the system, knowing that aU he needed for victory was to cultivate the sparsely populated rural counties while ignoring the urban areas. Thus, although rats

in

more Democ-

Georgia voted for Carmichael, Talmadge won. Without

RepubHcan opposition, he was assured of going back

to Atlanta as

governor, and white supremacists throughout the state rejoiced.

Yet before Governor-elect Talmadge could assume cancer. In

assume

most

office,

office,

he died of

similar circumstances, the Heutenant governor

who

in this case

Thompson, an Arnall

supporter.

would

was the newly elected Melvin E.

The

reactionaries

had

to

ward off

a

Tracy Campbell

218

Thompson

governorship, and had one

thirty-three-year-old son,

write-in votes. carefully

Deliver the Vote

/

the hole

last ace in

Herman, who had

—Gene's

received a handfUl of

Talmadge supporters read the Georgia constitution

and saw that the Heutenant governor would, indeed, succeed

the governor once the governor was sworn

had not been sworn legislature

in?

in.

But what

Then, an opening presented

would be compelled

to decide the

if the

itself.

governor

The

state

new governor from

"the

two persons having the highest number of votes." Because the general election

had produced no Republican opposition,

a write-in candidate

could conceivably become the next governor.

"These Are the Same Old Cracker Tactics" In early 1947, the Georgia legislature convened to decide the matter.

With so much on the line and with only a handful of votes in the offmg, the politicos in the Georgia statehouse began plying

of the trade in support of the young Talmadge.

was recorded, Gene Talmadge had 143,279

all

of the old tricks

When the official vote

votes,

James Carmichael

managed 669, a tombstone salesman named Talmadge Bowers had 637 write-in votes, and legislature

Herman Talmadge had

would have

to decide

received 617. Legally, the

between Carmichael and Bowers. But

word quickly spread among Talmadge supporters

name and write

in

Herman's on some selected write-in

many

In a display that would be repeated elections over the next

pected turn

after the election. This

now to

few

when another

turf Fifty-eight

to scratch out Gene's

new

675, making

years, the

ballot

ballots.

times in major Southern

Georgia election took an unex-

box was suddenly "found," months

one came from Telfair County, Talmadge 's

votes were found for

Herman, pushing

home

his total

him the new leader among write-in candidates. As

Robert SherriU wrote, "There was no Georgia's face by delicate cheating."

finesse,

no

effort

Rumors of bribes

even to save

circulated in the

Uncomfortable Majorities

statehouse, but the

219

outcome was never really in doubt. By day's end, the

Democrats in the legislature ernor, although he

Georgia

The

selected "Hummon" as the state's next gov-

had received

a

grand

total

electorate, a microscopic .004 share

race for governor

Governor Arnall to acknowledge

from

far

of the vote.

over, however.

Herman Talmadge

called

him

was

ofjust 617 votes from the

"a pretender"

as the legitimate chief executive.

night, as tensions flared,

Talmadge

forces

An

incensed

and refused

Throughout the

changed the locks and pre-

vented Arnall from entering his office the next morning. Arnall eventually

changed

his

mind and

relinquished his office, but

would throw out the

the courts

Governor-elect

Thompson

as the

Herman Talmadge was sworn just undertaken

repeal

The

in.

new

As

if

and

install Lt.

governor. In the meantime,

the charade his partisans had

were not enough, Talmadge had the

state legislature

laws regarding primary elections. Then, the real story of Tal-

all

madge 's

legislature's actions

confident

felt

"election"

was

revealed.

source for the revelation was the Atlanta Journal (whose motto

was that

it

"covers Dixie like the dew"),

which began investigating the

voting methods used in Telfair County. In the

critical precinct

Helena, where the mysterious extra votes were found to make governor,

(1)

was placed before

dred votes to the

cast.

order,

many

totals.

to

offices, the figure

certified vote totals to automatically

add one hun-

In the Temperance precinct, for example.

Talmadge was credited with 127 were

Herman

names of dead and nonexistent people were discovered

have been voted in the November election. In

of

votes, although only

27 were

Gene

ballots

Thirty- four names were found to have voted in alphabetical

and a

total

of

six

hundred more votes were

certified

from the

county than actually voted. The manner in which these voters were distributed to

was odd. After the

Gene Talmadge 's

order.

total,

first fifty-five

names, which corresponded

the next thirty-four were in alphabetical

When the Journal sent their reporter George Goodwin to Telfair

County

to interview

some of the

thirty- four people

who had

voted in

Tracy Campbell

220

alphabetical order,

what he discovered was not

Deliver the Vote

/

surprising.

Most of the

many of those who were found stated they had not voted that November. OUn Dennis, in fact, told Goodwin

people could not be located, and

she had never voted in her entire as

life,

and her husband, who was

listed

having voted before her, had been dead for seven years.

Governor Talmadge reacted with considerable

anger.

He

issued a

blistering statement that accused the Journal of "yellow journalism,"

and said that the paper's publishers were "mad because they couldn't keep the white primary destroyed. They are destroy the county unit system."

"mad because they cannot

mad because they could not

And, Talmadge

insisted, the

control Georgia politics."

paper was

Members of the

who opposed Talmadge did not see things in the same light. Representative Myer Goldberg said "the claim of Herman Talmadge to

legislature

the governorship was conceived in conscienceless fraud." Representative

WiUiam

mechanics in that were It

was

was

Morris was familiar with the outlines of the voting

S.

Telfair,

because "These are the same old Cracker tactics

employed so successfully for so many years

why one of Talmadge's

clear

priorities as the

to repeal all laws regarding Georgia's

under the protection of the law trickery mayor,

who

asked,

against fraud?"

in poverty

and

new governor

primary elections. "Even

like this

is

used," said one

"How much more will it be used without safeguards

Some

Sapp wrote that

in Augusta."

outraged citizens voiced their concerns. H. H.

politicians like its

Talmadge managed

to "keep our state

citizenry in turmoil over frivolous issues."

Sapp

pleaded: "Give us a chance to get a clean slate where an honest election,

based on the sanity of the people to choose an honest governor

may be

held."

In the State Senate, Sen. E.

F. Griffith

of Eatonton, a leader of the

anti-Talmadge forces, noted that "Most people in Georgia just waste their time in

going to the polls

at aU,

because the election officers

count their votes the way they want to count them anyway." Talmadge's cronies, however, were not impressed by the stories coming

Uncomfortable Majorities

out of Telfair County. Sen.

221

Iris

Blitch of Homerville attacked the

Journal as "that piece of yellow journalism" that everyone

northern-owned and has

of the division of this

as a policy

deserve really no reply." Others were less

irate.

knew "was state.

They

Sen. L. T. Mitchell of

Clayton had heard enough about the election and the alleged irregularities,

and urged

his colleagues to "get

down

and do

to business

something."

Two weeks later, the state Supreme Court did just that. It declared M. E. Thompson was the rightful governor, not Herman Talmadge. The 5-2 fraud,

County

decision did not mention anything about the Telfair

and ruled along more technical

jurisdiction to elect the

"had no

lines that the legislature

Honorable Herman Talmadge or any other

person as governor." The court ruled that Lt. Gov.

Thompson was

the

only one legally able to ascend to the governorship, and a special gubernatorial election

madge accepted his

would have

to be held the following year. Tal-

humbly

the Court's order as

as

he could, clearing out

desk within minutes and simply smiling when asked

if

he planned

to run for governor in 1948.

The

following year, Talmadge beat

out of over 600,000 "restoration." voters: all

forms of

cast, calling his return to

Talmadge

"My platform

Thompson by 40,000

civil rights'

the governorship a

stated his politics clearly for

has one plank

.

programs."

.

.

my unalterable

Not

votes

surprisingly,

all

Georgia

opposition to

Talmadge was

keenly interested in matters pertaining to elections, and openly

vowed

that he

would use

voting-list purges

and

literacy tests to

keep

African-Americans from voting in Georgia.

The

forces that

had

tried to stuff the

throats of Georgia's voters office

and

younger Talmadge down the

legislature finally

had

man in But mem-

their

without having to resort to the trickery used in 1947.

ories

of how their methods had been revealed in Telfair County were

vivid.

As

in so

many other Southern

counties, whites in Telfair

did not react to these exposes kindly.

County

A bomb went off at the home of

Tracy Campbell

222

one oi xht Journal's

reporters.

One

gregation they should not "put the fired

and quickly

"We

left

minister

who

/

Deliver the Vote

dared to

name of Talmadge

tell his

con-

God" was

before

the county.

Didn't Steal as

Many Counties as You

Think" Fraudulent elections followed Talmadge. In 1950, he was challenged for the governorship in late June,

by former Governor Thompson.

Thompson was ahead

On primary day

of Talmadge by 6,000 votes

approaching midnight and held a slight lead in the county units. Suddenly, the returns stopped

coming

counties that had reported that

in for several hours.

Thompson had won

Then, some

reversed course

and now proclaimed Talmadge the winner. In Chatham County,

Thompson led by nearly four hundred votes in the first reports, only to lose to Talmadge by over 6,000. The biggest turnaround came in Fulton County, where the first returns had Thompson with a commanding 16,000-vote lead. In the final returns, Talmadge

margin that seemed very dubious

late

won by

on Election Night.

Talmadge 's campaign, using white supremacy and

justification for

before.

They knew

unit count,

"M.

E.,

we

as their battle charge

cooking the numbers, had been down

this

road

the popular vote was meaningless: In the county-

Talmadge won by

Harris, one of

8,000 votes, a

a veritable landslide,

later revealed to

Thompson,

counties as you think."

How many

Talmadge 's henchmen,

didn't steal as

many

305-115. Roy

counties were actually stolen? Harris replied "Only about thirty-five."

Whether

the voters of Georgia installed

had already shown, the

really did

not matter.

as governor,

Talmadge

To Talmadge and

his forces,

him

only thing that counted was winning, and beating back

"northern-inspired" challenges bent on promoting

In 1955, following the Brown

v.

civil rights.

Board ofEducation decision oudawing

Uncomfortable Majorities

223

segregated public schools, Talmadge penned his political views in a

pamphlet, You and Segregation. Talmadge railed at the black "bloc vote" that threatened to

more

candidates,

undermine Southern

Talmadge urged, who

tutional government, States' Rights tional separation of the races."

politics.

The South needed

"forcefully [believe] in Consti-

and the preservation of our

More than

ever,

tradi-

Talmadge warned.

Southerners needed to be "United at the ballot." In 1956, Talmadge

rode a united white vote to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1981. For over thirty years, politics,

"Hummon" was

a

major power in Georgia

taking great pride in the support given

home, whether they happened

to have elected

him by the people back him

or not.

The Duke of Duval Just as

Harry Truman would never have been

the Pendergast machine,

a national figure

without

Lyndon Johnson would never have emerged as

a leader of the Democratic party and a presidential aspirant without the

support of a number of powerful Texans

who knew how

vote. In 1948, they were ready to put their

knowledge

to

to deliver the

work in perhaps

the most infamous case of election fraud in twentieth-century America.

South Texas, especially the counties along the Rio Grande, had long been the scene of some of the Patrones

who

nation's

their workers,

crossed the border.

On

imported from across the

many of them Mexicans who had

Election Day, thousands of voters were river to

mark

then were promptly returned. In Jim ruled in ways that

their ballots as instructed,

WeUs and Duval

would have humbled

powerflil than the legendary

had inherited

elections.

controlled the area exercised daunting political and eco-

nomic power over

more

most fraudulent

his role

from

Tom

counties, bosses

Pendergast.

"Duke of Duval," George

his father, Archie.

To be

and

None was Parr,

who

elected to any-

thing in the region, and in some cases statewide, George Parr's support

Tracy Campbell

224

was

essential.

would never

Without

it,

/

Deliver the Vote

the truckloads of votes he could furnish

made

materialize. Parr, in turn,

a fortune

by manipulating

county contracts, and owned, among other things, a 57,000-acre ranch

which he paid

for

by "borrowing"

County government. The

rest

a half million dollars

from the Duval

of Texas was no shrine of virtue on

Election Day, but south Texas was the most notorious area for madeto-order majorities.

and feared enforcer, Luis

Parr's aide

machine

We

ruled: "Parr

could

tell

was the Godfather.

gun

all

the time.

tion counters

He

had

life

Parr

or death control.

any election judge, 'Give us 80 percent of the vote and

the other guy 20 percent.' a

how the

Salas, later related

Oh,

We

I tell

had

it

made

you we had

in every election. I carried

real

power."

One

of the elec-

was Salas himself, who commonly fabricated any

he Hked without any regard to the actual vote. Salas,

totals

who had

once

ridden with Pancho Villa, had a direct system of producing the required majorities in his precincts. "If they were not for our party,

make them

for our party." If

I

Duval and Jim Wells countries returned

enormous margins of victory

for Parr's favorite candidate,

dared say a word, not even in Austin.

An

no one

indignant politician

that Parr might be needed to provide a suitable return

knew

someday

in

another close race.

The 1948

election

tion held in 1941,

had

a precursor in an earlier Senate

primary elec-

when Congressman Lyndon Johnson

apparently

beat W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel by several thousand votes. Johnson had

obtained the support of the south Texas bosses such as Parr, in the

number of votes

sary for victory.

the Johnson

camp had

But Johnson broke

opponent reports

all

all

election their

a cardinal rule:

early, in

sent

them were necesWait

until your

An

overconfi-

his votes before reporting yours.

dent Johnson wanted the numbers in After

told

who

order to build his lead.

of Johnson's votes were recorded and he seemingly had the

won, O'Daniel's

man

over the top.

forces reported

A

some

number of Johnson's

late returns that

put

aides, as well as the

225

Uncomfortable Majorities

chairman of the Texas Democratic test the race.

Yet Johnson refused, telling one supporter that he did not

wish to have the

details

Senate investigators

Johnson,

it

encouraged Johnson to con-

party,

—

of the campaign and the election opened for

hope they don't

"I

investigate

me,'''

he

said.

For

a bitter lesson. If the opportunity to run for the Senate

was

ever presented itself again, Johnson

would not make the same mistake.

In 1948, that opportunity came, but

Pappy O'Daniel look

easy.

it

made

the battle against

Johnson's opponent in the primary was the

former governor, Coke Stevenson. Stevenson had assumed the governorship in 1941

when Pappy O'Daniel won

primary victory over Johnson. ship in his cratic

own

When

right in 1942, he

the Senate seat after his

Stevenson ran for the governor-

won

nearly 69 percent of the

primary vote, the largest margin ever for a primary

broke that record two years

later,

when he

Demo-

race.

received 85 percent of the

primary vote. Part of his enormous margins of victory came from support in south Texas and

among

t)\t

an honorary pallbearer

Archie

Parr's funeral,

as

at

He

patrones. Stevenson

his

had served

and George Parr had

supported Stevenson in four past races, giving him nearly 97 percent

when Coke

refused to

appoint a Parr crony as district attorney in Laredo County.

From then

of the vote. But in 1948, Parr

on, Johnson tics

—he was

lationist,

had

betrayed

Parr's backing. Stevenson's

fiscally frugal

deeply conservative poli-

with the people's money, was a staunch

as a

"monstrous threat to our peace and security"

image were enormously popular.

the state as "Mr. Texas."

As

He

the election approached,

Gene Autry even life.

Stevenson in a Senate primary would take a miracle, or so

primary day in July 1948, the

results

Stevenson beat Johnson by 71,000 votes and

Jim Hogg, and Zapata

Defeating it

seemed.

were not surprising:

won

168 counties to

Johnson's 72, although in six south Texas counties LaSalle, Brooks,

—and

was known throughout

considered producing a movie based on Stevenson's

On

iso-

and had described the 1944 Allwright case outlawing the

white primary frontier

felt

—Duval,

Starr,

—Johnson won 98 percent of

Tracy Campbell

226

the vote.

Deliver the Vote

/

dutifully delivered his share of the vote to

George Parr had

the Johnson campaign, but

it

was not enough

to overtake the popular

Stevenson. Yet the election was not yet over. According to Texas law, a party

nominee needed

candidate,

to

win

a majority

of the vote, and since a third

George Peddy, had received twenty percent of the vote

to

go along with Stevenson's 40 and Johnson's 34 percent, Johnson faced Stevenson in a runoff election to be held in

late

August.

Peddy had come from very conservative eastern Texas Johnson had finished third

since

in the counties that

The

votes for

counties,

and

Peddy had won,

those Peddy votes were sure to go to Stevenson in the runoff All

Stevenson needed to do, in

fact,

was

just pick

up half of those Peddy

votes to win.

"As Clean an Election As Ever Has Been Held" That Democratic runoff proved

to be

one of the most contentious in

memory, even by south Texas standards.

historical

A

poll taken just

one week before the runoff had Johnson closing Stevenson's lead

somewhat, although the former governor able

54

On

to

46 percent majority among

still

commanded

a consider-

likely voters.

Election Day, Johnson's campaign poured massive sums of

money

into highly ethnic areas such as the west side of

San Antonio,

where votes could be bought by the truckload. In south Texas, Johnson's campaign was more vigilant than ever, especially in Jim

Wells County, where Luis Salas was counting the votes.

Holmgreen,

a poll watcher,

demanded

to look at

When

some of the

Jim

ballots

he was sure Salas was taking from Stevenson and putting into Johnson's column, Salas had

Soon

came

Holmgreen put

after the polls closed,

into focus.

Although

some of the

just a

in the city jail.

outlines of the election

few weeks before, Stevenson had

beaten Johnson 2-1 in San Antonio, this time the

money

that poured

227

Uncomfortable Majorities

into

San Antonio from the Johnson campaign had bought thousands

of votes, enough to give Johnson a 500-vote lead. Other counties

began producing overwhelming majorities

for Johnson, to the tune

of

5-1. In the six counties that Parr controlled in south Texas, Johnson

won

93 percent of the vote. Yet even with these

figures,

Stevenson

still

held a lead of 854 votes out of almost a million cast as the next

morning dawned. It

would not be enough

campaign to "find" a few more

for Johnson's

votes and overtake Stevenson like O'Daniel had overtaken Johnson in

1941. Stevenson's veteran aides were likely to hold out any last-minute returns or changes until they sleeves.

As Johnson

saw all that the Johnson forces had up

aide Walter Jenkins

the people in the counties where that they

would hold back,

Stevenson camp would have

remembered

we had

strong votes.

so if there

as little

it,

was any

their

"We didn't rush

We rather hoped of fraud," the

sort

time to react as possible.

After some Houston precincts reported suspicious changes that

produced additional Johnson votes. Parr announced to the Election

Board that one precinct

in

Duval County had not yet sent

returns. Originally, Johnson's lead in

Duval had been

in

its

in excess

final

of 99

percent ("about the same percentage but not the same purity as Ivory soap," said one disgusted local), but Parr could improve even that.

On an amended return. Parr reported an

additional

427

upon

votes, all

but two of them for Johnson, which put his margin in Duval County at

4,622 to 40.

By Sunday votes,

and by

afternoon, Stevenson's lead had shrunk to just eight

nightfall,

Johnson suddenly held

a

693-vote lead thanks

to various "revisions." Stevenson decried the "bloc voting" in south

Texas yet expressed confidence of victory. Not even Duval County's "peculiar position insisted.

With

in Texas

politics"

could prevent

aide, "It's tighter

to find

more

than a tick but

I

Stevenson

still

to be counted, both

votes.

To John

Connally, a Johnson

think

it's

approximately 10,000 ballots

camps were scurrying

it,

going to be

all

right."

Yet

Tracy Campbell

228

as the days passed,

looked

it

days after the election

—an

as

Deliver the Vote

/

though Stevenson had

prevailed. Six

—

eternity in political time

the unofficial

"complete" returns gave Stevenson a lead of a mere 113 votes.

Then

Parr had one final trick at his disposal.

ratic executive

committee met

every precinct

came

In Precinct

Number

When

Jim Wells County

in

in as reported

on election

13, Luis Salas's precinct,

to certify

of

Parr's

new

men

total

now

different.

totals for Salas's

to 60. In the interim, obviously,

one

had simply taken a pen and closed the top loop of the

"7" to create a "9."

With

Johnson was ready

the stroke of a pen,

to claim victory. "I can assure

said in his victory statement, "that

able majority."

Lyndon Johnson was

By about one hundredth of one

the lead, by 87 votes.

Johnson

was 965

vote,

where he had manufac-

one of the committee members read the

precinct, the

its

night, except for one.

tured a vote for Johnson of 765 to 60, the tally was

When

Democ-

the

Amid

a swirl of allegations,

"Lyndon Johnson did not buy anybody's more adamant, saying

I

that the election in

have

Lyndon

percent,

my

in

fellow Texans,"

won by

a comfort-

Johnson was indignant:

vote."

George Parr was even

Duval "was

as clean

an elec-

tion as ever has been held."

knew

Stevenson and his supporters stuffed ballot

box and

I

can prove

it,"

better. "I

was beaten by

a

Stevenson claimed. E. H.

Shomette, the editor of the Freer Enterprise, a Duval County newspaper, dismissed any charges that improper voting

While Shomette was

certain that

had occurred

there.

no more than forty people would

have voted for Stevenson in Duval County, there was a disturbing quahfication to his boasts: "At least they wouldn't admit election

came out

like

it

Shomette understood that

did." "It

machines and bloc voting, but

Duval County was the

I

Did democracy isn't

democracy

it

after the

reign in Duval? to

have poHtical

guess the majority of the people in

are getting the kind

of government they want." Such

descriptive terminology used to rationalize the prevailing cul-

ture of corruption.

229

Uncomfortable Majorities

Ballot Box 13 Stevenson took his case to court, and his attorneys focused on Ballot

Box tive

13. If the

Stevenson camp could get the

state

democratic execu-

committee to throw out the 200 manufactured votes from Precinct

13, Stevenson

would be back on

allowed to examine the voting

Stevenson that the

last

one

official

who

same

list

did so informed

were written in

ink.

quick investigation of some of the 203 names did not surprise

anyone Luis

lists,

Although Stevenson was not

203 names on the voting

alphabetical order and in the

A

top.

—they had never voted

Salas's signature.

in the primary, yet they

camp was

Johnson's

all

contained

noticeably worried and

decided to take the offensive. Johnson's attorneys went to a state judge

and informed him that the Stevenson campaign was unlawfully trying to have the vote

"thrown out on grounds of fraud." The judge ordered

an injunction until a hearing could be held on September

13.

the legal battle was being waged, so was the political one

While

within the state Democratic party, where Johnson was anxious to

have the party certify his returns so that he would be the party's

nominee

November, As the party executive

for the U.S. Senate in

committee met,

a judge in Alice ruled against

Stevenson and con-

tinued the injunction until a contest could be properly while, no changes could be

Johnson's

made

87-vote lead held.

The

Stevenson's attorney claim that

County is

to elect a

Box 13

executive issue

is

returns,

and

committee heard whether Jim Wells

trying to get the office with votes of people

never appeared at the polls."

a Stevenson aide

"The

the

Mean-

United States Senator." In no unmistaken terms,

Lyndon Johnson "was

who

to

filed.

if

When

a

committee member asked

he had any more information from Duval

County, the aide responded:

"I

have never been able to penetrate the

iron curtain around that county." Johnson's attorneys contended that

any evidence obtained in Jim Wells was from "Latin Americans

Tracy Campbell

230

/

Deliver the Vote

under duress." By the narrowest possible margin, the committee voted in support of Johnson, 29 to 28.

By

that one vote,

mittee, warts.

Johnson now had the backing of the subcom-

whose motions were almost always accepted by the party

stal-

A minority report was offered, claiming that Johnson had won

with "palpable fraud and

The convention

irregularities,"

but

it

could not carry the day.

accepted the committee report and

standard-bearer in the

November

election.

went

yet over: Stevenson's attorney

made Johnson

its

Yet the legal battle was not

Judge T. Whitfield

to Federal

Davidson, asking him to sign a temporary restraining order pro-

name from being

hibiting Johnson's

until a hearing could

be held.

placed on the

The

County had deprived Stevenson of

November

ballot

fraudulent votes in Jim Wells his

civil

On

claimed, and Davidson signed the order.

suggested the bizarre option that the best

rights, his

attorneys

September 21, Davidson

way

to settle the election

dispute would be to have both Johnson's and Stevenson's

name on

the

by Johnson's attorneys.

November

ballot,

With

Davidson continued the restraining order against placing

that,

Johnson's

which was quickly

name on

rejected

the ballot until hearings could be held in Duval,

Zapata, and Jim Wells counties.

To ward

off an unfavorable ruHng by Davidson, Johnson's legal

now composed of such heavyweights as Abe Fortas and Thurman Arnold, appealed to Federal Fifth Circuit Judge Joseph C. team,

Hutcheson, arguing that Davidson had no jurisdiction in such a

On

case.

September 24, Hutcheson denied Johnson's motion, ruUng that

since the Fifth Circuit until

was

in recess, the appeal

October 14, which was dangerously

if that

proved a defeat.

By

law,

would have

late in the

game

to wait

for Johnson

county election boards needed to post

the official ballot in public places, and have the ballots printed by

October 24

—just

two weeks before the

advisers decided to take their appeal to

election. Johnson's

legal

Supreme Court Justice Hugo

Black, the justice responsible for the Fifth Circuit.

231

Uncomfortable Majorities

On September 29, Black agreed with Fortas that a federal judge had no power

to issue an injunction in a state election.

With

that,

Judge

Davidson then dismissed Stevenson's claim, and ordered Lyndon

name

Johnson's

as the

Democratic candidate on the November

Supreme Court,

Stevenson's attorneys quickly appealed to the U.S.

which

in early

October denied the motion.

ballot.

A few weeks later, Johnson

beat the RepubHcan nominee, Jack Porter, by 350,000 votes. In Duval

County, Johnson beat Porter 1,829 to 58 votes, the usual 95-plus percent. Despite the

margin of his general election

victory, Johnson

would

be forever haunted by the 87-vote margin that earned him the nick-

name "Landslide Lyndon." Stevenson contested the primary election

far in the usual

lation of the electoral code

how Johnson and

In

his forces

had

game of vote manipulation. The

vio-

his statement, Stevenson underscored

simply gone too

results to the Senate.

was simple: "This

is

the

first

time that the

manipulators of the voting in those counties (Duval, Jim Wells, Zapata, and Starr) were not content with all-out bloc voting, but rein secret long after the election

opened the boxes stuffed

them with

crats in control

a directed

had closed and

number of ballots." Yet with

the

Demo-

of the Senate, Stevenson's ploy had no chance. Johnson

issued a public statement that partisan supporters

who knew

must have embarrassed even

his

most

of the dynamics of the primary vote:

Stevenson was trying "to overrule the will of the people," and the fraud charges were "flimsy."

Stevenson also asked the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the election, but this

proved

had been, showing how personal activities.

as ineffective as court challenges

relationships could color political

Johnson was friendly with the two most powerful

who would

decide whether to pursue the investigation.

Hoover had been Johnson's neighbor General

Tom

in

case,

Edgar

Washington, and Attorney

C. Clark was also a close friend.

Court refused to hear the

J.

figures

When

Clark dashed off a

the

letter to

Supreme Johnson

Tracy Campbell

232

saying: "Congratulations, Senator, Perhaps that

illegal

had occurred

whitewashed the

it 'finis.' "

makes

and

in the run-off election

essentially

entire episode.

An interesting footnote to the when Lyndon Johnson was

1948 election came two decades

in the

the 1948 election.

by

Dugger

later recalled that

and retrieved

his wife

With

the photograph to his astonished guest. it

forward to

men

sur-

men were

a grin,

me

a

to

five

combination of

Dugger wrote

with a kind of pride."

Johnson well knew Dugger was not

show Dugger the photograph

suits,

Johnson proudly showed that the presi-

When

the picture, Johnson said not a word and quietly returned place.

of

to a

with guns and poHtical figures with

officials

including George Parr's cousin.

dent "held

details

Johnson then went

photograph of

a

rounding a ballot box marked "13." The law-enforcement

later,

White House. The Texas journalist

Ronnie Dugger interviewed Johnson and inquired about the

dresser used

Not

Department's investigation concluded that

surprisingly, the Justice

nothing

Deliver the Vote

/

asked about to

it

its

hiding

but his need

a hagiographer,

that memorialized the stolen election

speaks volumes of the culture that countenanced election fraud. Later,

Luis Salas confirmed to Dugger that the photograph was taken on the

day of the run-off election

before the polls

had even

closed.

"Yes, It's True"

The Texas

election of

duced a belated but ification

from

1948 pro-

definite ver-

a future president,

while another race that year generated The infamous

"Ballot

Box 13" used

Texas primary race that

Lyndon"

won

in the

1948

"Landslide

his Senate seat. Credit:

Photo by unknown

LBJ

an

even

from

appraisal

more candid a

—one with

Democrat

Southern a consider-

Library,

able

political

Long,

Huey's

lineage.

son,

Russell

defeated

233

Uncomfortable Majorities

Robert Kennon by

less

than 11,000 votes in a Louisiana Senate elec-

which the lead seesawed between the two candidates

tion in

Some odd

days following the election.

remote

areas,

and

in

in the

majorities accumulated in

ways that mirrowed Duval County, Texas. In

St.

Bernard Parish, Long beat Kennon 3,039 to 121, and he received nearly 85 percent of the vote in Plaquemines Parish. In Plaquemines,

Long's support by Parish boss Leander Perez was siderable

in

crucial.

With

a con-

volume of stolen and manufactured votes evidently coming

from these two

toral legitimacy.

rural parishes,

Long and

casually noting that the

some doubt was

his supporters

cast

on Long's

elec-

brushed aside such claims,

votes in Plaquemines and St.

number of

Bernard was not enough to overcome his overall margin of victory throughout the remainder of the Yet Russell

became

Long soon

bitter enemies.

moment at a

state party

vention, admitted

Louisiana.

Yes,

it's

He

fell

state.

out of favor with Perez, and the two

Enough

so that Senator

Long, in

a

heated

caucus at the 1952 Democratic National

some of the seamier ways one could be

Con-

elected in

told an astonished audience:

true that [Perez] gave

did, the stolen votes

me

stolen votes ... I accepted

all

Perez

and the ruse to confuse the voters by the

marking of the ballot. I'm sorry that I

did. I

was wrong and I

regret

it.

The following day, after headlines appeared saying Long had admitted to accepting stolen votes, the senator quickly backtracked once he realized the political implications of his words, saying that the votes were not

needed, and insisted he had not received a single stolen vote. In yet

another revealing sentence, Long claimed, "I

[Kennon] anyway." The very Long's

fact that there

was some doubt, even

own mind, of his election in the party primary cast

over his

ahead,

am sure I would have beaten

initial

claim to the

won more

elections,

seat.

Yet similar to Johnson,

Long

pressed

and became one of the most powerRil

bers of the U.S. Senate before his retirement in 1986.

in

some shadows

mem-

Tracy Campbell

234

Deliver the Vote

/

"The Good, the True, and the Beautiful" While Johnson and election in central

Russell were conventional Southern Democrats, an

Kentucky in 1948 displayed what could happen

young Democrat who was not so mainstream. Edward had been

New

a

he reached

who

civil rights

possibly, the

On the cials

rustle

to bolt for the Dixiecrats.

White House seemed

morning of the general

to prepare

them

Kentucky, a Senate seat and,

in store for

election in

him one

day.

November 1948,

vaults in the county courthouse in

as offi-

Bourbon County

for delivery to the polls, the sheriff

ballot for the U.S. Senate race. In

heard a distinct

254 marked

all,

found in the boxes before the poUs had opened,

Bourbon county

native, Virgil

Bourbon County, and

memos and

in the first

teletypes to

terested in the

tion

When Prichard

within one of the boxes. Using his penknife, he extracted a

marked

a

administra-

helped craft the party's 1948 minority plank that

home of Bourbon County,

opened the

Truman

Prichard was an ardent defender of

thirty.

prompted Strom Thurmond returned to his

Prichard, Jr.,

F.

Deal Wunderkind during the Second World War,

serving in a variety of posts in the Roosevelt and tions, all before

to a

J.

week of

their first,

came

to

sent various

Hoover was unin-

and claimed that no investiga-

case,

to

do so by the

This was the typical Hoover response to

allegations involving election fraud. Yet

mentioned

agents

work

would be undertaken unless he was directed

assistant attorney general.

were

but one marked for

Chapman. FBI

Edgar Hoover. At

Bourbon County

all

ballots

as a possible suspect.

when

Prichard's

name was

Hoover suddenly reversed course and

wrote in the margins of the teletypes "Press Vigorously and Thoroughly."

By

the spring of 1949, the case had been built against

Prichard and his law partner, and the

Because Prichard had confessed local

judge

who

guilty verdict

then

trial

how he had

testified against

how

obtained the ballots to a

him, the jury quickly returned a

and Prichard was sentenced

Prichard's case displayed

took place that summer.

to prison.

the role of

Hoover and the FBI was

235

Uncomfortable Majorities

While the FBI was ready

crucial.

way

to look the other

in cases

involving the likes of Harry Truman's Pendergast machine and the election of

Lyndon Johnson

Hoover's from the

in Texas,

moment he came

to

Ed

Prichard was a target of

Washington. In 1941, Hoover

had noted that the young Prichard's advocacy of anti-lynching

legisla-

tion and eUmination of the poll tax were very similar to the platform

how marked man. The

of the American Communist Party. Prichard's case demonstrated a

Democrat without the proper

when

lesson was clear:

election fraud cases

Democrats could expect

servative

FBI

racial politics

was

a

came before

the FBI, con-

Department and

a friendly Justice

look the other way, while civil-rights advocates such as

to

Prichard would receive a far different treatment.

When

people cooked the numbers or intimidated voters,

J.

considered that a harmless part of the game. stuffed ballots,

it

When

the right

Edgar Hoover

the

wrong people

was an unconscionable crime that threatened the

moral foundations of the Republic. In his

later years,

Prichard admitted fully to his participation in

stuffing the ballots. Yet he also

acknowledged that election fraud "was

not a thing in our county in which only thugs and other totally disreputable people indulged. It was done by the most respectable

people

who were

leaders in the church." Prichard voiced the essential

paradox of a democratic progressive trapped within a corrupt political culture:

I

was

raised in a county

where monkeying with

elections

nature;

my father did it, my great-grandfather did it.

believe

it

was second

nature.

There

I

I

was second

was

raised to

was on the one hand with aU

those great moral and intellectual principles, believing

I

ought to

stand for the good, the true, and the beautiful; and on the other

hand thinking

it's

perfectly

all

right to stuff a ballot box.

Prichard concluded: "That's an absolute dichotomy, but that's the kind

of dichotomy

I

got into."

Tracy Campbell

236

Deliver the Vote

/

"One Person, One Vote" By

the early 1960s, a series of pivotal

Supreme Court

decisions

had

refashioned the structure of American elections, especially in the South.

The power base of so many reactionaries

in Dixie rested

on the dispro-

more

heavily popu-

portionate power of rural legislative districts over lated

urban

areas.

In Georgia, the county-unit system mimicked one of

the problems of the Electoral College.

14 percent of the

state's

While Fulton County contained

population, in the county-unit system

it

had

only 1.46 percent of the vote. In Echols County, with a population in

1960 ofjust 1,876, one county-unit vote there represented 938

residents,

while one unit vote in Fulton represented 92,721 residents. The votes of

urban dwellers, consequendy, were significandy diluted. In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Baker

v.

Carr that such

constructions violated the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth

Amendment. The

following year, Georgia poHtics were the focus of

another apportionment case that introduced a national voting rights. In Gray

down

v.

Sanders, the

new

Court

standard in finally struck

the county-unit system. After considering the undemocratic

nature of the Georgia system. Justice for the majority, wrote:

WiUiam O.

Douglas, speaking

"The conception of political equahty from the

Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth

—one person, one

one thing

also invalidated

of the seats.

state's

vote."

Amendments can mean

only

A subsequent case, Reynolds v. Sims,

an Alabama districting system that allowed 25 percent

population to determine a majority of the legislative

In that case, Chief Justice Earl Warren recognized the latent

unfairness of the old system and wrote that "legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests." Yet while the legal bastion of the old

system still

may have been

at the disposal

destroyed, older,

of county

officials.

more

illegal

methods were

Uncomfortable Majorities

237

"You Haven't Learned Anything About Voting My Way" The same year that the Baker decision was announced, named Jimmy

naval officer from Plains, Georgia, political experience to that point

was serving on

ran for the state Senate. Carter was

Southerners

who aimed

land with deep political

Homer Moore,

ties

Carter,

whose only

his local school board,

new

a

young former

generation of white

Jim Crow. Opposing Carter

to topple

Democratic primary was

among

a

within his

a

in the

businessman from Rich-

district.

Early on Election Day, Carter received word that the voting procedures were a

sham

in

Quitman County,

a small

county of just 2,400

people bordering Alabama that was run by Joe Hurst, a cigar-smoking,

fedora-wearing stereotype of a Southern country political boss. Hurst

was himself

a state representative

Carter sent an aide, John Pope, to true of

and no fan of Carter's

Quitman

politics.

to see if the stories

Hurst rigging the election before arriving on

his

own

were

later in

the morning.

When

Pope entered the courthouse

in the

county seat of George-

town, he quickly understood that everything he had heard was probably an understatement. First, Hurst

had moved the polling booth out

of the courthouse and into the office of the county ordinary, a local probate judge

who

oversaw the election. Then, Hurst and his proteges

lingered over every voter

vote for Moore.

who came

to the polls, exhorting

them

to

When one couple quickly placed their ballots into the

box, hoping Hurst had not seen them, he simply reached inside the

box and found the

ballots, telling the couple,

thing about voting

my

way."

He

tore

"You haven't learned any-

up the

ballots

and reached for

two new ones and marked them for Moore. "That's the way you're supposed to vote," proclaimed Hurst, knowing

full

watched by a Carter man.

my county my way for

"I

have been running

twenty years," Hurst explained, and made a chilling

well he was being

threat: "I

have put

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

238

three

men

in that river out

back for doing

less

than you are doing

here today."

Due

to the 224-vote

margin Hurst's precinct

by 139

in

Moore, Carter narrowly

lost the election

what had occurred

Quitman, where even the

in

is

the

way they

newspaper

and the image burned

been betrayed by a

was mad

political

it's

not

always run elections over here," Carter

decided to contest the election.

I

local

by casually responding, "Mr. Carter, everybody knows

right but this

face,

votes. Yet after seeing

and refused Carter's indignant

reporters were friends with Hurst protests

Georgetown gave

could

"I

still

see the grin

on Joe Hurst's

me up," Carter remembered, adding, "I had system in which

I

had had confidence, and

as hell!"

Despite the looming odds against him. Carter went ahead with

what he described

how Southern

as his "obsession." Carter's relative

elections

worked was subsumed by the

in being cheated. Yet Carter

Journal's ]o\\n Pennington,

how

was not

institutionalized election fraud

a

false registrations,

man who had

and

alone; he

who wrote

Quitman County. There were and

innocence about injustice

he

felt

was aided by the Atlanta

a series of articles that described

had become standard practice

in

the usual accounts of alphabetical voting

after

being confronted with evidence that

died the previous

summer was

listed as

having voted.

Hurst himself claimed in one of the most remarkable responses

in

think our poll managers would

let

American a

political history, "I don't

dead person vote."

A man housed in the Atlanta penitentiary was also listed as having voted, as well as several large families tion Day. In

all,

who were

while 333 votes were supposedly cast in Quitman, 420

were somehow recorded, and without have

won

out of town on Elec-

this discrepancy.

Carter would

his seat in the state house. Carter's first legal recourse

take his case before the

Quitman County Democratic

was

to

party executive

committee, which was headed by none other than Hurst. Although no

one in Carter's camp believed Hurst's committee would find in

Uncomfortable Majorities

239

Carter's favor, at least Carter could have his case placed in the record

by the Georgia Democratic

as prescribed

allow

him

to appeal. Yet the crafty

October 29

his

which was the

party,

which would then

Hurst outflanked Carter when on

committee refused to even hear Carter's complaint,

common outcome

of so

many

challenges to local rural

bosses on charges of election fraud.

Yet Carter refused to quit, and his legal team continued to interview

dozens of Quitman residents to build their bered being struck by financial

and maybe

their county."

"so

many were

Carter

remem-

willing to endanger their

their physical well-being to bring free elections to

Armed

his case before a

how

case. Later,

with a host of affidavits, Carter decided to take

Democratic recount committee. That committee

included a representative from Carter's team and one from Moore's

team, and was headed by Judge Carl cuit.

For

would be to

all

intents

split

Crow of the Albany Judicial

Cir-

and purposes, since any decision by the committee

by the Carter and Moore representatives,

it

came down

Judge Crow to decide the outcome of the election contest.

On November 1, just days before the general election, the ballot box from Georgetown was opened in Judge Crow's

court. Carter's attor-

neys asked the judge to have the clerk simply turn the ballot box over,

which revealed that the sealed.

were

Much

finally

to the

made

make any attempt

flaps

on the box were folded together and not

shock of observers, when the contents of the box

public, the ballot stubs

were missing, which would

to determine the disparity

between those

listed as

having voted and the total number of certified votes impossible. Various elections officials testified that they simply could not

remember

how many people had voted in the election just days before. Then a voter named Tom Gary testified that he was one of the people to vote before the polls had closed. stub as 330, and he thought only three ably,

when an

election official told

He remembered

more voted

after

last

his ballot

him. Remark-

Gary she thought over 400 people

had voted, he asked about why he was just the 330th voter and among

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

24

the very

last.

difference,

Gary was

told that the absentee votes

which stood

would make up the no absentee votes

in contrast to the fact that

had been deposited. After listening to a long htany of charges against Hurst and his

men, Judge Crow made parity

between 431

had voted. the

He

his ruling

ballots in the

Then he came

real lack

He

noted the dis-

concerning the details of

of anything approaching a

to his dramatic conclusion:

The ballot box showing to have been to separate the illegal

2.

box and the testimony that only 333

also described the testimony

Georgetown vote and the

secret ballot.

on November

from the

stuffed

and

it

being impossible

legal votes, if any, a majority

of the

committee fmds that the Georgetown precinct vote should not be counted.

By throwing

out the entire Georgetown election. Carter suddenly led

Moore by 75

votes.

Judge Crow's decision was one that few judges

have dared to make in American history.

By judging

the

Georgetown

election to have been fraudulent, he not only threw out the corrupt votes, but in the process cast.

In virtually

all

had

also

The no-nonsense,

"Under

to stop a

conservative

judge from taking such a

Crow had

also

proclaimed that

existing election laws, any election can be stolen."

Joe Hurst and the

legally

similar cases, cries of disfranchising legal voters

were usually more than enough stand.

thrown out some that were

Quitman County Democratic

A

defiant

executive committee

sought to hold the judge's finding in abeyance just long enough to legally

keep Carter off the

ballot,

but the

state party

chairman,

J.

B.

Fuqua, said Carter's name would be printed in time for the upcoming general election, which he won. In a few short years. Carter

would be

governor of Georgia. In remembering the case, credit to

one

man

Jimmy

Carter gave virtually singular

—John Pennington of

for saving his political career

Uncomfortable Majorities

241

xhe,

Atlanta Journal. While the rest of Georgia's major dailies ignored

the

Quitman County case, Pennington's

in the ical

minds of Georgia's

citizens

articles

kept the issue burning

and helped shape the

legal

and

maneuvering that followed. Like so many that preceded

most major

polit-

Carter's,

cases of overturning a stolen election involve an energized

reporter or newspaper revealing the details to an outraged citizenry

and forcing some remedial action

would have been much

cles, it

to occur.

Without Pennington's

Georgia Democratic party

easier for the

to dismiss Carter's recount effort.

arti-

Along with

a courageous

Judge Carl

Crow, Pennington helped restore some democratic integrity Georgia

The

significance of the

fact that

to

elections.

Southern

Quitman episode extended

far

beyond the

established a future president's career: It also displayed

it

politics after

Local rural bosses

how

Baker was changing in some dramatic ways.

like

George Parr and Joe Hurst would soon be

replaced by large, well-financed, and centralized campaigns geared

toward reaching voters in the urban instantly reach larger audiences than

areas. Television

Hurst could bully in

ads

would

a lifetime.

Yet amidst the stunning developments, one constant remained in

Southern

politics

—

his election to the

race.

After

Georgia

and Herman Talmadge's to rid Congress

in the

state Senate,

Alabama on

ernor's race in

all,

same year Jimmy Carter won George Wallace won the gov-

earlier appeals to

"and

movement. "Give us the

we wiU

white supremacy. In order

and the statehouses of demagogues

Wallace, voter registration drives became a rights

fiU

our

echoed Gene

a segregationist plank that

critical

ballot," said

legislative halls

with

like

Talmadge or

element of the

civil-

Martin Luther King,

men

of good

will."

Jr.,

The

ensuing struggle between these competing visions of Southern elections

was one that would ultimately redefine American

politics.

"

Chapter Ten

"Elections Are Like Cement''

'Candidates don't win elections. Precinct

captains win elections.

Over the course of American

history, election fraud has naturally

evolved in response to changing political and social conditions.

By

the 1960s, Election

Day

violence and killings, for the

were no longer a routine component of political not taken by thugs and tions of illegal voters tive

were

relics

methods of controlling the

hidden from our

An tive

dumped

example

wisdom

historical

is

tells

life.

ballot

era.

part,

Ballot boxes were

into rivers. Thankfully,

of a different

most

mass importa-

Yet even more effec-

box had emerged, often in ways

memory.

the 1960 presidential election. In short, our collecus that

John

F.

Kennedy beat Richard Nixon by

a

slim margin in the popular vote; that part of Kennedy's electoral vic-

tory was grounded in

some

"irregularities" in

but these were probably offset by nois;

and even

Nixon

GOP chicanery in other parts of Illi-

in the face of serious

valiantly

conceded the

Richard Daley's Chicago,

race.

problems with the In the end,

it

results,

Richard

was simply

a very

"ElectionsAreLikeGement"

close race.

The 1960

election

243

and

its

aftermath can serve, therefore, as

a laboratory for understanding

how modern

precinct level. It

reminder that what we remember

about a

also a telling

is

contest often has

critical

little

to

fraud works at the

do with what

really occurred.

Legalized Bribery In order to win the 1960 Democratic nomination, Kennedy beat Senator

Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota

The

details

in a crucial

of how West Virginia was

won

primary in West Virginia.

are often overlooked in the

making of Camelot. Winning the support of county bosses who provided the "slate" to their constituents was the key to winning in Virginia. In effect, these slates instructed voters

who the bosses endorsed

and those candidates who did not make

for various offices,

it

on the

could count on certain defeat at the polls. In order to get on the

candidates required.

knew

They had was

described, this

expensive

that far

game

more than oratory

more than

West

Raymond Chafm, who largest coal companies.

campaign gave Chafm However, the way

in

also

happened

Chafm

a total

to

initially

work

one of the county's

of $2,500 for various election "expenses."

which Chafm

to convince

senator and

allegedly gave for

for

endorsed Humphrey, whose

is

—and Logan County—ultimately

instructive.

Chafm admitted that James

him

that his initial support of

was misplaced. McCahey implored Chafm

was

Democratic leader was

Chicago coal buyer and Kennedy supporter, came to

Logan County

setts

As Robert Dallek has

"legalized bribery" that proved an

Virginia, the local

became Kennedy supporters a

slate,

which Humphrey could not compete.

in

In Logan County,

McCahey,

slate

or debating skills were

to outbid their opponents. little

West

name him

Massachu-

to a favorable slate. In return,

Chafm $35,000

one purpose:

to support the

Humphrey

in cash. In

Chafm's words,

"We bought votes with

it.

McCahey

this

money

Regardless of what you

Tracy Campbell

244

want

to believe, that's the

were enough to

kill

way

real politics works."

Humphrey's chances,

as

Deliver the Vote

/

The

official results

Kennedy won 55 percent

of the vote in Logan. Later that year, twenty-nine people in Logan

County were indicted

for vote-buying charges in the primary. Before

Lyndon Johnson was an

active competitor for the

or the vice presidential nominee, he alleged that

the

West

nomination himself,

Kennedy had

stolen

Virginia election.

Johnson was not the only senator (and future presidential candiArizona Republican,

date) to hold this view. Barry Goldwater, an

authorized a secret investigation of the

West

Virginia election by a

former FBI agent. That summer, when Goldwater read the agent's report,

he remarked he was "utterly flabbergasted." The agent secured

sixteen signed affidavits, each testifying to

bought the

election.

One

had not

stated he

how

lived in

Kennedy's forces

West

Virginia for

over a decade but had run a county precinct and counted votes for

Kennedy

"regardless of

what the

ballots said."

extent of vote buying and of the

Others reported the

Kennedy campaign buying

"the

organization strength" of numerous county leaders. Goldwater, acting

on Nixon's

orders, gave the report to Attorney General

William

Rogers, "fully expecting immediate action." Instead, Rogers did not

pubHcize the report or follow

it

up,

and throughout the campaign, an

anxious Goldwater assumed "the whole, seamy, sordid mess" would

keep Kennedy from winning the White House. Yet after examining the investigation, Rogers concluded that not enough evidence could be

found to warrant prosecuting the

case.

Afterwards, Goldwater

regretted having taken the report to Rogers rather than the press.

"It

As

Was Going to Be All Right"

Election

was too

Day

approached, the race between Kennedy and Nixon

close to predict.

With

so

much on

the line, and considering

"ElectionsAreLikeGement"

245

that a handful of votes in a few selected precincts in certain states

could

make

the difference in the Electoral College, the Republican

general counsel

Meade Alcorn warned

this election against election fraud."

the party

"protect

faithfiil to

Alcorn was obviously worried that

the Democrats might resort to "illegal votes in order to swing the election in closely balanced states." It

was no coincidence that Richard Daley's Chicago would

prominently in the 1960 election. As the electoral nois

was

crucial to

In 1956,

Illinois

map

figure so

played out,

Illi-

Democratic chances for winning the White House.

had gone

for Eisenhower,

and with challengers for

his

own job as mayor emerging within the Republican party, Daley understood how crucial the 1960 race was for his own political career. Just as

Daley had

precincts, the

votes in

relied

on countless precinct captains

Kennedy campaign counted on Daley

Cook County to

The

Election

Day from

enough

precinct captains were the crucial

cog in the Daley machine, since they served

coming from the

to deliver

counteract votes Nixon was sure to receive in

the southern part of the state.

tive to the constituents

to deliver their

as the

mayor's representa-

of the precinct. Favors were always forth-

captains,

who

expected the favor in return on

loyal constituents.

When

a store

owner

failed to

vote in the 1960 primary, his precinct captain took notice and warned:

"That guy going to

is

visit

going to wish he had voted. The building inspector

him on Monday, and

Chicago Republicans were were noticeably worried

I

is

can hear him crying now."

also well

as the election

aware of these dynamics and

approached. Aiding them were

the Republican newspapers of Chicago, notably Richard McCormick's

Tribune and the Daily

News and Sun-Times,

controlled by Marshall

Field IV, a descendant of the Chicago department store magnate.

Daily

News began running

sands of

illegal

how thouand showed how the

October describing

stories in

names were on the

The

poll

Board of Election Commissioners was

lists,

little

more than an extension of

Daley's machine, considering that 176 of 180 positions on the Board

Tracy Campbell

246

were held by Daley Democrats. In

to discuss the

October, David

late

Brill, repre-

Honest

Elections,

impending election and ways

to prevent

senting an organization called the

met with Daley

Deliver the Vote

/

Committee

for

fraud at the polls. Daley dismissed the warnings, accused Brill of

playing politics, and refused

request to allow inspectors from the

Brill's

Honest Elections Committee

to observe the election.

disguised Repubhcans like Brill were doing

little

To

Daley, thinly

more than trying

to

intimidate Democratic voters: "You are in there to stop people from

voting Democratic," Daley told

The

presidential race

Brill.

was not the only one that concerned Daley.

Perhaps even more important to the mayor was the contest for attorney. state's

Benjamin Adamowski,

a Republican,

attorney in 1956 and, if he

challenge Daley for state's attorney,

sibly expose

its

mayor

re-election,

Adamowski could

take

from

to

his post as

on Daley's machine and pos-

seamier sides in patronage matters and in the awarding

became

it

the

much

state's attorney's race, as

the presidency. Indeed, to

as

it

essential that

was

Adamowski

critical that

some within Daley's inner

lose

Kennedy win

circle, it

seemed

Daley was more interested in seeing Adamowski defeated

than seeing Kennedy win.

To

secure the coveted post, Daley selected a

former federal prosecutor, Daniel

What most

political observers

R Ward,

Adamowski's

real

to challenge

name appeared on

Ward may the ballot,

opponent was Richard Daley.

the polls closed

on Election Day, 1960, and votes were tabulated

in the presidential race,

it

was obvious that

this

was

a historically close

election. Indeed, the popular vote in the presidential race a statistical

Adamowski.

understood was that while

have been the nominal challenger whose

As

election as

seemed poised

in 1963. Additionally,

of city contracts. For Daley,

likely that

won

had won

state's

was

a nearly

dead heat, with Kennedy winning 34,227,096 votes to

Nixon's 34,108,546, a difference of just over 118,000 votes out of over

68 million

cast, or .2

percent (Kennedy's popular vote margin should

be seen in contrast to Al Gore's popular vote margin in 2000, which

"Elections Are Like Cement"

247

exceeded a half million votes). In the Electoral College, however, the vote was apparently not as close.

Nixon's 219

—

Kennedy won 303

a veritable landslide

electoral votes to

by 2000 standards.

Yet the ways Southern Democrats engineered their electoral votes

meant the Electoral College count was not

firm. In

Alabama,

five

"unpledged electors" were committed to Kennedy but the remaining six

were

Harry Byrd of

free to bolt to the segregationist

Virginia. In

Mississippi, eight unpledged electors also threatened to vote for

Byrd

(with the addition of another bolting elector from Oklahoma, Byrd actually

would

won

15 electoral votes). In the unlikely event that recounts

give additional states to Nixon, those unpledged Southern elec-

tors could prove

troublesome for Kennedy.

Late on election night,

Democrats refused

GOP

precincts until they learned of returns

of the oldest election late

on

Daley,

tricks in the

election night,

who

from other parts of the

Bobby Kennedy was on

In Daley's

state,

one

book. Theodore White wrote that the

phone often with

worry

—"Daley knew

which oi his precincts were out and which oi theirs were right."

the

from over two hundred Chicago

told the candidate's brother not to

going to be aU

when

suspicions were raised

to release returns

own

out,

and

ward, Kennedy had

14,000 votes. Considering Kennedy had

won

it

was

won by

the state by less than

9,000 votes, even uncovering a small amount of vote padding could

have significant consequences on the election and the perceived

legit-

imacy of a Kennedy presidency. In the days and weeks after the 1960 election, the

Democratic returns from two electoral votes

GOP

attacked

states that, if their collective fifty-one

were placed in Nixon's column rather than Kennedy's,

would give the Vice President the Electoral College victory Johnson's Texas, which

Richard Daley's

Kennedy had won by over 46,000

—Lyndon votes,

and

Illinois.

Nixon and the

GOP

privately agonized over

whether to concede

defeat and allow the vote returns to be certified, or to challenge the

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

248

on the grounds of widespread

election

Electoral College set to convene in

fraud. Additionally, with the

mid-December, the constitutional

clock was ticking, and Httle time could be wasted

if a

recount were to

proceed. If unsuccessful, Nixon and his party might appear sore losers

who

purposefully humiUated the country at the very height of the

Cold War. Nixon

also worried that a recount

idency and American prestige abroad. recount were

somehow

successful,

Nixon

—^who had received

office

under such conditions?

react to

the other hand, if the

would the nation accept

a minority of the popular vote

How

a President

—assuming

would the nation and the world

exposing the unseemly side of American elections? For

Richard Nixon, an intense the thought that the race

On

might diminish the pres-

Kennedy and

would haunt him

who

political brawler

his father's millions

for the rest

Heading the Republican

rehshed a good

effort at

of his

fight,

had possibly stolen

life.

overthrowing the

results

of the

1960 race was the Republican national committee chair Thruston

Morton, a senator from Kentucky. Morton walked

a fine line

between

challenging the results and making his party appear as one that would

not accept defeat. Days after the election,

Morton

stated carefully he

was not "making charges of fraud," but pointed out that some counties in Texas cast

more votes

Morton promised also called

for a

bond

that a recount

upon eleven

issue than for president. All along,

would be conducted

states (Delaware, Illinois,

nesota, Missouri, Nevada,

New

Mexico,

New

in Chicago.

He

Michigan, Min-

Jersey, Pennsylvania,

South CaroHna, and Texas) to consider recounts, although

at this early

stage he admitted he did not think any such challenge could give the election to Nixon.

Meanwhile, Nixon put some distance between himself and Morton, declaring he was not in favor of seeking any recounts. careful

enough not

to use the

Nixon was

word "concede," although

mentators would assume that he had.

By the

fiiture

next week, the

also

com-

GOP cen-

tered their inquiry in eight states, headed, of course, by lUinois and

"Elections Are Like Cement"

Texas.

249

While Kennedy was busy

selecting his cabinet,

Morton and

supporters were forming a national recount and fair elections mittee,

his

com-

and even by early December Morton claimed there was "an

outside chance" of Nixon being proclaimed the winner.

Throughout November and early December 1960, a firestorm erupted in

Chicago over the looming recount and the rumors that swirled about

Democratic chicanery at the poUs. Daley, of course, put up

as

many road-

blocks to the recount as he could. Early on, the election board began the official

recount by examining only one precinct a day, meaning that the

entire recount

would take

years.

When

an

official ballot application list

from a suspect precinct suddenly disappeared from City Hall in

late

November, GOP officials were quick to declare it evidence of a "widening vote scandal" in Chicago. In that precinct, the Fiftieth in the Second

Ward, Kennedy beat Nixon 74-3, yet only twenty- two people were registered to vote. Alcorn called for a wider investigation to see

was removed

in order to bring those responsible to justice,

how

the

list

and to "deter-

mine just which candidate did carry Illinois."

"Be Held for Naught" Meanwhile, the charges increased

in Texas.

Party contested Kennedy's victory in the "in

many

Lone

state

with a host of problematic

use of a "Negative Ballot" in a

Republican

Star State, claiming that

boxes" the votes for president exceeded the

tered, along

later,

The Texas

ballots.

number

regis-

Most unusual was

number of Texas

the

counties. Forty years

the entire country would learn of the notorious "butterfly ballot,"

but it was preceded in Since 1957,

all

many ways by the more imaginative Texas ballot.

Texas counties using paper ballots were required to use

a uniform ballot, in

which columns

for the

major party candidates,

as

well as the Constitution and Prohibition parties, were printed horizontally.

The

instructions read:

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

250

Vote for the candidate of your choice in each race by scratching or

marking out

all

the other

names

in that race.

You may

vote for

all

the candidates of a party by running a Hne through every other party

column.

Prior to the election, the Texas Secretary of State announced that

county election boards could determine the position of the parties on the ballot.

A Democratic board, for example, would have wanted

Democratic column placed see

it first

first

on the

ballot so that partisans

the

would

and properly mark through the other remaining names on

the ballot. Also, the Prohibition party only ran a presidential ticket and

not candidates for other

offices,

making

it

hard to notice on the entire

Because of the manner of voting that contradicted what so

ballot.

many

expected

when

they went into the voting booth, inspectors

found countless ballots that did not have marks that removed candidates leaving one, and

many

that

all

of the

had not marked out the Prohi-

bition ticket.

Democratic county judges were quick to count those "spoiled" ballots

for the

Democrats, while denying the same to RepubUcans.

RepubUcans were Texas, an

area

particularly upset with vote patterns in southern

where some counties had "spoiled"-ballot

rates

approaching thirty percent. Additionally, thousands of discarded Texas ballots

had not been rechecked, which was required by Texas

law.

To

GOP, even weeks after the election, the stories emanating from so many parts of the Lone Star State confirmed what they instinctively

the

— Richard Nixon had been cheated out of the

knew

knowledgeable Republicans expressed

real

can't

One

But

doubt about overturning

the results in Texas because of the electioneering

running mate, "Landslide Lyndon."

presidency.

skills

of Kennedy's

GOP official lamented: "You

outcount Lyndon Johnson."

By

late

November, the

tions of election

state

Repubhcan party had presented

viola-

law in two Texas counties, while the head of the

state

"Elections Are Like Cement"

251

Democratic party dismissed fraud charges and called Republicans "poor losers." The FBI, meanwhile, investigated whether the names of

deceased people were on the voting dential election in Dallas,

to

determine

that were determined, then

having voted in the presi-

San Antonio, and Houston. The

attorney general. Will Wilson,

Wichita County

lists as

selected

state

thirty-four precincts

if "constructive"

in

fraud had occurred. If

Wilson could have the

ballot boxes

those precincts brought to Austin and opened to see

if

from

fraud had

occurred in the counting of the votes. If he concluded that fraud had occurred, then a statewide recount could be called. Yet Wilson's limited investigation, merely inquiring into the results

not enough for the

"sweep

it

accused Wilson of attempting to

under a rug and forget about

Gardner, denied the in

GOP, which

Wichita County.

of one county was

it."

A district judge, J.

Harris

GOP a chance to examine the discarded ballots A Republican attorney Hardy Hollers implored

the judge to open the boxes, in order to better understand

imately 150,000 ballots were not counted.

why approx-

did not matter

It

whom

those voters preferred for president, HoUers claimed, "what does

matter that

is

that aU these people were denied the right to vote." In ways

would be echoed by

GOP

their

opponents forty years

later,

the Texas

decided to press their case in federal court, arguing essentially

that thousands of Texans

had been disfranchised by "inconsistent

actions of election judges in throwing out improperly

— — unprecedented development "be held and requesting that the election

On November 24, the Houston ballots

in

marked

ballots,"

what would have been an for naught."

Chronicle revealed that thousands of

had been thrown out by election judges without being

rechecked. Texas law stated that a special ballot box designated

"Number Four" should be unused

ballots.

the depository of

After the poUs closed.

all

mutilated, defaced, or

Box Number Four was

locked, returned to the county clerk, and then opened to see ballots

had been discarded. In

a

number of

to

be

how many

counties, county clerks

Tracy Campbell

252

/

Deliver the Vote

were apparently not even aware of the law and the existence of Box

Number

Four. In Fort

idential race,

Bend County, 9,083

and Kennedy

won

votes were cast in the pres-

the county, 4,339 to Nixon's 3,301.

Therefore, 1,443 votes, nearly sixteen percent of the county's entire vote,

were not counted and should have been placed in Box Number

Four.

The county

clerk, Ella Stubblefield, said she did

not

know

she needed to maintain such a box, and claimed she had "no

that

way of

knowing" why the 1,443 votes were not counted. In Wharton County, clerk

Delfm Marek

said he

had no intentions of opening

Four Box, which contained over 5,000 uncounted

Number

his

ballots.

GOP charged that the

In challenging the election in court, the Texas

election should be considered to be of "no legal force." In addition to the

100,000 or so invalidated

ballots, the attorneys for the state

Republican

party claimed that in Duval County, election officials wore pistols and

"coerced Spanish speaking voters." In the 23rd Precinct in

County, 86 people voted for president, yet the

Kennedy beating Nixon

in the precinct

One

was noted by Republican

would be

cratic attorneys in Florida in

ballots

"A Sad Day By December

in

1,

marked

similar

particular election violation later

echoed by Demo-

2000: "Thousands of improperly marked

were thrown out by election

corrected improperly

showed

official returns

by 147 votes to 24, and

patterns were noted in other counties. officials that

AngeUna

officials.

ballots

But other

election judges

and counted them."

American Politics"

Morton claimed

there

was

still

a chance

Nixon could

have the election reversed due to the prevalence of "shocking irregularities

and fraud." In Morton's words, what he had seen on Election

Day was

a "national disgrace."

And

Morton did not mince words when doubt whatever

that,

it

to

make

came

based on the evidence,

it

abundantly

to Illinois

Illinois

—

"I

clear,

have no

belongs in Nixon's

"Elections Are Like Cement"

253

column." While Nixon preferred to remain invisible in the Chicago

same could not be

recount, the race

said for

by 25,000 votes and was vocal in

stolen the election. If any

Ben Adamowski, who

his charges that

if it

was

Democrats had

one was in doubt, Adamowski was blunt

about the significance of what had just happened:

would mind

lost his

"I don't

suppose

of stealing the courthouse," said

just a matter

Adamowski, "but when the manipulations and machinations of political it is

a sad

With windy are

machine

are used as a vehicle to take over the

day in American

now

White House,

turned to election methods in the

Richard Daley came out fighting. "The Republican actions

cheap charges for publicity," said the mayor.

GOP

a

politics."

the nation's attention

city,

I

He

even accused the

of using "Hitler-like" methods in the post-election dispute.

Daley suggested that the press investigate voter returns from downstate Illinois,

where the

results

were

"as fantastic as

precincts they are pointing at in Chicago."

When grilled by reporters,

Daley admitted he never said there was no fraud only that

it

in the recent election,

had never been proven. Adamowski responded that Daley and was

more than

"ward comedian,"

had "rigged" the

election

President-elect

Kennedy dismissed the Republican

Henry

some of those

little

a

claims, while

Jackson, chairman of the Democratic National Committee,

stated that the

GOP

charges were "dilatory proceedings" aimed at

delaying certification of votes from enough states to deny

Kennedy an

Electoral College majority and thus throwing the election into the

House of Representatives. The Chicago recount

effort,

under

a severe

time limit with the approaching meeting of the Electoral College,

worked over the

first

weekend of December

along. After checking 69 of 863

in order to speed things

Cook County

precincts,

Nixon had

picked up 147 votes. Republicans reacted angrily to those numbers, claiming Democrats were incriminating voter

To

lists,

illegally

counting "spoiled"

and delaying the

ballots,

hiding

overall process.

bring more national attention to the events in Chicago,

Morton

,

2

Tracy Campbell

54

flew there on

December 2 and vowed

"preserve the sanctity of the ballot"

Democratic said the

theft.

When

Deliver the Vote

/

to pursue every legal

means

to

and get firsthand knowledge of the

Morton

asked about possible court action,

GOP was inclined to take the issue to court, especially "to fmd

the absentee ballots which are

still

drifting

around somewhere." Coun-

tering charges that his actions were simply to delay the inevitable or to cast

doubt on Kennedy's legitimacy, Morton claimed that

all

those

working on the GOP's behalf in recounting the votes were "rendering a great service" to their country.

investigate the voting

than "investigating his

An outraged Daley said Morton should

methods

in his

home

of Kentucky rather

state

own propaganda." Daley

further charged that

the entire episode was a

"GOP

conspiracy to deny the presi-

dency to the people."

man

elected by the

Although Nixon claimed

he wanted nothing to do with the recount effort, stated that he to

A thorouehly bored Mayor Richard Dalev

Chicago

in

to

go

Chicago in early December to .1

,

throw out the 1960 presidential

was directed rr

„^„ oversee the recount errorts,

, , „ , r, rr (middle) listens to a Republican eriort to ,

Morton himself

.

„11 «„4.

all

at

Mr. Nixon's requeSt."

results in

©

December. Credit:

Bettmann/Corbis

Hawaii

While most

eyes were

the 1960 election saga. lead,

on Chicago, Hawaii provided another

The

returns in

Hawaii had Kennedy

in the

but upon a recount, Nixon took over by just 141 votes out of

nearly 185,000 votes cast.

Nixon suit,

first

twist in

as the

On November 18, Hawaii officially certified

winner of Hawaii's three

claiming that RepubUcan poU

for Nixon.

A circuit judge

electoral votes.

officials

Democrats

had counted

illegal

filed

votes

ordered seven more contested precincts to

"ElectionsAreLikeCement"

255

be recounted, and by mid-December, Kennedy actually pulled back into the lead

by

a

mere twenty-one

votes.

With such

a close

margin

and the seesawing of the two candidates, the same judge next ordered

more recounts

When

in additional counties.

the Electoral College officially convened

Hawaii abstained. Ten days declared Kennedy

later, after

on December

19,

a contentious recount, a judge

the winner by 115 votes. Republicans countered by

claiming that a form of chain balloting had helped give Kennedy his victory and

moved

Kennedy planned

that the results be nullified. his cabinet.

As

President-elect

Congress quietly honored Hawaii's

three electoral votes for Kennedy, giving serious credence to the fact that even after a vote

is

may

lege itself meets, there

count accurately, and,

Set

in

"certified," still

and even

after the Electoral

be attempts to gauge a

if necessary,

Col-

state's electoral

changed.

Concrete

Lawyers for the Texas

GOP

continued in their quest to prevent the

Texas Electoral College count from being

certified, citing that a full

recount was necessary to determine the rightful winner. In addition to

GOP claimed further

the problems they had already highlighted, the

problems with the election. In Fannin County (home county of Speaker of the House

Sam

Rayburn), 6,138 votes were

cast, yet

only

4,895 poll tax receipts were recorded. Republicans were also wary of

how

votes were thrown out,

alliances.

votes,

234 improperly marked

much

to be based

on party

In Eagle Lake, where Nixon beat Kennedy by 475 to 357

were more a

which seemed

likely to

produce

ballots

were discarded. In areas that

GOP votes, the votes were thrown out in

higher proportion than in heavily Democratic counties.

In some contiguous precincts, large discrepancies existed in discarding "spoiled" ballots. In Fort

Bend County,

Precinct One, which

Tracy Campbell

256

had delivered

a

one-hundred-vote margin for Nixon, had 182 dis-

carded votes. In Precinct Two, which w^ent 68 to votes w^ere discarded at

Houston

The Texas Democratic

all.

Leon Jaworski

attorney,

(a

decade

later,

who

said the entire case

Kennedy, no

1 for

party hired a

Jaworski would pose

even greater problems for President Richard Nixon ecutor),

Deliver the Vote

/

as

Watergate pros-

was without merit and,

the meeting of the Electoral College looming,

it

besides, with

would be

physically

impossible to conduct a complete recount. Texas Attorney General

Wilson expressed the common opinion correct

— the vote

they are

"I

By December

7,

little

have found that elections are

they harden, and that's

set,

that

could be done to

like

cement.

it."

Thruston Morton told

a Republican audience that

chances of overturning the election were "remote," but that not in vain.

The

process of cleansing

American

and noble one, and that "the people

how much

criticism

is

heaped upon

When

know about

will

my

elections

head."

While

was it

all

was

a necessary

regardless of

the party chair

was presenting the public posture of only proceeding with the recounts for the civic good, at the state level in lUinois

and Texas, party workers

had not yet given up hope that Richard Nixon might

still

be inaugu-

rated in January.

On

Sunday, December

1960, the

4,

Kennedy's election to be the result of

Cook County

convinced

are

.

,

.

Chicago Tribune declared

theft:

"Most of the people of

that the recent election of Nov. 8

was

characterized by such gross and palpable fraud as to justify the conclusion that at least tory."

two Republican candidates were deprived of vic-

The paper made

candidates.

The

and give the

it

clear that

Tribune was

less

Richard Nixon was one of those

confident that justice would prevail

electoral votes of Illinois to

Nixon.

The system

controlled at the precinct and city level by Daley, "places a

fraud and protects

it

in place,

premium on

once consummated."

Despite the pessimism of

Morton and papers

hope grew on December 7 that Nixon could recounting the ballots in four hundred

still

like the Tribune,

win

Cook County

Illinois.

After

precincts, less

"Elections Are Like Cement"

than half of the

total,

257

Nixon had picked up 2,978

votes.

The chairman

of the Republican recount committee was confident that

when

the

remainder of the precincts was counted, combined with a recheck of

some voting-machine win

Illinois.

errors in other parts

of the

Democrats countered that by

picked up only 481 votes.

Nixon would

state,

their totals,

Nixon had

On December 9, the partisan recount figures

—Democrats claimed Nixon had gained 943

grew

votes, while

Repub-

was nearly 4,500 votes and added that

licans said that the real figure

even the Democrats' own figures indicated the existence of fraud in the

November

election.

As Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor

write, "if

the Republican count was correct, this canvass of less than one-third of

the

Cook County precincts,

larity,

looking at only one kind of voting irregu-

had erased more than half of Kennedy's margin of victory."

"Substantial Non-Complementary Miscounts"

Just as

it

would

forty years later, the recount issue

end on December Texas and

12.

Illinois

—

a

stopped the

Daley

that challenged the ties.

to an abrupt

Notwithstanding gains for Nixon, judges in both

brought the election to a Kluczynski

came

GOP

close.

recount dead in

its

tracks

In Chicago, Circuit Judge

—dismissed

loyalist

Thomas

two Republican lawsuits

Kennedy victory on grounds of alleged

In Texas, U.S. District Judge

and

irregulari-

Ben C. ConnaUy dismissed

Republican petition to recount 1.25 million paper

the

ballots, ruling that

the Federal courts did not have jurisdiction in state contests, and

added that the Republicans had not adequately proven that anyone's rights

had been violated when the Texas

ballots

were thrown

out.

Republican attorneys termed Judge ConnaUy 's ruling "impetuous" and "shocking."

Two

hours after

ConnaUy 's

ruling, the

Texas State Board

of Canvassers met in Austin to quickly certify Kennedy's twenty-four electoral votes.

Yet the fight was not quite over in Chicago. Nixon's supporters

Tracy Campbell

258

encouraged Adamowski to press ahead. As one

Recount Committee

stated, the

ballots,

The

When

down

ended

it

member of the Nixon

irregularities perpetrated against the

over partisan haggling on

March

in

later.

overtake Ward's lead,

it

While

how to

count

Adamowski had only

1961,

Ward's lead by 8,875 votes, with nearly 2,000 votes judge to determine

effort "gives us a

recount covered 906 precincts that used paper

but soon bogged

the ballots.

Deliver the Vote

Adamowski recount

means of proving the fraud and Vice President."

/

cut

set aside for the

numbers were not enough

these

to

was stunning evidence of how many votes had

been underreported on election night for Daley's archrival from just those areas using paper ballots.

While

the

Adamowski recount

occurred, an investigation

was

launched that would keep the 1960 election controversy in Chicago

burning a while longer.

Democrat and

On December

a Special State's

16, 1960,

Morris

J.

Wexler, a

Attorney of Cook County, was ordered

by Criminal Court Chief Justice Richard B. Austin 1956

—

—an unsuccessful

Democratic candidate for governor

in

ecute cases of election fraud in the

November 1960

Over the next four months, Wexler and

to investigate

and pros-

general election.

his staff interviewed "thou-

sands of persons" involved in the election and examined over 1,300 precinct returns. In April 1961, Wexler issued his report. Throughout,

Wexler found lots"

—

a

more

"substantial legal

non-complementary miscount of the

term for stealing votes

the Ninth Precinct of the Third

—

bal-

in various wards, such as

Ward, where Nixon was credited with

only four votes, whereas a recount showed he actually received fortyfour.

An

overall pattern

was

gated; the miscount in the

distinct in the precincts

Ward-Adamowski

that of the presidential contest. Daley's

concerned with the

Adamowski posed

state's

to the

Wexler

investi-

race actually dwarfed

machine had been much more

attorney race and the possible threat

mayor than the

presidency.

Wexler brought contempt charges against 667 election involved in the 1960 Chicago election. Elated Republicans

officials felt

that

"Elections Are Like Cement"

259

this vindicated their charges

of a stolen election, although Wexler

would not go ally

so far as to assert that

Nixon and Adamowski had actu-

won. Daley's machine trumped Wexler's moves by placing the case

in the

hands of a Democratic judge from East

rulings essentially eviscerated Wexler's charges,

missed

charges against the defendants.

all

inquiries into the

St.

and

With

Louis. His bench in the

end he

that,

any further

working dynamics of the election were

dis-

stifled.

The Cold Light of the Next Dawn While Nixon kept

mum

on the

issue

harbored a deep bitterness over the

Christmas party that

from

us."

happened

year,

of fraud in public, privately he

way

the election played out.

he told guests,

Morton never allowed

the party

At

"We won,

but they stole

faithflil to

forget

a it

what had

Morton

in 1960. Six days after Kennedy's inauguration,

spoke before party regulars in Chicago. For Morton, there were unmistakable lessons learned:

"We

of attempting to correct voting

all

have discovered the utter

irregularities after the fact."

that could be used about thousands of races from related the essence of political

Exciting speeches at roaring

campaigns and

rallies are

In words

all eras,

Morton

elections:

important, of course. But in

the cold light of the next dawn, the only realities are the ballots in the box,

fiitility

number of

how they were cast, and how they are counted and

certified.

In the aftermath of the 1960 election, both candidates tried to place as

much

distance between themselves and the election controversy as

possible.

Kennedy used humor

to deflect questions surrounding the

legitimacy of his presidency, once joking that his wealthy father was

prepared to buy his son a victory but would be

damned

if he

would pay

Tracy Campbell

260

for a landslide.

There were

Deliver the Vote

/

also suggestions that before the election,

Joe Kennedy had obtained the support of the Chicago mafia, led by

Sam

Giancana, and the votes the

mob

could deliver, in return for a

promise to back off from investigating organized crime.

Nixon

felt

the sting keenly, although in pubHc he tried to remove

himself from the contentions of a stolen election. In writing his oirs Six Crises,

Nixon instructed

his staff

on how

erage of fraud in retelling his story of the election. or eight pages indicating

some

how

to handle the cov-

"What I want

is

six

the fraud story developed and using

Texas

specific examples. In

mem-

—In Chicago, of

flagrant fraud as

well as any other states where good examples might be pointed out."

Nixon concluded

in his notes,

"What we need

here are examples and

quotes from other people rather than charges being this issue."

that

As

the

memory of the

made by me on

election faded, the collective notion

Nixon and the Republicans fought

for recounts,

and even

to over-

turn the election itself well into December, faded as well. In Nixon's

mind, however, the image of the Kennedys stealing an election preoccupied him, and was a factor in his obsession that Democrats would

undertake the same methods in his reelection campaign in 1972.

—

Nixon's "dirty tricks" unit

ruption at

work

in

a perfect description of the culture of cor-

modern

politics

—

stole confidential

from Democratic candidates and distributed anonymous gesting that leading candidates had committed adultery. rious "enemies

list," as

documents letters

The

sug-

noto-

well as the Watergate break-in and cover-up,

were certain legacies of the 1960

election, in

which Nixon

felt Illinois

and Texas had been stolen from him by unscrupulous Democrats.

Was Nixon

right?

Did he

rightfully

win

Illinois?

No exact determi-

nation can, of course, be made. In the most exacting appraisal of the

1960

election,

undertaken by the historian

Edmund

KaUina, Nixon

picked up anywhere from 4,674 to 7,968 votes in the Chicago area, neither of which cial

would have been enough

lead of 8,858. In KaUina's words,

"The

to overtake Kennedy's offifact

is

no one can say with

261

"Elections Are Like Cement"

certainty stories

of

who

carried Illinois in 1960, especially considering

'really'

GOP irregularities in other parts of the state." On the other

hand, Kallina finds that the calculations give a clear indication of the state's attorney' race,

where he estimates Adamowski picked up over

30,000 votes, enough to overtake Ward. Kallina concludes that

Adamowski was

"cheated out of the election."

the entire affair

would be

stolen

enough votes

won by was

downstate

fairly accurate

his presidency.

—

all

usual dismissal of

RepubHcans had probably

Illinois that the

margin Kennedy

of which gives a certain legitimacy to

Yet the details of the Chicago and Texas elections cer-

Kennedy's popular-vote margin in the national

tainly reduce

As

in

to counter that

The

race.

usual, calls for the elimination of the Electoral College

were

uttered immediately following the 1960 election, but they quickly faded. Senator Karl a

Mundt,

a Republican of

South Dakota, called for

reform of the Electoral College, whereby the "winner take

would be scrapped vote

would

in favor

receive the

electoral vote

two

system

of a plan in which the winner of the

state's

The remainder of the

state's

"at large" votes.

would be determined by who won the individual con-

gressional districts.

Under Mundt's

would have beaten Kennedy Mundt's

all"

plan,

and other

the Electoral votes,

fell

in

proposal, interestingly,

Nixon

the Electoral College, 282-269.

calls for a

more proportional accounting of

by the wayside,

as they

have after every other

contested presidential election.

Uncovering the Daley Machine As Tip O'Neill once local.

When

said, all poUtics

is

local;

even more,

examining elections from a national or

all

elections are

state perspective,

how elections work at the precinct level is the most critical element in the outcome. In order to see how the

we tend to lose

sight of the fact that

Daley machine worked, our focus should not be on the national

party,

Tracy Campbell

262

or, for

/

Deliver the Vote

that matter, on deliberations within City Hall. Rather, the real

source of Daley's power across the country—

—and

was

this

power brokers

true for other

^was the precinct captains. Suspicions

of the mag-

nitude of fraud that occurred in Chicago remained under the visible poHtical layer for another decade until a rather nondescript primary election in

March 1972 blew

the lid off Daley's apparatus.

In order to verify the extent of fraud in a typical Chicago election, the staff of the Chicago Tribune hatched a plan reporters

went through the

whereby

several of

its

legal steps to qualify as precinct officials.

Undergirding their approach was the certainty that unless a way could be found to get inside the Daley machine on Election Day, the knowl-

edge of the working mechanics of Chicago pohtics would never

rise

above the level of informed rumors. Along with the help of a local reform organization called the Better Government Association, the Tribune was successful in placing twenty reporters throughout the city in official posts as precinct officials, all in areas

known

especially for

wholesale fraud. Neither voters, local politicians, nor other precinct

workers were aware that the

new precinct

officials

From

this

level,

the scale of the fraud and the ways in

vantage point, with an insider's view

Chicago were It

fliUy

exposed

as

were

also reporters.

at the local precinct

which

it

was done

in

never before.

did not take long for the planted workers to see some troubhng

practices. Besides observing

coundess cases of workers iUegaUy helping

voters or even distributing partisan

and chain balloting were done out

campaign

literature,

in the open.

When

vote-buying

one voter was

offered a ballot by a precinct official, the voter casually replied, "I

already have one." In the Twentv^-fourth politician the "vote fraud capital

ment Association workers who officials

Ward,

called

by one

local

of the world," two Better Govern-

identified themselves to local precinct

were threatened with death.

But the Tribune reporters did more than merely report some of these disturbing episodes:

They went deeper

to explain the

dynamics

263

"Elections Are Like Cement"

of

how

elections really functioned in

was the

Philip Caputo, the precinct captain votes.

The

Chicago

crucial figure in stealing

captain, in Caputo's words, "stakes his

numbers written on fact explains

why

crown on

a tally sheet," as well as his "livelihood,

vote fraud

is

an ugly

To

in the early 1970s.

a set of

and that

reality in Chicago's electoral

process."

In urban political

no one

lore,

success of a political

machine

is

as revered

and

as significant to the

Captains were

as the precinct captain.

the eyes and ears of the machine, and throughout the year provided the

necessary goods and services to the constituents in order to display

how much someone

lost a job,

would find if

they needed to support the party in power at City Hall. If they would usually

call

a suitable city job or a referral to

the precinct captain,

someone who was

who

hiring;

someone was short on funds, the captain could be counted on

to

provide a loan; if a sick child needed medical care, the captain would see to

that the child

it

usually took care of the

was seen by

bill.

Through

a

good

and the captain

doctor,

these countless daily acts of com-

passion and service, the captains were the crucial cogs of the machine, the link between City quently,

the people at the grass roots. Conse-

on Election Day, precinct captains

strong-arm efits

HaU and

tactics.

that flowed

his constituents, all a

captain needed to do was to

make

those benefits remembered as

much on

certain that those

to

election

to provide to his

Mayor

delivered

The committeeman,

Daley,

committeemen together

was

received

held, the

ward

in turn, passed that prediction

predicted votes to be

election, the

mayor

to evaluate the "performance"

In the words of one committeeman,

who

in a specific race could

who would fully expect those

on Election Day. After the

good precinct

ward committeeman the

number of votes the favored candidate

expect to receive.

on

upon

many ben-

Election Day.

Caputo explained that long before any

exact

needed to resort to

Rather, by virtue of having provided so

from City Hall to

captain was called

rarely

if Daley

saw

called the

of each captain.

a precinct captain

not

Tracy Campbell

264

living

up

swift:

"Get

to his promises rid

/

Deliver the Vote

of votes, the words from the mayor would be

of him." If this occurred, the captain would lose his

job and any patronage that went with

had everything

at stake in virtually

thing to protect their

own

jobs.

it.

city

Consequently, ward captains

every election, and would do any-

As one committeeman

explained,

"Candidates don't win elections. Precinct captains win elections."

The

pressure

on precinct captains

to deliver the predicted

numbers

never eased, regardless of the election or even the margin of victory. say, a

captain

won

to return that

how Daley's it

his precinct

same margin

by a vote of 300

he was expected

in every successive election, regardless of

candidates were doing citywide.

bluntly: "Daley's

to 50,

If,

man might

A Daley opponent stated

be winning by a million votes, but

that precinct captain doesn't turn in his quota, he loses his job."

if

The

major ways in which captains could ensure that their numbers were always right involved stuffing the boxes before the election or "leveling" the count after the polls closed.

According to the Tribune report, one such precinct captain was "Smitty" Smith,

who

Sam

controlled the Fifty-ninth Precinct of the Fourth

Ward. Smith's workers spent

a

good part of the morning giving

illegal

help to voters in the booth, and sometimes giving the right voters

more than one

ballot.

But

it

was not enough

for Smith,

considerable pressure to deliver his precinct in a the Daley machine.

At midday. Smith had

who was under

way that would

satisfy

the votes counted (illegally)

man had only 98 "This may be our last

way behind

and determined that the Daley

votes,

what had been

time here," Smith

predicted.

declared, claiming that City Hall "pushed us too hard, too fast."

desperation was echoed by another captain,

who grew anxious

The

that he

could not dehver his quota of 185 votes, which he unsuspectingly told a reporter erly

was usually obtained by hustUng "drunks off the

women, and

illiterates,"

worked more smoothly

usually from a nearby vacant

streets, eldlot.

Things

Twenty- fourth Ward's Fortieth

Precinct,

run by Eddie Simmons, who personally distributed campaign

literature

in the

265

"Elections Are Like Cement"

at the polls

and often went in the booths with voters

cast their vote. Closing the polls early,

to "help"

Simmons counted

whereby one Daley man was astonished that

the votes,

a maverick challenger

actually credited with receiving 14 votes out of 280.

was

them

"He

shouldn't

have gotten any."

No

one was more open about

Illinois

how

to get the necessary quota than

C. Daggett. She might not have been the

the Fifteenth Precinct of the Twenty-seventh polls, in the

gram cials

in Chicago,

Ward, but she ruled the

on how

to

in the federally

do

Her very

their work.

a

funded Model Cities pro-

and spent most of Election Day instructing poll

Hatch Act, but such

the

captain of

words of the Tribune, "with an iron hand." Daggett was

Democrat who worked

loyal

"official"

offi-

presence at the polls violated

technicalities did not

impede Daggett, who

understood that her job was on the line unless enough Democratic votes were delivered to Daley's machine.

When

she allowed one

couple to vote without signing the proper papers, Daggett said,

make our own

rules here." Daggett's

work was

successful.

"We

Democrats

beat Republicans by 125 to 3 in her precinct.

Over the succeeding days and weeks, more

BGA-Tribune

study, including

who

came from the

one about a Democratic precinct cap-

tain in a polling place inside the citizens building

stories

Chicago Housing Authority senior

offered free meals to senior citizens voting for

his favored candidates. In other areas, precinct captains threatened

One of the precinct captains was a longtime veteran of Chicago politics who learned from a former alderman, Paddy Hauler, that "Chicago ain't ready for reform yet." To challengers with visits from local gangs.

some Chicagoans, such

as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the reports verified

what he had long suspected: "We have known

for a long time the

inequities of the electoral system in Chicago." U.S. Attorney

General

Richard Kleindienst ordered the FBI to investigate the vote-fraud stories

coming from Chicago.

Crucial to the

work of the

precinct captains

was making

sure that

Tracv Campbell

266

/

Deliver the Vote

the "right" people were appointed as election judges, including their

Republican opponents. In City Hall, Democratic party bosses effectively controlled the

Democrats

GOP

appointments, and essentially placed loyal

of

GOP election judges, ensuring that no real

in the posts

challenge to elections could occur.

RepubHcan

An

astonishing 82 percent of

election judges admitted that they

appointed by Democratic ward bosses.

Of

these, nearly

By now,

admitted that they were really Democrats. turned to

Mayor

platitude:

"No one

who

Daley, is

in favor

60 percent

attention was

could only respond with a meaningless

of vote fraud."

Meanwhile, ordinary Chicagoans, perhaps lives,

saw an opportunity

tions

were conducted. They knew firsthand

tion kept free elections

had been recruited and

for the first time in their

to speak out about the

from occurring

ways Chicago

elec-

how the culture of corrupin the Windy City. In a

stunning example of the enormity of the ubiquitous fraud, over 20,000 people signed a

White House

petition asking for federal marshals to

patrol the city's

poUing places

in the

1972 general

these signatures were from African- Americans,

vote buying and intimidation. "Vote fraud Side," said

Wesley Spragens,

a

spokesman

is

a

election.

who had

seen enough

way of life on

for Power,

James

W. Compton,

president of the Chicago

the

West

an organization

of twenty-one community groups working to reform the tions.

Most of

city's elec-

Urban League,

underscored a larger reality within the African-American community.

"One of

the most often noted reasons for apathy

unregistered voters,"

Compton

we

find

among

said, "is that votes are so often

mis-

counted or uncounted." In September 1972, a federal grand jury returned indictments

and more were on the way. At the

state

capitol, a special Illinois

House subcommittee began hearings

into

Chicago

of vote-buying, intimidation, phony judges,

against forty Chicagoans,

and

elections. Stories

ballot stuffing

machine's Election

were rampant. By working to penetrate the Daley

Day

army, the Tribunes reporters were able to put

"Elections Are Like Cement"

a concrete reality to

along.

To

those

who

what

so

267

many had

suspected had been there

all

machine did not need

to

asserted that Daley's

resort to fraud in order to

win and that therefore fraud could not be

happening, the stories destroyed their dismissals.

It also vividly dis-

played the impediments that scores of challengers like

Adamowski

faced in confronting Daley's machine.

By

the mid-1970s, Daley no longer had the clout in Chicago to

reward Democrats

at every level

with certain

victory,

and

a

new

idential candidate felt the consequences. In 1976, Jimmy Carter

a tight race with the incumbent,

be withheld until the results from downstate were in the preceding sixteen years.

eral oversight

things

had

increased state and fed-

machine could not

on the very day preceding the

deliver the necessary margins,

what the Tribune termed "one of the

won

With

in,

would

of Chicago elections, including the announcement of

thirteen indictments for vote fraud

Ford

in

Gerald Ford, and desperately needed

usual bravado and promised Carter that one thousand precincts

tion, Daley's

was

column. Although on election night Daley exhibited his

Illinois in his

changed

pres-

Illinois

by over 100,000

elec-

and

in

cleanest" election days in years,

votes.

"

Chapter Eleven

Thieves

Who

Steal

Democracy

"Sales is all about understanding people

and

their needs.

The

passing of the Daley machine seemed to

moment

mark

yet another

of progress in the nation's electoral history. Having

apparently put to rest the

last

of the big-city bosses and their

machines, the nation's collective electoral energies could be harnessed

Day

toward other problems that plagued Election stanching the increasing

number of non-participating

the various safeguards, elections in

some

—namely,

voters. Despite

parts of the country con-

tinued to be stolen on a routine basis. For election

officials,

protecting

the polls w^hile encouraging greater turnout became increasingly plex and, at times, contradictory.

in

Few understood

that

com-

some of the

rising

discouragement and demoralization stemmed directly from a

weary

electorate long

tics"

when

accustomed to the workings of

they went to the

polls.

"practical poli-

Thieves

Who

Steal Democracy

269

The Freedom Ballot Southern demagogues such

Thurmond of South built their careers

as

Herman Talmadge of

Georgia, Strom

Carolina, and James Eastland of Mississippi,

on preserving white supremacy, knowing

never had to worry about black opposition at the

polls.

fliU

had

weU they

Even by 1960,

some imposing barriers stood in the way of African- Americans achieving the rights supposedly given tests

the

and

poU

poll taxes

tax,

the

still

bills

them by the Fifteenth Amendment. Literacy

disfranchised millions.

would not be

by Election Day. Mississippi had called

an "understanding

test,"

To

those

more

which white poU

could pay

conveniendy

sent, or the receipts

instituted a

who

lost

difficult literacy test

officials

used with great

most literate of black voters, while yet another

latitude to disfranchise the

grandfather clause allowed exemptions for white voters. Federal attempts to pass civil-rights bills

Democrats used

were thwarted in the U.S. Senate, where Southern

their seniority to block hearings at the

or filibuster any bill that

Civil Rights

level,

managed to make it to the floor.

In 1957, Senate Majority Leader first

committee

Lyndon Johnson helped

pass the

Act since Reconstruction, although it was hardly a tri-

umph of racial justice. The heart of the bill was the supposed protection of black voting rights, yet its reUance on jury trials to prosecute violators

removed any teeth the

bill

might have contained.

A Civil Rights Com-

mission was nevertheless created and a Civil Rights section was elevated to a division of the Justice Department.

By 1962, only 5.3

percent

of Mississippi's majority black population was registered to vote, and only 13.4 percent of Alabama's African- American citizenry was on the voting roUs.

As

the other side of the coin to the previous "formula" that

meant that those who were unregistered by whatever

registered illegally could vote legally, those

means could not vote

legally

In 1963, Robert Moses and other civil-rights organizers in Mississippi staged a

mock election

to

demonstrate that the low

turnouts had nothing to do with "apathy."

level

"The freedom

of black

ballot will

Tracy Campbell

270

show that if Negroes had nomic

a right to vote

they would do so,"

reprisal,

Deliver the Vote

/

without fear of physical or eco-

Moses

said.

In that unofficial vote,

80,000 black Mississippians voted, roughly four times the number "legally" registered.

Democratic Party

The

following year, the Mississippi

(MFDP)

tried to have itself recognized as the true

representative of Mississippi

Democrats

at the

Convention, but the national party, fearing servatives, refused to seat the

episode, yet another landmark franchise occurred in 1964, ratified, finally

When Act

Freedom

MFDP

would

lose

Southern con-

delegates. In the midst of this

moment

when

it

Democratic National

of the

in the democratization

the Twenty- Fourth

Amendment was

prohibiting the poll tax in federal elections.

President

Lyndon Johnson signed

the 1965 Voting Rights

into law, the right of all citizens to vote without fear of violence or

intimidation was finally protected by the federal government.

The

act

authorized the attorney general to send federal agents into counties to observe election practices, suspend literacy constitutionality of poll taxes in state

and

tests,

local elections.

Alexander Keyssar has written that the act "bore to the never-passed

where

less

than

fifty

Lodge Force

bill

and challenge the

The

a strong

historian

resemblance

of the 1890s." In those counties

percent of the citizens had voted in 1964, a five-

year moratorium was placed on a series of "tests" that disfranchised voters,

and those counties and the affected

states

could not enact

new

election laws without the approval of the civil rights division of the Justice

Department. While barriers to voting

stiU existed, the

Voting

Rights Act put the federal government behind a black claimant's right to vote,

and the registration roUs swelled. The percentage of blacks in

Alabama

registered to vote

by 1968 had climbed

to

Mississippi that figure reached nearly 60 percent.

57 percent, and

A

dawn of

a

in

new

democratic day had seemingly arrived in the United States, as millions

of previously disfranchised Americans gained their right to vote. In other ways, however, changes in American politics have

made

vote cheating easier. Since the 1960s, the American electorate has been

Thieves

Who Steal Democracy

segmented into

271

groups that claim clear political

easily identifiable

agendas and preferences. While parties

voters are often identified as belonging to

market themselves: the

parties

AARP,

teachers' unions, labor,

NRA,

against "special interests,"

rail

some

specific subset to

Baptists, the

VFW,

which

Rotarians,

and countless other organizations or

ethnic and religious groups have their

own

producing strong turnouts for a specific

party. Parties

particular interests, often

employ

sophisti-

cated polling techniques to measure

how to

reach these groups in ways

Cohen

writes,

segment voters into com-

that, the historian

Lizabeth

partmentalized "political markets."

By fragmenting

the electorate into

groups with predictable voting behaviors, the parties have an easier job

who will likely vote for and against them, which make vote-buying and vote-suppression much easier tasks. identifying those

Protective Zones Considering the long history of violence and intimidation places, the twentieth century

from employers, state except

places that

saw considerable

when

police, or bribers

Vermont erected

would prohibit

at polling

efforts to protect voters

they went to the polls. Every

protective circles around the polling

soliciting votes or

even displays of campaign

was the

historical

knowledge of how elections could be manipulated and stolen

at the last

material. Implicit in the creation of these zones

minute by bribery or intimidation

at the polls.

Challenges along First

Amendment lines were taken against these laws, and the U.S. Supreme Court heard such

a challenge in a

1991 case from Tennessee.

In an effort to "prevent voter intimidation and election fraud," the

Tennessee legislature had enacted a one-hundred-foot barrier in 1972.

A political campaign worker filed suit, charging that the "cam-

paign free zone" limited her ability to communicate with voters in violation of her First

Amendment rights. The Tennessee Supreme Court

Tracy Campbell

272

agreed, and the state appealed to the U.S.

Deliver the Vote

/

Supreme Court. In 1992,

a 5-3 decision, the high court overturned the Tennessee decision

ruled that such zones did not violate the First

Amendment.

Harry Blackmun wrote that "Tennessee's compelling

in

and

Justice

interests in pre-

venting voter intimidation and election fraud" outweighed any apparent encroachments upon the First

Amendment. "In sum," Justice

Blackmun wrote, "an examination of the

history of election regulation

in this country reveals a persistent battle against

idation and election fraud."

A long history, show

that

some

evils:

voter intim-

Blackmun concluded:

a substantial consensus, restricted

two

and simple

zone around polling places

common

sense

necessary to

is

protect the right to cast a ballot in an election free from the taint of

intimidation and fraud.

With

the constitutionahty of the zones upheld, the states were allowed

to keep their respective prohibitions

around the poUs, many of which

were similar to Tennessee's one-hundred-foot

Some

line.

states erected

New

Hampshire,

which maintained ten-foot zones. Vermont was the only

state to pro-

very modest barriers, such as Pennsylvania and

hibit electioneering only inside the

poUs themselves. Kentucky and

Wisconsin, on the other hand, enacted five-hundred-foot zones, which,

at least in

Kentucky's case, displayed the legislature's recogni-

tion of the long history of fraud

and violence

poUing

at the

"Under the guise of legitimate [campaigning],"

said

place.

one Kentucky

court clerk, "hides the vote buyer and the vote intimidator." Louisiana

enacted a "campaign-free zone" of largest electioneering-free

any such

activity

hundred

within one thousand feet of the

more

The

feet.

nation's

zone belonged to Hawaii, which prohibited

the zones, usually citing First

challenge the

six

Amendment

restrictive zones,

and

polls.

Opponents of

protections, continued to

in

2004 were

successfiil in

getting a three-judge panel from the U.S. Sixth Circuit to throw out

Kentucl^'s line of five hundred

feet.

Who

Thieves

273

Steal Democracy

—

Plaquemines "This AN Open Election"

Is

the First Time We've Had

In studying the history of election fraud, a familiar pattern often emerges: Areas where corruption has become a

way of life keep

pro-

ducing tainted elections. In 1974, a Congressional election in Louisiana was so laden with fraud that an appellate court voided the results

completely and ordered a

new

election.

Two

Democratic primary for Congress, RickTonry beat

by just 184

votes.

F.

years later, in a

Edward Hebert

actually led in every parish with the excep-

Hebert

tion of St. Bernard and Plaquemines. In St. Bernard alone,

nered over seven thousand more votes than Hebert.

twenty poll commissioners in

election,

432 fraudulent votes

casting

for Tonry.

allegedly casting fraudulent votes himself

poU commissioner SI 00 and

gations,

stupid

said, "If I ever

enough

for myself."

resigned in

month,

a

to

to

Tonry came under

fire for

and personally offering one

Tonry denied the

alle-

to steal an election, I wouldn't be several times

charges of campaign finance violations, Tonry

1977, but

vowed

House committee found

to

win back

his seat.

The

following

"substantial voting irregularities" in

the two parishes, and heard testimonials from locals

on how

after the

Bernard pled guilty to

his vote totals.

wanted

Months

walk into the same precinct and vote

Amid

May

pad

St.

Tonry gar-

who commented

"casual" the vote-stealing seemed. Election commissioners

"simply entered voting booths, 'rang up votes,' then falsely listed names

of voters

as

having cast their ballots."

The House committee Tonry

election,

also

found other disturbing trends in the

but in ways that implicated his opponent.

The

absentee balloting in Plaquemines drew the notice of the Congressional committee, since

Hebert was supported by remnants of the

infamous Leander Perez

political

machine. At the time of the Tonry

investigation, the president of the

Plaquemines Parish Administrative

Advisory Panel was Chalin Perez, Leander's son, and the county district

attorney was none other than Leander Perez,

Jr.

In Plaquemines

Tracy Campbell

274

had seen colonizers

Parish, the parish that

the absentee ballot count

657 absentee

in the nineteenth century,

drew considerable

ballots cast in the parish,

Hebert. Since Tonry had resigned his

attention.

There had been

and 653 of these were

for

committee said any

fiir-

seat, the

ther investigation of the absentee ballots

Deliver the Vote

/

would be "moot," but added

that "the irregularities cited in the absentee voting in Plaquemines

Parish appears to be part of a long-standing tradition, ignored, if not

endorsed, by parish

officials."

After losing another primary race, Tonry

pled guilty to campaign finance violations and went to prison.

For several generations, no one in Plaquemines stood a viable chance of winning any election without the support of the Perez family.

Yet there

few

stuffing a

is

more

As

votes.

elections often

means

to the case than a simple family-run

the Plaquemines case demonstrated, stealing

stealing

money. Not only

who

of a

are the people

given area denied the basic democratic right of a allows those

machine

fair election, it also

control the votes to obtain the economic benefits

that controlling elections provides.

Few regions of the in oil

and

sulfiir

country are

as rural,

good deal of these

deposits as Plaquemines. Since a

resources resided under public lands, for skillfully

remote, and utterly wealthy

many

years

Leander Perez

manipulated those public leases for his personal benefit.

Leander obtained the

lease to these lands at

and leased the land to

oil

bargain-basement prices,

companies for a staggering

profit.

By

the

1970s, Leander's private fortune was estimated at over $100 million.

After Leander's death, his sons became the heirs to his political and financial

kingdom.

A

1982 documentary of the Perez

family,

"The

Ends of the Earth," highlighted how one impoverished AfricanAmerican

district in

Plaquemines could not even persuade the parish

to bring in water lines until the early 1980s,

Chalin Perez presided over ceremonies that water to the

area.

when an awkward

finally

brought running

This kind of grinding poverty existed in Plaquem-

ines for decades. In

no uncertain terms, the Perez affluence came

at

Thieves

a

Who

275

Steal Democracy

high price for those on the bottom of the poHtical ladder in

Plaquemines. After years of fighting the Perez family and the closed milieu of

Plaquemines

elections,

a federal court redistricted the Plaquemines

School Board due to evidence of racial discrimination. Taking advantage

of a bitter disagreement between the Perez brothers, a jubilant parishioner

commented on how^ the school board race tions

in

1980 was the

first

time elec-

were not controlled by the Perez family in fifty years: "This is the first

time we've had an open election. It's exciting." Not surprisingly, the Perezsupported candidates

lost,

might have

signaling a wider reality that

occurred in coundess other contests had some measure of democracy existed in Plaquemines. Chalin Perez himself lost his position as president

of the parish commission council in 1983, the same year evidence was father's complicity in taking control

uncovered of his leases.

The parish

equivalent

parish's oil

sued the Perez family for $80 million, claiming that an

sum had been

ties that rightfiiUy

of the

illegally

taken from public property in

belonged to the parish. In 1988, the

suit

was

oil royal-

settled for

just

$12 million, a small remedy for years of one family enjoying the boun-

ties

that stealing coundess elections

had brought them.

"To Get 50 Percent of the Vote, You've Got to Buy It"

A similar pattern played out in the coal-rich Appalachian mountains, where election fraud was practiced remained

essentially the

same

in the 1980s in

for generations.

Coal companies

exercised considerable leverage in election contests,

could

still

ways that had

and

still

local races

produce sporadic violence. In these remote and often impov-

erished communities, long-held customs that surrounded Election

were

difficult to

tities

when the

change. Liquor and cash were displayed in

polls

were opened, and while repeaters and

Day

large quanfloaters

may

Tracy Campbell

276

have been

new way of importing votes was

rare, a

of "vote-hauHng." While cast often

little

more than an

way

as a

seen in the wide use

was

it

vote-buying operation that provided

efficient

A compelling look at elections

sell their votes.

mountains was on display in

in the

where County Judge -Executive C. Allen

Leslie County, Kentucky,

ran for re-election in 1981 despite having earlier been con-

A

victed of vote fraud conspiracy.

Muncy had

federal jury

had concluded that

defeated a party rival in a previous race by obtaining hun-

dreds of absentee ballots, marking "friends" sign the ballot.

house,

Deliver the Vote

to get voters to the polls,

"walking-around money" to those willing to

Muncy

/

Muncy did

During

a

them

for himself,

and having

campaign appearance

his

at the court-

not exactly deny having participated in the absentee

ballot scheme. Instead,

he implied that his opponent was currently

doing the same thing:

"I don't

absentee ballots,"

mailbox, but for

Muncy

guess he had anything to do with

claimed.

"He

just got ten in his

some reason nobody never

asks about that."

In the heavily contested Democratic primary in election that

would

next governor

—

May

who would become

essentially decide

newspaper

1987

—an

Kentucky's

businessman, Wallace Wilkinson, defeated

a

a

number of competitors, including former governor John Y. Brown, Jr.

The

election

had

the major ingredients of

all

money, highly paid

advisers,

and endless

parts of eastern Kentucky, vote-selling

respective

gubernatorial campaigns

modern campaigns: big some

television ads. Yet in

remained a way of

understood

this,

life.

The

and worked

through local intermediaries to corner the market in votes. In

Magoffm County,

worked

to deliver his

ten dollars per vote. for?

As

voters

associates polls,

went

a liquor store

How

did he

know he was

getting

Bailey five to

what he paid

into the poUing place in LakeviUe, one of Bailey's

certain

nodded toward

Don

county to Brown by openly paying people

watched carefuUy behind

making

owner named

no one

a

window

else entered the

a specific voter, Bailey

as the voters left the

voting booth.

When

he

would meet the voter and thrust

Thieves

Who

the requisite

277

Steal Democracy

bill

in his hand.

episode, Bailey said he

When

he saw a reporter witnessing the

was just paying campaign workers. Afterward,

Bailey admitted to paying people to vote for Brown, which he said was

necessary for anyone to compete for the vote in

Magoffm County,

especially against the vote buyers for Wilkinson.

Inside the county courthouse, election officers were seen escorting voters into the booth

and looking over

their shoulders as the votes

were recorded. Most of these voters were not asked to sign saying

why

place,

an exasperated Brown supporter was talking to

they needed assistance. In the hallway outside the polling

preparing to enter the poUs. "Now,

who do you want me

again?" they asked. "John Y. Brown," they were told. later,

affidavits

they returned, where the

A

a

couple

to vote for

few minutes

Brown worker handed them something

that a reporter wrote "appears to be money," and the couple left quickly. In a rural precinct, L.

C. Arnett was openly buying votes but

was encountering some problems. Arnett was worried that paid for his vote, the unscrupulous vote

seller

might

after

being

try to find a

higher price and vote differently. Arnett sent eighteen such people

home without

voting because he feared they would not do

instructed. Arnett

bemoaned

vote-buying: "It used to be

When

the introduction of the free market to

when you bought

a vote,

county with 1,695 votes, while Brown finished

Wilkinson

was yours."

won

the

a distant third (in the

won by over 57,000 votes).

that besides having a considerable cial

it

the polls closed in Magoffin County, Wilkinson

state count,

as

Insiders understood

amount of cash

to

buy

votes, a cru-

ingredient in Wilkinson's victory rested in his alignment with the

county Democratic chairman and the county Republican school superintendent, officers

—

^who,

who

together controlled the appointment of election

of course, counted the votes.

attorney in Magoffin

went

A

commonwealth's

a step farther, claiming that Wilkinson's

forces "basically stole the election."

For poor families in eastern Kentucky, elections were opportunities

Tracy Campbell

278

for extra income. For all involved, the issue

inexperienced

might take the

seller

close election, while

more

Deliver the Vote

/

became one of timing.

first offer

morning during

in the

would wait the

crafty sellers

An

day

entire

a

as

the price increased. Yet that simple equation did not always work. In tight races, the best

idea of

how many votes

had padded the

much

money might come

in the

totals

they would need. If vote buyers

enough

in

trying to get the

wanted

an easy

race,

felt

had an

that they

they would not pay as

afternoon. Experienced vote buyers and vote sellers

played a certain cat-and-mouse

sellers

early before either side

game throughout

most votes while keeping the

to wait until the

price

the day: buyers

down, while vote

market peaked to get the best

In the 1987 Kentucky race, that price could reach as

price.

much

as $200.

One Harlan County

poHtico noted: "To get 50 percent of the vote,

you've got to buy

or else you wouldn't get 10 percent." In Perry

it,

County, one vote buyer estimated that nearly half of the county's vote in the

May primary had been

purchased.

The

rationale for the culture

of corruption on display here was straightforward, according to the

no respect

buyer: "People got

One

seller

work

for politicians, think they're

admitted: "They're up there stealing

want some of

for mine. I

it

my

all

thieves."

money.

I

gotta

back." There had been sporadic

attempts to prosecute some for vote-buying, but local juries were usually inclined to

exonerate people for vote-selling so prosecutors rarely

even bothered pursuing such cases. lished a

list

of vote

ferred, received

sellers,

One

small-town editor

who pub-

complete with the type of whiskey they pre-

an unwelcome reminder of what happened when the

local press publicized the details

—

of vote-buying

a shotgun blast at

the newspaper's offices in the middle of the night.

Vote-buying, of course,

is

a

two-way street and involves the

enormous amounts of money. In

a

memo sent to Gov. Brown in 1982, a

cabinet official warned that election fraud in Kentucky was place,

raising of

common-

and new laws were needed to make these crimes punishable by

prison sentences.

The memo

stated that not only vote-buying, but

Who

Thieves

Steal Democracy

279

absentee-ballot fraud, tampering with voting machines, and the old practices of illegal registration

No

action was taken, and

having received the

The

and voting the dead were

still

by 1987 Brown could not even

common.

recall ever

memo. Kentucky was loud, and

call for cleaner elections in

commission proposed changes

in the

a

1987

ways Kentuckians voted, con-

cluding that "by allowing corruption to erode the foundation of our political

freedom,

person, one vote

we have is

neglected to ensure that the promise of one

fulfilled."

The

commission's recommendations

included establishing a toU-free hotline in the state attorney general's office to report alleged fraud at the polls

and

a one-thousand-foot

"campaign-free zone" to protect voters from intimidation at the poUs (later

reduced to

five

hundred

feet

by the

legislature).

mendations concerned the abuse of absentee

ballots

Other recom-

and the presence

of campaign workers and others supposedly helping disabled voters. Yet no laws could touch the practice of vote-hauling, which was

defended abled,

as

sometimes the only viable way to bring shut-ins, the dis-

and those without transportation

To some Appalachian

to the poUs.

officials, election

fraud was more widespread

than anyone imagined. "People not involved in vote fraud don't com-

prehend the magnitude," said Pike County Judge-Executive Paul Patton in 1987. Patton

knew that behind

hauling was a more pragmatic flinction:

used to influence votes, voters."

is

the democratic fa9ade of vote

"I

think the bulk of the

money

used under the guise of hiring people to haul

Most of the money used

for hauling,

of course, went to direct

payments to the voters themselves, while the driver kept centage for himself. If the operative did not have a

car,

a certain per-

then his or her

support could be purchased through the ruse of hiring "campaign workers."

and the 1985

With

seller

race,

this device, the cash

could dispense the

payment could be made up

money

front

to his friends or family. In a

Patton stated he spent $27,000 to hire 144 "contract

laborers" to help with his campaign. "That's the

way

that

it's

done,"

Tracy Campbell

280

Patton admitted. "There are

not hired," Patton

is

candidate." Patton

was

as

Deliver the Vote

of people that expect to be hired to

lots

work on behalf of the candidate their family

/

in elections. If they or

said, "they're

somebody

in

not going to support that

experienced in winning elections as anyone in

the state. Indeed, in 1995, he was elected governor of Kentucky.

Despite the best efforts of reformers, vote buying remained a

common component election,

of Appalachian elections. In

a

1998 primary

twenty people were indicted in eastern Kentucky for votePike County, ten indictments were handed down,

buying. In

including one against a former state senator. Because those

who

few courageous

souls

bought the votes often ran the county, only could be found to a conviction.

testify,

A glimpse

for such a crime

came

a

and that was usually not enough

to secure

into the difficulty of obtaining convictions

in

September 2003, when one

woman

pre-

pared to testify in federal court that she had taken a $50 bribe for her vote.

came

"I

to court, however, she

parts store,

the

needed the money, so

man

police

who warned

told her that

—would

was

visited

her not to

"The

took

I

by

testify.

police

—

doubts in her mind, he added: "You

she related. Before she

a local

owner of an auto

According

to the witness,

like, state police

my

be after me, after

it,"

and county

family." If there

know who

were any

governs the county,

don't you?"

That same

year,

students from Alice Lloyd

County were convicted of selling

CoUege

Knott

in

their votes for thirty dollars.

One

of

the vote buyers taught at a local elementary school. After a federal

prosecutor claimed that this case would warn vote buyers and sellers that their days were over, a local judge

was not impressed.

He

stood that the culture of corruption was in the very political

underair

one

breathed and would not be eradicated with the mere successful prosecution of

some

college students.

The judge noted

that, after

all,

those

being sent to prison were "guilty of engaging in activity that, historically,

George Washington engaged

in."

Who

Thieves

Steal Democracy

281

Absentee Ballots and Bullets Another more modern and counties,

is

effective device for fraud, especially in rural

absentee-ballot fraud. In a 2001 report written by the

tucky secretary of

Kentucky

expressed: "Absentee vote fraud in

legitimate elections as outdated ballots are easy to obtain

and obtain an absentee

Ken-

the magnitude of the problem was candidly

state,

—

punch cards

^voters

is

as serious a threat to

are in Florida."

Absentee

can simply go to the county clerk

ballot if they state they cannot be in the county

on Election Day. Buyers

prefer absentee ballots because they can

mark

the ballots themselves after payment, making certain that the bought voter voted correctly.

May 2002

In a

for those

county

primary race in Clay County, Kentucky, one option

who might

clerk's

office

be away on Election

Day was

two weeks before the

election

to

come

to the

and obtain an

absentee baUot. In Jefferson County, the largest in Kentucky with over

240,000 voters, only 248 voters had requested an early absentee In Clay County, however, with

apphed

less

than 16,000 total voters, 269 had

for such a ballot within the first hour.

the rule until Sheriff Edward Jordan shut

"Chaos" seemed to be

down

the poUs. In response

to queries about the extent of vote-buying, Jordan shrugged:

come

The

there

was that many people there aU

election in Clay only

ballot.

grew more

at

once? That's

all I

"How

can

say."

bizarre, as four people linked to

the Republican primary race for county clerk, including two candidates,

tion

were involved

was

in shootings before Election Day.

finally over, the extent

When the elec-

of the role of absentee votes was

evident. All told, 853 absentee ballots were cast in Clay, over five per-

cent of the ehgible electorate of the county, well above the state average of 1.16 percent.

One

candidate for sheriff stated he could

prove that votes were being bought, "if I wanted to get killed."

Murder was not out of sheriff

murdered and other

the question.

With two

local races scenes

candidates for

of gunfire, the

New York

Tracy Campbell

282

/

Deliver the Vote

Times noted that the 2002 election season in the eastern Kentucky

mountains was "one of the bloodiest in more than

Kentucky attorney plaints

Making

election alone.

"treating voters,"

where

The

two hundred com-

general's office received over

and reports concerning vote-buying

fifty years."

in the

May 2002

primary

matters worse was the changing nature of

new commodity replaced

a

liquor used in pur-

chasing votes: the drug OxyContin, a powerful addictive prescription painkiller.

"A Successful Flea M\rket" Absentee fraud and vote-buying

Dodge County,

Don McCranie

tested the results,

A

practiced in the open. In

and

a

first

offices.

primary was held in July

In a race for county commis-

beat Doyce Mullis by 31 votes.

MuUis con-

county superior court voided the election due

to extensive fraud. In a

residue of the

still

in south-central Georgia, a

1996 for an assortment of local sioner,

are

new

election,

McCranie won

again, but the

contest lingered.

subsequent investigation revealed that both McCranie and

Mullis were engaged in buying the ballots of absentee voters. while, one person testified he

was given $4,000

in

$20

Mean-

for the sole

bills,

purpose of paying vote haulers to buy votes. There were other ways to get votes, and economic intimidation was always available. McCranie's

employees in the road department were required to work in his campaign or lose their jobs.

Bank

obtained $15,000 in $20

bills

records revealed that

McCranie alone

throughout the campaign, which was

used to buy votes. As one unrepentant vote buyer stated, "Vote-buying is

a

way of Hfe

One

in

Dodge County."

of the most remarkable aspects of the

was what occurred and Mullis

set

up

Dodge County

in the courthouse itself on Election Day.

election

McCranie

tables at opposite ends of a hall in the courthouse,

Thieves

Who

Steal Democracy

283

where they were openly bidding

who The

witnessed the episode referred to

it

One

disgusted magistrate

as a "successflil flea market."

cash payments, in which the going rate was $20 per vote, were

usually distributed in a ride

for votes.

home.

Ironically,

bathroom or handed out by the hauler on the

both candidates

—McCranie and Mullis—

^were

convicted of a conspiracy to buy votes and were sent to prison.

Phantom Voters Some fall

old tactics occasionally resurfaced in

of 1990, the

St.

with the director of the

city's

Illinois.

In a casual conversation

election board, a Dispatch reporter

had

had

res-

learned that East St. Louis had

more

ways that had not changed

city's registry

familiar areas. In the

Louis Post-Dispatch reported on a variety of dis-

turbing patterns in East St. Louis,

idents. In

some

registered voters than

it

significantly since the 1930s, the

many of them

roUs were fiUed with false registrants,

long

dead. In seventeen elections since 1981, at least twenty-seven deceased residents

had somehow voted. In

just a

sample of

five precincts,

113

people were registered as living in vacant lots or abandoned buildings.

In another instance, 55 people were registered on

burned-out buildings and vacant

The

Bond Avenue from

lots.

precincts in question were Democratic strongholds that often

supplied the margin necessary to defeat Republican candidates. In a special Congressional election in 1988, Jerry CosteUo, a

defeated Robert Gaffner, a Republican, by 1,973 votes.

problematical precincts, Gaffner would have

won by

Democrat,

Without the

over two thou-

sand votes. Yet in an area in which some dead people had cast votes, Costello beat Gaffner in East St. Louis by 4,724 to 608 votes.

"Phantom

voters,"

that built the

it

seems, had not only helped pass the bond issue

Gateway Arch

across the river, but

congressional and other elections since.

had been voting

in

Tracy Campbell

284

The Paradox of Modern The

/

Deliver the Vote

Ci\ic Life

twentieth century presented a strange twist that greatly troubled

civic-minded people.

The

had been extended

franchise

to citizens

older than eighteen with but a few exceptions, yet voter turnout rarely

reached over half the eligible electorate in a presidential contest, and appallingly low percentages in state and local races

was common. To

some, there was a single reason that accounted for the low turnouts:

The

registration process

In the

1970s, President

late

legislation that

yet

was too cumbersome.

Jimmy

would have allowed

the biU encountered

stiff

Carter had supported federal

voters to register

on Election Day,

Republican opposition. Democrats

argued that easing registration restrictions would bring more people into the democratic process, while Republicans countered that

would encourage reasons

election fraud.

Behind the debate were more partisan

—Democrats thought lower-income

to

make

let

themselves be hurt at the

registration

much

Motor-Voter BiU. Under applied for a

its

easier

or minority groups

polls.

In the late 1980s, a drive

took shape in Congress with the

provisions, people could register as they

new driver's Ucense. When the bill reached George

desk in 1992, he vetoed

it,

saying the proposed reform was

than "an open invitation to fraud and corruption."

BiU CUnton signed

aUow people mail, or

a similar biU into

to register at their

where

would

and RepubHcans were not

necessarily be inclined to vote for them,

about to

it

motor

social service agencies

The

Bush's

little

more

following year,

law that mandated that vehicles bureaus, as

weU

states as

by

were located.

On its face, the law seemed to produce

the desired results.

By

1995,

over nine million people had registered through motor-voter, yet voter turnouts in 1996 and 2000 were not appreciably better than before.

Despite the straightforward process, half the eUgible electorate stiU stayed

home, even

interest in voting

for presidential contests.

seemed to extend

far

The

reasons for the lack of

beyond the

registration process.

Thieves

Who

Steal Democracy

285

Others turned to the act of voting

itself,

seemed anachronistic by the 1990s. Voting in one-day

by paper

still

occurred on the

first

November, and required voters

in

libraries, or

all

elections

was usually a

The

almost always conducted during the work week.

affair,

general election

Monday

of which certain parts

other public

ballot or

for Election Day,

facilities

Tuesday go

to

after the first

to local schools,

and often wait in line to

by machine. While some

cast one's vote

citizens received a

day off

many stiU had to find time in the early morning hours

before going to work, on their lunch breaks, or on their way home.

Considering the

difficulties,

some

states

began experimenting with

other ways of casting a vote. Tennessee and Texas adopted early voting

programs, whereby voters could cast their ballots weeks before Election

Day, and nine more

states

followed

suit.

made voting more

that seemingly

But despite aU these innovations

convenient, voter turnout did not

increase dramatically In Texas, voter turnout has actually lagged behind

national averages since early voting began in 1988.

Because elections were local existed throughout the country,

affairs, a variety

of voting techniques

from outdated mechanical devices to

touch-screen computers, to the old reliable paper ballots.

gone

as far as

Oregon, where, beginning in 1996,

conducted by mail. Candidates in Oregon can obtain

all

No

state

elections

lists

of those

had

were

who

have not returned their ballots days before the election. These voters are besieged

multiply.

by campaign

A study of the

staff,

and the opportunities

2000 Oregon

election

for vote

showed

buying

that five per-

cent of voters acknowledged that others had marked their ballots and 2.4 percent admitted

Oregon has no

someone

else

had

actually signed them. Since

central statewide database to check for duplicate

voting, one analysis concluded that "the potential for massive overvotes, including widespread fraud, exists."

Other

states

have experimented with Internet voting. In

2000, the Democratic primary in Arizona became the nation's in a binding election

where the votes were

cast

on the

March

first trial

Internet. All such

Tracy Campbell

286

initiatives

—

/

Deliver the V^ote

similar to other reforms adopted decades earlier

—

increase

the possibility and likelihood of fraud and call into question the evident disregard of the secret ballot. feasibility

A California task force that examined the

of Internet voting concluded:

"It

is

technologically possible

to utiHze the Internet to develop an additional

would be

at least as secure

from vote-tampering

method of voting

that

as the current absentee

baUot process," which, considering the extent of fraud in absentee ballots,

should not calm

many

throughout the nation were

making

elections

more

up new opportunities

still

worries.

By 2000,

election officials

struggling with the age-old

dilemma of opening

accessible to a wider populace without

for cheating.

"Democr.\cy Is Dispensable

in

Miami"

Before the events of 2000 in Florida turned American perceptions about elections on their head, a

Miami

mayor's race three years earlier

foreshadowed some of the problems of and possible remedies for the rising epidemic

of absentee-ballot fraud.

Two

CaroUo

bitter rivals, Joe

and former Mayor Xavier Suarez, competed for the job of leading the city.

CaroUo was

a self-described

Ronald Reagan conservative who

blasted Suarez as a Harvard-trained liberal. Suarez countered by

claiming Carollo was a

promising

at the

merciless tyrant. race sible

was on

to

"false

prophet" who,

beginning but

With

win

who would

three other

a majority

like Fidel Castro,

prove

little

minor candidates

seemed

more than

a

in the field, the

of the vote, in hopes of warding off a pos-

runoff election which, by law, would come the following week.

On

Election Day,

November

to 20,602, but Carollo

fell

49.6 percent of the vote. the returns.

Election

4,

1997, Carollo beat Suarez, 21,854

just short of the required majority,

Some

strange anomalies quickly arose with

While Carollo beat Suarez 51 percent

Day

balloting, Suarez

winning

won

to

45 percent in

61 percent of the absentee vote

Thieves

Who Steal Democracy

compared

to just 35 percent for Carollo. Considering that 4,739 votes,

of the

fully 11 percent

was denied

ollo

While

votes.

it

as

Miami

vote,

was

his outright victory

cast

by absentee

by Suarez's margin

was considered abnormally high

Miami

percent of the

many

287

vote to

come from

for as

ballot,

in absentee

much

absentees, one district

twenty percent cast their votes in

Car-

as five

saw

as

manner. As both can-

this

didates readied themselves for the following week's runoff, serious

questions were raised about

how

those absentee ballots would be dis-

tributed and counted.

Before the week was up, those concerns produced some troubUng discoveries.

When

investigators uncovered an absentee ballot cast

by

one Manuel Yip, a quick search of Social Security records revealed that

Yip had died four ered legal since Russi,

am

who

it

years earlier. Yet Yip's absentee ballot

was consid-

bore the signature of a witness, 92 -year-old Alberto

claimed his signature was forged.

an honest man," he

signature appeared

said.

"I

am

not a magician.

I

Yet suspicion grew around Russi, whose

on 75 other absentee

ballots,

and ten were

listed as

having voted from his home. Russi's signature

Miami

brokers" in the candidates.

was not forged. In

who

area

As David Leahy,

the

fact,

he was

among many "vote

helped collect absentee ballots for

Miami-Dade

Elections Supervisor,

noted, beginning in the 1980s, "Campaigns began to use absentee ballots as a tool." illegal, it

mail,

was

rife

doesn't

in.

to collect absentee ballots

was not

with fraud. Once an absentee ballot was sent in the

Leahy admitted, "we

broker comes

who

While using people

lose control

They can buy it,

know what

to

take

do with

it."

it,

of

it.

That's where the vote

or talk a vote out of someone

In an attempt to accommodate

Florida's elderly population, the state legislature

had written some of

the most lax absentee-ballot regulations in the nation, regulations that

allowed great latitude to unscrupulous brokers. Brokers could elections office

addresses,

and order

ballots, so

long

as

call

the

they could provide names,

and Social Security numbers of those supposedly needing

a

Tracy Campbell

288

ballot.

/

Deliver the Vote

When the ballots arrived, all the broker needed to do was

the ballot, sign

it

as a witness,

and send

it

mark

back.

One of the absentee votes Russi collected was from Maria Danger, who did not even live in Miami but visited her fiance, who rented a room

at Russi's house. "I

thought he was gathering signatures to show

support for his candidate," Danger claimed, a vote. I'd never

that

known you

had signed

as a witness,

then she must have voted.

was

for

could vote Uke that." Russi told reporters

"Maybe her boyfriend punched

that he

"I didn't realize it

I

the ballot," but

when reminded

he quickly changed his

do things

legally."

"Well,

story.

Russi then boasted

about his role as a local boss in the Little Havana community and his ability to gather absentee votes. "Sales

is

about understanding

all

people and their needs," Russi said, and added that "Politics ilar art

form."

As

the

is

a sim-

November 12 runoff began, Russi went

to the

county election headquarters with more completed absentee

As he stepped

off the elevator to the 19th floor, he

arrested for election fraud.

When

state agents

went

was prompdy

to Russi's

they discovered more than a hundred absentee ballots and applications for

more absentee

ballots. All

ballots.

fifty

home, blank

Russi could say was "Oh,

my God." In the runoff, Suarez

made up

considerable ground and defeated

Carollo by nearly three thousand votes. Despite the attention given to absentee-balloting fraud the previous week, election workers, according to the

Miami Herald, were "buried under

ballots" for the runoff contest.

a small

mountain of absentee

The number of absentee

votes actually

increased to 4,982, with Suarez winning the vast majority of them. But

Carollo was not finished; he took his case to court, asking a judge to overturn the results of the previous week's election. Carollo's lawyers

based their case on a 1984 Florida Supreme Court ruling that stated courts could invalidate an election's results if fraud could be proven to

have permeated the balloting.

A county grand jury also began investi-

gating the role of absentee ballots in the mayoral race.

One

of Carollo's

Thieves

Who

Steal Democracy

289

lawyers, Kendall Coffey, said that brokers "can

work retirement homes,

nursing homes, swoop through and potentially take advantage of the elderly and the infirm. That shouldn't be the way it happens."

experience provided by the 1997 mayoral election,

and lawyers, such

cians

Bush-Gore

as Coffey,

contest three years

many

(With the

local politi-

would be intimately involved

in the

later.)

In February 1998, a grand jury found that absentee-baUot brokers

were

who steal democracy," and concluded that fraud

essentially "thieves

had "tainted" the

election results. "Based

upon the information we have

gathered and the testimony we have heard,

we

find that absentee ballot

fraud clearly played an important part in the recent city of Miami elections." While the it

grand jury was not authorized to overturn the

recommended

that absentee ballots should be mailed

would not know when

timetable in order that brokers boxes.

Miami-Dade County had

on

to

election,

a

random

check mail-

already implemented one reform that

required two witnesses to sign an absentee ballot. Carollo's civil suit against the Suarez

Judge Thomas

S.

Wilson,

campaign went before Circuit

on February

Jr.,

9. Suarez's

attorneys were

noticeably worried, calling Carollo a "sore loser" and warning about a possible judicial "coup." Before Judge Wilson, Suarez's attorneys dis-

missed the role of brokers to

throw out an election

whole episode

Miami and efited trial

the

like Russi, saying their role

in a

major American

as "the final political battle

Miami Herald'' whose

ered, that

democracy

is

of the voting majority

is

of the voting majority.

and redefined the

between the Hispanics in

exposes had certainly not ben-

Mayor Suarez. As Liz Balmaseda,

told the citizens of Miami:

city,"

was not "enough

a //(?ra/^ columnist, wrote, the

"With each bad

ballot that

is

discov-

dispensable right here in Miami, that the will

not

as

Who

important

cares

as the

appearance of the wiU

what people want

as

long as you

have their votes, one way or another?"

Twenty-four subpoenaed witnesses pled the Fifth

Amendment

to

charges they were involved in the absentee fraud. Handwriting experts

Tracy Campbell

290

testified that the signatures

tionable,

on

at least

and sixteen witnesses

Deliver the Vote

/

225 absentee

testified

were ques-

ballots

the harassment they

to

endured from vote brokers. The choice for Judge Wilson was a cult one: invalidate the fraudulent absentee ballots

diffi-

and award the

of the poHtical mess that would neces-

office to Carollo, or stay out sarily

ensue and refuse to investigate the returns? Either way, legal

voters

would claim they had been cheated.

On March 4, Judge Wilson issued a ruling that the //(?ra/^ described as

one "that shook Miami's power structure and thrust

to the brink of chaos."

Wilson agreed with Carollo

its

that

government

rampant fraud

characterized the absentee voting and invahdated the election. To settle

the issue as to difference

who

should be mayor. Judge Wilson essentially

and ordered a new election

is

has equal value," wrote Judge Wilson. "In the

that each citizen's vote

November

Wilson was

reluctant to

throw out

and declare Carollo the winner

since that

this fraud."

some honest absentee a great

1997, elec-

4,

of every honest vote was greatly diminished or devalued

tion, the value

ballots

the

two months.

in

"A cornerstone of American democracy

by

split

voters,

and so he

all

of the absentee

would

settled for a

new

disfranchise

election. "It's

day for democracy," said Carollo, while a disappointed Suarez

readied himself for yet another election.

But that election was not state

to be.

A

three-judge panel from the

Third District Court of Appeals agreed with Judge Wilson

that the election further.

had been

rife

The judges threw out

all

with fraud, but they went one step of the absentee ballots and ruled that

Carollo had been fairly elected and should assume his office as mayor

of Miami; no

new

election

great significance far

was

necessary. In a ruling that

beyond the mayor's race

in

would have

Miami, the court

found that absentee voting was not a constitutionally protected right but a privilege. "The sanctity of free and honest elections

is

the cor-

nerstone of a true democracy," the court wrote, which placed greater value

on those who

"exercised their constitutionally guaranteed right

Who

Thieves

Steal Democracy

to vote in the polling places

291

of Miami" rather than those

who voted by

absentee ballot. "Invalidating aU absentee ballots," wrote the court, was

not "an unjustified disenfranchisement of those voters [absentee] ballots."

To simply

call for

fraud,

as the

"Were we

out the message that the worst that could

would be another

in the face of voter fraud

To some of those who had cast legal absentee

election."

ballots, their reactions

were mixed. "You mean I'm sick and I'm blind and counted?" said 77-year-old

tions

who

vote

is

not

a 68-year-

my vote got thrown out. What about

poUs?" Predictably, the bulk of the reac-

lines.

met with no

absentee voters Florida noted:

bad

can't get to the

along partisan

fell

my

WiUiam Ward. Gladys Harden,

old-retiree, said "I feel pretty

everyone

to approve a

proper remedy following extensive absentee voting

we would be sending

happen

cast legal

another election, the court rea-

soned, would implicitly reward election fraud.

new election

who

A

suit

brought by some of the legal

Court

success, but a U.S. District

"The absentee voting scheme

as it

now exists

in

in Florida

lends itself to fraud, manipulation, and deceit."

Absentee balloting was growing increasingly popular

as the

2000

presidential election approached. In the

name of producing higher

turnouts, the criteria for voting absentee

grew more

ience" replaced strict adherence to residency ifornia,

roughly

the 1970s.

As

five

lax, as

"conven-

on Election Day. In Cal-

percent of voters had requested absentee ballots in

the state actively encouraged voters to routinely use

absentee ballots, their usage exploded. In 1992, over 17 percent of the ballots in California

were cast absentee, and by 2000, that figure would

reach nearly 25 percent. In Washington cast in the

and

MIT

produce

is

2000

election

were absentee.

over half of the ballots

state,

A study conducted by Caltech

concluded: "The convenience that

bought

at a significant cost to

on-demand

the real and perceived

integrity of the voting process." Unfortunately, that integrity

high priority as the 2000 election approached.

absentees

was not

a

"

Chapter

A Hidden

T

we

l

e

\'

Time Bomb

was our first battle, but nobody noticed And it could have ended the whole case.

'It

The

2000

memory ballots,

it.

presidential election quickly faded into the national as primarily

an electoral aberration

—one where quirky

imperfect machines, and honest "misunderstandings" raised some

issues about vote verification, but little else.

the most

modern of methods,

culture of corruption

Though camouflaged by

the debacle in Florida exposed

had evolved into

its

may be more

American

politics.

the

modem form, and demonstrated

once again that the engaged intent to cheat and mislead plished craft within

how

While

its

is

a highly

modern

accom-

practitioners

sophisticated than their nineteenth-century counterparts,

their underlying

contempt for democracy is every bit as dangerous.

Suspicious Activity'

There were ominous

mary

season.

signs of possible voting problems in the early pri-

Although most Americans assumed that

issues

of ballot

A Hidden Time Bomb

access

293

and disfranchisement were just

provided a small taste of what was to After Senator John

New Hampshire state

on the road

historical relics, the primaries

come

McCain of Arizona won

in the general election. a stunning victory in the

Republican primary, South Carolina proved a crucial to the nomination. If McCain

won

ally conservative state,

he could overtake George

party's right wing. If

Bush won, he would

ground and claim "front-runner" even more flinds for the

fall

status

—

in this tradition-

W. Bush among

the

seize the political high

key ingredient in raising

a

campaign against Al Gore, the

likely

Democratic nominee.

On primary day in the Palmetto State, 21

of 135 polling places were

suddenly closed or "consolidated" in Greenville County even though the party was under court orders to open as

many polls

as possible.

The

orders resulted from a recent lawsuit claiming that South Carolina had a history of excluding minority voters.

With

the party's nomination

possibly hanging in the balance, the sites in Greenville were nonetheless

closed or changed at the very last minute, causing considerable

confusion

among

a

number of voters. McCain's

charge that the location of the closed or

moved

aides

polls

were quick to

was no

accident.

The

senator himself said, "I thought the court had already dictated

that

all

polling sites should be open," and he, along with his fellow

candidate Alan Keyes,

Considering that

demanded

a "full investigation."

McCain was depending on

independents and

minorities in the primary, his campaign understood that these prob-

lems with the polls did not bode well for his chances of defeating Bush.

A GOP

attorney dismissed McCain's criticisms, claiming that

only two of the twenty-one polling

African-American areas (where turnout),

and added,

elections in

smooth

sites

McCain was

in

predominantly

expecting a heavy

in language that belied the reality of conducting

South Carolina, "compared to

as silk."

were

state elections, this

is

as

Yet of those polls closed in Greenville, nine of the

twenty-one had higher percentages of black voters than the county

as

had been carried by the Democrats

in

a whole, and six of the precincts

Tracy Campbell

294

the 1998 governor's race

—suggesting

/

Deliver the Vote

that the centrist

McCain would

have found support in these precincts.

Bush beat McCain

in

South Carolina by eleven points, and the sus-

picions about the poll closings faded as the Texas governor steadily closer to the nomination. Yet

moved

McCain's campaign considered

the poll problems to be "very suspicious," and his national field director called the episode "a last-minute switcheroo."

CaroUna was the

current in South

the

state's

party apparatus, while

In areas where

McCain might

An

underlying

Bush held the

fact that

McCain was

loyalty of

regarded as an outsider.

have picked up votes, such as the

Greenville precincts, no major effort was launched by the leadership of the state party to find the necessary workers to conduct the election.

Because of the

relative

size

of Bush's victory in South Carolina,

nothing more was mentioned about opening an investigation of the voting problems in Greenville, and

it

was quickly brushed

aside as a

story by the national media.

Dead Man Running In Missouri, a hotly contested senatorial race presented the unique

sit-

uation of the incumbent, the RepubUcan John Ashcroft, running against a dead

October 2000,

man. After

his

law. Carnahan's

a plane crash killed

name remained on

Mel Carnahan

the ballot, according to Missouri

widow, Jean, agreed to assume the seat

elected posthumously.

in

That would not be the

if he

last bizarre

were to be

ingredient to

the election in Missouri.

In

St.

Louis, local Democrats were pleased with the early turnout

on Election Day,

especially in areas of high African- American

accommodate

ulation.

Under

wished

to exercise their suffrage rights.

the rubric of wishing to

Louis City Circuit Court

all

those

Democrats went

at 3:20 P.M., asking for

pop-

who

to

St.

an extension

A Hidden Time Bomb

295

beyond the lawful closing time of 7:00

At 6:30

P.M.

P.M., the court

agreed and issued an order keeping the polls open until 10:00 P.M.

Outraged Republicans immediately sought an injunction

to stop the

order and close the polls at the legally established time, which was fast

approaching. Already, cries of a possible stolen election were

being heard, but not from Democrats.

By

7:45 P.M., the Missouri Court of Appeals stepped in to block the

Circuit Court's order to keep the polls open

late.

In the days to come,

Republican suspicions turned to outright anger when they learned of the

On the

conditions preceding the lawsuit. state

Democratic party

filed suit

morning of November

on behalf of a

D. Odom, claiming that he had been denied for

plaintiff

the

7,

named Robert

his right to vote

and asking

an extension so that other voters would not be turned away. The law-

suit's

avowed purpose crumbled when

it

was discovered

Odom had died

in 1999. Backpedaling as fast as they could, Missouri

admitted that they had made a mistake in their haste to the actual plaintiff's

name was Robert M.

Odom

(a

Democrats suit,

and

campaign aide

to a

the

file

Democratic Missouri congressman). Yet that story did not hold water either,

considering that a quick glance at

Robert M.

The some

poU

records revealed that

Odom had voted early in the day without any trouble.

language used in the

places verbatim

—

St.

Louis

suit

to that of a suit filed in

day asking for more time. Clearly, the address Election to keep the

Day problems,

suits

the guise of prohibiting long lines that

voters.

—

in

Kansas City that same

were not attempts

legally prescribed time.

would keep lawful

Democrats used the courts

round up potential

strikingly similar

to

but were preconceived plans designed

poUs open well beyond the

voting, Missouri

was

to

Under

voters

from

buy them more time

The simmering problems

to

in Missouri

quickly faded from view considering the events in Florida, and because

Carnahan beat Ashcroft by nearly 50,000 votes and George carried the state

Midwest

by almost 80,000

votes. Yet Missouri

state to witness questionable tactics

W. Bush

was not the only

by Democratic workers.

Tracy Campbell

296

/

Deliver the Vote

In Wisconsin, Republicans claimed that Democrats were offering cigarettes to

homeless people in exchange for voting for Gore.

"From the Comfort of Your Home" As Gore and Bush wrapped up had begun adding up strategy for the

fall

the party nominations, the campaigns

their "safe" electoral votes as they

campaign.

With Gore

planned their

putting California,

New

York, and most of the northeast into his column, and with Bush placing the deep South and the plains states into his column, the elec-

seemed too

tion

close for comfort

on

Both candidates desperately needed

tain:

electoral votes.

playing on

And

home

in this regard,

One

either side.

George

thing was cer-

Florida's

twenty-five

W. Bush was

essentially

turf.

Bush's brother, Jeb, had been elected governor of Florida in 1998,

and

number of the

a

loyal to the tive in

Bush

state's

brothers.

highest ranking officials were Republicans

While having

Florida had obvious advantages,

a brother as the chief execulittle

did anyone guess that

having the Florida secretary of state within the Bush camp might be

The

even more significant. Katherine Harris,

job was held by a former state senator,

who had campaigned

for

Bush

shire primary. In her role as the official certifier

would normally have played only unless

it

a pro

in the

New Hamp-

of elections, her office

forma

role in the election,

was contested.

The GOP held another distinct advantage in Florida: Bush's campaign had

aggressively sought absentee ballots in

Democratic

effort.

The

Florida

campaign that contained a

Bush

ways that

far eclipsed the

GOP spent $500,000 in a mass-mailing

letter

from Jeb Bush. Under an old

state seal.

told the party faithful they could easily vote "from the comfort of

your home" by simply requesting an absentee

ballot. The letter was instru-

mental in persuading over 700,000 Floridians to use absentee ballots in

— A Hidden Time Bomb

297

the presidential contest, an increase of nearly 50 percent from the 1996 election.

Yet encouraging voters to cast absentee ballots for convenience

ignored some elements of Florida law, which stated that only those voters

who

could not be at the polls on Election

Day could use

absentee ballots.

Bush's letter bypassed that critical legal aspect. Democrats, not hiUy

understanding the power of the absentee

effort,

spent their time concen-

on Election Day votes. By the time the polls opened. Bush

trating

already

had a 125,000-vote lead in domestic absentee votes in Florida. In the weeks and then the days leading up to the election, seasoned observers of Florida politics had no idea of the perfect storm brewing

over their heads.

On

the

Monday

before the election, one Florida

newspaper displayed a photo of a voting machine and casually editorialized, felt-tip

totals

"These days, voters walk up to a semi-private

pen, and silently change history.

and

tells

the tale."

A

Then

a

cubicle, grab a

computer

tallies

the

prescient editorialist, however, warned:

"Hopefully there will not be a repeat of the 1876 tardiness in counting the

Dade

vote," he claimed, adding "what's past

reported that the problems with voting in the

is

prologue." Another

Miami

area

had been

ironed out, although David Leahy, Elections Supervisor, acknowl-

edged that one problem possibly remained with paper voter did not clearly a

problem

punch through the hole

in the event

of a recount.

all

came

to

know

a

it

might prove

The Miami Hera/d wrote:

tion officials even have a term for this

hours, the world

indicated,

ballots. If a

—'hanging

somewhat

different

"Elec-

shad.' " In just

term

—"chad"

too well.

Despite the pundits' claims of expected low turnouts, the early signs

of turnout, especially

among Democrats, were much

higher than

expected on Election Day. Senior citizens, African-Americans, and

union members came out in droves for Al Gore and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the a major party ticket.

first

Young

his

running mate.

Jewish vice presidential candidate on

suburbanites, rural

gun owners, and

middle-class Protestants flocked to the polls for Bush, anxious to rid

Tracy Campbell

298

the

White House of Bill Clinton and

voters produced long lines in

many

Florida, an indication of things to

/

Deliver the Vote

his vice president.

areas,

The

crush of

but in Palm Beach County,

come appeared

A number

early on.

of Jewish voters were worried they had "accidentally" voted not for Al Gore, or for George

W. Bush for that matter.

Because of the confusing

design of the ballot, they were afraid they might have cast a vote for

Pat Buchanan, an ultra-conservative candidate tioned the extent of the Holocaust.

would get many,

if any,

It

made no

who had

once ques-

sense that

Buchanan

votes in the heavily Jewish precincts around

Delray Beach. These were certain Gore votes, and in an election that

promised to be column,

cratic

close, if those votes

were not ending up in the

this spelled potential

problems for the vice president.

Yet in Palm Beach County, Buchanan for every

Demo-

won

nearly 3,400 votes, or one

70 votes for Gore.

Statewide,

Buchanan received one vote

for every

167 Gore votes.

One

of those votes probably came from Kurt Weiss, whose parents

were

killed

by the Nazis and who worried that he had inadvertently

voted for Buchanan.

"I

hope

didn't. I

I

adding, "we wouldn't vote for that

pray

I didn't,"

Weiss

said,

man for anything. Even Alzheimer's cam-

victims wouldn't vote for Pat Buchanan." Buchanan's sister and

paign manager. Bay Buchanan, acknowledged that her brother's totals in

Palm Beach County were

Buchanan admitted, from

us."

"this vote

is

much

"As a good citizen,"

larger than

last to

aide Karl

emerge from any campaign

Rove dismissed

might have mistakenly voted

in 2000. In contrast,

reports that thousands of

for

Gore

voters

Buchanan, saying that Buchanan's

showing in Palm Beach County was due

to the "extraordinary effort"

of the Buchanan team to register supporters in the

By

one would expect

Buchanan's candid appraisals of honest vote counting proved

one of the

Bush

likely inflated.

area.

mid-afternoon, the phone had not stopped ringing in the office

of Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, in

who

any other election would have been just another obscure election

A Hidden Time Bomb

299

mundane

overseeing the

official

chores of designing ballots and super-

vising the election process. After hordes of voters complained of the

confusing "butterfly ballot," Pore's design of the presidential ballot in her county came under immediate

fire,

mostly from angry Democrats.

LePore's explanation for the confusing design was simple. She said she had hoped to

accommodate the

large

number of candidates

(ten

party tickets were on the 2000 ballot) for president on a single page, as well as to

wanted

accommodate

larger type.

LePore came up with what seemed

promise: a ballot that listed

folded-out page.

and right hand

The names were

all

a suitable

com-

of the candidates on both sides of a

The names of the

sides,

who

a predominantly elderly population

candidates were on both the

left

and the punch holes were located in the middle.

tiered, in order to

match them up with

ding hole. Hence the term "butterfly,"

as

it

looked

like a

a correspon-

winged ver-

sion of a single-page ballot.

Perhaps the luckiest thing for the Texas governor was that his brother had been elected governor of Florida in 1998. That gave

some obvious

advantages in a contested race, and another

political

edge that played

itself

him

out in Palm Beach County. Under Florida law,

in listing the candidates for president, the party of the sitting governor

was automatically

listed first, giving

no problem matching

his

Bush the top

name up with

the top

problem came below, where the Gore/Lieberman

on the

left side

of the

ballot,

actually belonged to the

punch

ticket

hole.

The

came second

but the corresponding second punch hole

Buchanan/Foster

of the right-hand side of the

slot and, obviously,

ballot.

ticket,

which was on the top

While an arrow

directed the voter

wishing to vote for Gore/Lieberman to punch the hole labeled

"5,"

confused voters came out of the booths afraid they had mistakenly cast

who

their votes for

Buchanan,

County than

any other Florida county.

As more things, they

in

voters in

received

more votes

in

Palm Beach

Palm Beach County considered the

grew increasingly worried about

their vote.

state

of

Siggy Flicker,

Tracy Campbell

300

a 33-year-old

worked

at

who had been born

Deliver the Vote

/

in Jerusalem

and whose father

an IsraeU memorial, said she had sleepness nights worrying

that she might have unintentionally voted for Buchanan. "Yasser

Arafat would get more votes here," FHcker claimed. But the anguish

of voters Hke Flicker was quickly dismissed.

Some understood

secret ballot could not be corrected for errors after the vote

and had

had no problems playing bingo. Lester Zimmerman, tronics engineer, took offense at claims that he

understand a crowded

2,

when he went

to vote,

a retired elec-

artificial

lems with

its

Florida,

took two pages to

kidney,"

he "saw Bush was

1

Duval County, located

ballot design. In

ballots

to experience extensive prob-

list

in northeastern

the presidential tickets

on the

ballot,

were placed in the Times-Union the Sunday pre-

ceding the election that informed voters they must "vote

At

to

and pressed the second box."

Palm Beach was not the only county

and sample

cast

was too stupid

hold a patent on an

ballot: "I

claimed, and

and Gore was

it

was

sympathy, claiming that elderly voters in south Florida

Uttle

Zimmerman

that the

all

pages."

the polls on Tuesday, voters were told something different.

The

votomatic machines instructed voters to only "vote appropriate pages." Florida law required that "sample ballots shall be in the form

of the

official ballot as it will

appear at that polling place on Election

Day." Duval voters like Helen Garland came to vote for Al Gore, but later realized her vote

had been

page one. Garland wondered,

rejected. After voting for

"Why are

Gore on

there people back here?"

then made a move on page two that invalidated her vote: confused, so

I

just

punched out

a

name.

I

thought

I

had

"I

She

was

to vote for

somebody." In Duval, nearly 27,000 ballots were rejected because of such double votes, and more than 11,000 votes were cast in predominantly African-American areas

where Gore was expected

to build

considerable leads over Bush.

In other areas of the

state,

more

stories surfaced

of voter disen-

franchisement. First-time Creole-speaking voters were not allowed

AHiddenTimeBomb

301

assistance in voting

and many were subsequently turned away; one

precinct

had partisans who presented themselves

porters distributing

punch cards with the

W. Bush

Democratic sup-

likeness of Al

Lieberman on them, yet the punch numbers

George

as

listed

and Richard Cheney. In other

complications arose in some unlikely ways.

Gore and Joe

were those of

areas, last-minute

When

railroad workers

began cutting up track near a polling place in Suwannee County,

elec-

tion officials created an alternative precinct so those cut off from their

usual precinct could

still

vote.

The

director of the state Division of

Elections noted: "These supervisors can be pretty enterprising."

At

7:49 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, although the polls had not

closed along the western panhandle of the state, the major networks

announced that Gore had won Florida. To observers within both campaigns, as they watched the electoral

was the big

map

prize, the crucial state that,

tories along the

this

with Gore's almost-certain vic-

west coast, would give him the necessary votes to sur-

pass the constitutionally required

270

electoral votes.

Yet the Bush camp was conceding nothing after the the

knew

take shape, they

Florida news.

The

shock of

candidate himself cautioned against dis-

counting Florida, as did his top aides. election played out with

initial

As

the evening wore on, the

Bush taking the South and the Midwest,

while Gore's victories came in the heavily populated Northeast and the industrial North. states, if the votes

Although the held up,

the California polls,

At around results call."

the

seemed

remained open in a number of certain that

Al Gore would win the

upon the

closing of

presidency.

9:00 P.M., the networks suddenly announced that

had changed

As

it

polls

their estimates

new

and Florida was now "too close

number crunchers added

it

up

in the respective

and in the networks, the election was coming down

to

to

campaigns

who

could

claim victory in the Sunshine State. After winning California, Gore's electoral total stood at 267, Bush's at 246. If state

Gore had won

of Tennessee, or even the usually safe Democratic

his

state

home

of West

302

Tracy Campbell

Virginia, the problems in Florida

would have been

afterthought.

With

a

Deliver the Vote

/

more than an

little

growing victory in the popular vote that

ulti-

mately reached over a half million, and with enough to win in the Electoral College, President

Gore would have claimed

his

despite any lingering doubts about the Florida vote. After

popular- vote margin was

five

times that of John

Yet because of the Electoral College and

Bush could

still

become president

P.M., that

seemed

100,000

votes.

if

its

F.

mandate Gore's

all.

Kennedy's in 1960.

winner-take-all system.

he could win Florida.

likely, as Bush's lead in Florida

was now

By

10:00

approaching

As midnight neared, that lead shrank to just over

50,000 votes, and by 2:00 A.M., the networks Bush. Yet even that proved premature,

finally called Florida for

as a glaring

mistake in the

counting of votes in Volusia County reduced Bush's lead to just 6,000.

With

over six miUion votes cast in the state, this was well below the

threshold that required a mandatory recount.

concede. Gore realized that the election was

promptly withdrew the concession in

a

phone

While on still

up

call to

his

way

in the air

Bush.

As

to

and

bleary-

eyed Americans awoke the next morning, they were greeted with the

news that the election had not been decided.

Count Till You Win Over that

the next thirty-six days, an election

drew parallels

to a scene in the

drama played

itself out,

one

1948 film Key Largo where Johnny

how he out. And

Rocco, played by Edward G. Robinson, lectures a deputy on controls Florida politics: "Get

my

boys to bring the voters

then count the votes over and over again

he was elected." As the recount grew in to count an official vote

became

a

till

they added up right and

intensity, defining exactly

how

national pasttime —^would "hanging

chads," or a partially perforated paper

punch

hole, be

counted

as a legal

vote, or even a protruding, or "pregnant," dimple provide adequate

— A Hidden Time Bomb

voter intent? truth:

The

303

The competing

political

camps understood one

ensuing contest was not about finding a

fair,

essential

objective

way

who had won Florida; rather, it became a game of "count tiU you win." With so much on the line, the players inside the parties to determine

and well beyond the view of the networks' cameras election to their

own

benefit.

What became

was that even though the 2000

election

—manipulated

the

apparent only afterward

had not seen bands of thugs

roaming neighborhoods or gangs of "repeaters," the election nonetheless

displayed

scenes in

how

the culture of corruption operated behind the

modern American

politics.

A central rule about recounts

is

immedi-

that a candidate needs to

ately claim frontrunner status. Frontrunners can stake a claim to the office,

while those

who trail and contest the results

dened with the mantle of "sore

why

having to prove office.

and

loser"

can quickly be bur-

and therefore the obligation of

the perceived frontrunner should be denied the

In terms of public relations, frontrunners have

legal advantages.

Bush camp quickly

Throughout the 2000 recount

all

in Florida, the

seized the role of frontrunner, while

the role of the one behind in the count.

the political

Gore accepted

On November

8,

Secretary

Harris claimed that Bush's official lead stood at 1,784 votes, while

acknowledging that fourteen counties had not produced their recounted counties,

totals.

The Associated

showed Bush's lead

paltry .00381

Press, however, in looking at

to be a scant

229

votes.

While

66 of 67

this

was

a

percentage lead, in the hardball world of election

recounts, this "lead"

was

still

who needed

formidable.

Bush could portray himself

to plan his cabinet, while

Gore was

as the

"winner"

blame

for the embarrassing election imbroglio. In fact, just three days

after the election, the

Orlando Sentinel editorialized that threats of a

pending lawsuit by the Gore camp were ishness,"

to

"reckless,

nation-rending fool-

and that "reducing a national election to a lawsuit

would be

calamitous."

Immediately

after the election, as Harris's office released the returns

Tracy Campbell

304

showing Bush having crucial decision to

/

a lead of varying amounts, the

make: Should

it

Deliver the Vote

Gore camp had

a

ask for a statewide recount,

including "overvotes" (ballots where more than the legally prescribed

marks were given

for the

same candidate) and "undervotes"

with no preference stated for president)?

Or

should

it

(ballots

ask for recounts

Gore campaign asked the

in only selected counties? In the end, the

courts to recount only the "undervotes" in three selected counties

where, of course, they expected to pick up the necessary votes to over-

come

shm

Bush's

Yet Bush's

lead.

official "lead"

was not

all

that

it

appeared. In stark terms,

the official certified results clarify the issue.

Late Federal Election Day

Overseas Absentees

Total

Bush

2,911,215

1,575

2,912,790

Gore

2,911,417

836

2,912,253

Despite Bush's 125,000-vote head ballots, the

start

with the domestic absentee

national obsession with butterfly ballots and hanging

chads, and the ways Harris included dubious

RepubHcan votes while

excluding Democratic ones, the fact remains that Al Gore stiU

202 more votes on Election Day victory

came from

late overseas

in Florida. Bush's ultimate

won

margin of

absentee votes, which were counted

from November 17 to 26.

There were problems with these

had

late

ballots

on

several fronts.

Over 340

postmarks; 183 had U.S. postmarks (they were supposed to be

from overseas

sources), while others

lacked even the required signature.

had no postmark

at aU.

Ninety-six

A fierce debate raged over whether

the problematic ballots should be counted. Despite the media's obsession with hanging chads and the undervote controversy,

the campaigns

knew where

the real

some within

game was being played.

Bush's lead

attorney in Florida later acknowledged that the overseas absentee

A Hidden Time Bomb

ballot issue

bomb.

It

was

nobody noticed

hidden time

"a

was our

305

first battle,

it.

And

it

but

could

have ended the whole case."

These

ballots

were

critical

because they were the only

new

votes that could be found and

counted afresh

after Election

Day.

The

Considering that Bush actually

Gore

trailed

votes, the

in

GOP

Election

ballots that

made

elections supervisor

the difference.

An

from Leon County,

Florida holds up a late overseas absentee

Day

ballot in the

2000 Florida recount. Credit:

© Reuters/Corbis

needed to shore

up their total with additional votes that

had an essential component: they could not be questioned or closely

examined.

The Republican campaign understood

these ballots early on, and had spent eight times as rats in advertising for the overseas vote. The

licited ballot requests to

the importance of

much as the Democ-

GOP had also mailed unso-

thousands of military personnel overseas

had previously voted Republican. Some of these absentee voters

who may

not have even lived in Florida. Considering that Florida had no income tax

and the residency laws were

relatively lax,

it

was well known that an

untold number of military personnel listed Florida as their place of residence.

One

elections supervisor noted

"we have people who registered

here 20 years ago and haven't been back, but they're allowed to vote."

On November

18, headlines in Florida stated

Overseas Ballot Counts." According to the

official

"Bush Leading count.

in

Bush had

a

comfortable margin in the overseas count of 1,057 to Gore's 597. Yet as

Gore picked up votes needed to occur.

in the recount, the

First,

by placing

Bush camp knew two things

restrictions

on when the recounts

from some selected counties could be submitted, Harris needed count

as

many Gore

questionable

votes as possible while

making

Bush votes. Second, more Bush votes needed

and the only place they could be located were on

to dis-

sure to include to be found,

late overseas ballots.

Tracy Campbell

306

By

insisting that questionable overseas ballots

mix, the

GOP

Bob

be included in the

Karen Hughes was indignant:

defensive. Bush's aide

aspires

be commander-in-chief should seek to

to

deny the votes of the

unfairly

Deliver the Vote

portrayed their efforts in patriotic terms that put

Democrats on the

"No one who

/

men and women

he would seek to lead."

Poe, the chair of the state Democratic party, criticized

dards:

"They use the law when

law when

it

it

suits their purposes."

suits their purposes,

When

that noted that 39 convicted felons

Dade

and

counties,

the

in

Marc

from murder and rape to

gloomily

in Florida," adding,

Montana's Govterribly,

"How

terribly

can felons be

men and women in our armed forces Retired Gulf War General Norman Schwarzkopf spoke about the fact that brave men and women were "denied the

allowed to vote cannot?"

it.

Racicot claimed, "There's something

wrong with what's going on

a story

Broward and Miami-

passing bad checks, RepubUcan leaders seized on

ernor

and ignore the

Miami Hera/d rsin

had voted

their crimes ranged

GOP stan-

when

the

right to vote," because of a

To counter

GOP

mere

"technicality."

running mate. Sen. Joseph

charges, Gore's

Lieberman, appeared on NBC's Meet the

Press.

The

first

question dealt

with whether the Gore camp favored invalidating the votes of military personnel because of alleged "technicalities." Lieberman was in headlong retreat, saying

ballots,

emphatically he would not tolerate invalidating any of these

and he went even

further, claiming

he would give "the benefit of

the doubt" to those ballots, and urged Florida election officials "to go back

and take another look" at the

rejected absentee ballots. The "benefit of the

doubt" standard was precisely what his Republican counterparts wanted to hear.

One Democratic congressman from Florida understood what was

under way: "We're getting kicked around votes," and

for saying illegal votes are illegal

he added that "the Republicans got a lot of illegal votes counted

on Friday that never would have been let in before, and now we're the ones retreating? Incredible."

A Hidden Time Bomb

307

Hyper-Technical Reliances

On November

moment

21, a crucial

Supreme Court handed down

James Baker

Florida

GOP

as judicial usurpation.

two weeks

said that

were

new system

ecstatic

them

rules,

for counting the election results."

make up

to

A

after the election the

with the ruling, feeling assured

them adequate time give

the Florida

Supreme Court had suddenly changed the

"invented a crats

when

unanimous decision extending the

a

recount, a decision derided by the furious

occurred

this

and

Demo-

would

the few hundred votes that

give

would

victory.

Yet this ruling planted the seeds by which Bush would claim victory.

The

Florida high court wrote that "the will of the people, not a

hyper-technical reliance

upon

statutory provisions," should be the

overriding principal in recounting. this decision

While Baker and the

and ask the U.S. Supreme Court

legislature, to overrule

it,

GOP

court's language that allowed

rejected late overseas ballots.

GOP cursed

or, possibly,

the Florida

lawyers also saw an opening in the

them

Once

to look again at hundreds of

again, while

most were focused on

the court's decision to extend the recounting of pregnant chads.

Republican attorneys knew

it

allowed them to

revisit

more question-

able overseas absentee ballots.

Simply put,

GOP leaders understood the vital importance of over-

seas absentee ballots far better than their

the recount, for

Democratic

some House RepubUcans had even

rivals.

solicited the

During

Pentagon

phone numbers and E-mail addresses of servicemen and -women,

"The information was used

to put sailors in contact with Florida

RepubUcans who were organizing

a public relations

suade counties to reconsider rejected ballots," the

and that

it

was

"part of a broad effort

campaign

to per-

New York Times said,

by the Bush campaign

to turn

pubHc opinion against Al Gore." Rep. Steve Buyer of Indiana defended the E-mails

as entirely appropriate

and claimed they were

Tracy Campbell

308

sent because "he

Deliver the Vote

was furious that Gore campaign lawyers had urged reject absentee ballots

county canvassing boards to marks."

/

The Bush campaign

without post-

team, incidentally, wanted Democratic

absentee ballots rejected for this very reason.

The

was that

difference

would be

since any questions concerning the overseas absentee ballots

met with charges of had poHtical

While

disfranchising military personnel, Republicans

cover.

the media was focused

on hanging chads, Bush lawyers used

the Florida Supreme Court ruling to aggressively pursue

more

rejected

overseas absentee ballots. Postmarks were especially fertile ground for

considering a ballot rejection on account of "hyper-technical" reasons,

and Republicans worked

in the

county canvassing boards to count pre-

viously excluded absentee ballots, while at the

same time arguing

in

court against the same standard for the statewide recount. Jason

Unger, a istered

GOP attorney, demanded that an absentee ballot from a reg-

Democrat

in

Leon County, which was postmarked November

8 and sent from Maryland, be rejected "based

on the postmark

alone."

Yet another Republican lawyer in Escambia County, which was heavily Republican, argued that a ballot sent from a registered lican,

postmarked November 10 and sent from Missouri, be accepted.

"Just because

it

has a U.S. postmark does not

from the United

States,"

rejected, while the

Escambia

GOP

Repub-

he argued. ballot

mean

that

it

was mailed

The Leon County

ballot

was accepted. In another

attorneys opposed a civilian absentee ballot because

was

instance,

it

had no

postmark. That ballot was sent from a registered Democrat and was ultimately rejected because of

mailed but does not bear an eign postmark." Similarly,

GOP objections that "the envelope was

APO, FPO

when

a

[mihtary postmarks] or for-

mihtary ballot from a registered

Repubhcan, lacking the same kind of postmark, came before lawyer in Bay County, he argued, I

don't think

That

ballot

"I don't

GOP

think the postmark matters.

you should disenfranchise members of the armed

was accepted.

a

forces."

A Hidden Time Bomb

309

Andres Viglucci of the Miami Herald commented on the developments: "The ties to

GOP's

legal

and

political

push to force 14 Florida coun-

reconsider disqualified overseas absentee ballots paid off over

the Thanksgiving

weekend with

Bush," wrote Viglucci,

enough

who

a net gain

W.

noted that these votes were "potentially

to save the day." Viglucci

pressure

of 115 votes for George

added that eleven counties, "under

from Republicans," went back and reinstated scores of

absentee votes in a

way

had been

Gore

firing at

that

—

was hypocritical

in essence, the canvassing boards

"the rules in the middle of the game."

was eager

to the charges the

to ignore, Viglucci

Those

reminded

rules,

GOP

changed

which the

GOP

his readers, "are designed to

prevent fraud." Since the votes within the absentee ballots were, of course, secret,

no one could say

how

ingly,

for certain

how

they were distributed and, accord-

would have

the results of the Florida election

been changed. Out of over 2,400

late overseas

necessarily

absentee ballots, 680

contained flaws or errors that violated state election or administrative rules.

The New York Times carefliUy examined

the ways they were counted. the

manner

in

The paper found

which problematic

county election

these flawed ballots and

ballots

a glaring difference in

were accepted or rejected by

officials:

Late Overseas Absentee Ballots

Won by Bush Counties Won by Gore Counties

Accepted

Rejected

% Accepted

530

523

50.3%

150

666

18.4%

In Republican counties, problematic overseas ballots were nearly three times as likely to be counted as those in Democratic ones. Although equal protection claims would later be central to the 2000 election, the

way

the overseas ballots were counted was hardly equitable or

cratic.

These

late overseas absentee ballots,

demo-

combined with the intense

Tracy Campbell

310

partisan counting of Election

that

would

Day

votes,

made

Deliver the Vote

/

the crucial difference

Bush the White House.

give

"Until Voters Get to Spe.\k Again" Political

commentators weighed

their lack of appreciation of

many

so

the

on the

in

how American

other past elections, their

moment

election recount, revealing

worked. Just

politics

as in

comments were almost outdated

they were spoken or written. Besides the strong partisan

claims that the opponent was trying to steal the election, there was

strong sentiment that the Electoral College should be quickly abolished by a Constitutional

amendment. Others made more bland pro-

nouncements about the

effects

wondered whether winner, since so the claim as to cially

it

really

many

make

of the election controversy.

mattered

aspersions

who was

would be

declared the eventual

cast

on the legitimacy of

the office suddenly unattractive.

Machiavellian, claiming that

for a party to allow their

it

might be good

Some were

espe-

in the long

term

office

and then win big

2002 and the next

presidential elec-

opponent to claim the

in the Congressional elections in

Some

tion in 2004.

The most unusual

scenario

Miami Herald columnist, who the recount and

would

likely

was offered by Robert Steinback,

a

suggested that since Bush was ahead in

be president, he should acknowledge the

unique circumstances surrounding the election and "establish a caretaker'

government, in which some executive power

is

shared between

Republicans and Democrats, until voters get to speak again in 2004." Steinback even saw the

new

president inventing

new ways

to

make

policy decisions:

Bush could

establish an advisory "policy cabinet,"

made up of

Republicans and Democrats, with the power to make decisions

—by

AHiddenTimeBomb

311

—on nominations and

consensus only

would be responsible

ters. It

mat-

for such things as issuing executive

and nominating candidates

orders, selecting ambassadors federal courts

certain domestic policy

for the

—including the Supreme Court—^which Bush would

be bound to respect.

Steinback concluded that perhaps the people would "speak again" in

2004; but had their voices been adequately heard in 2000? Democracy,

when put on hold

for four years,

is

no democracy

at

all.

"Widespread Voter Disfranchisement"

Amid

the recount arguments, the fact that 175,000 Floridians had

their votes invalidated Ft.

—

a figure greater than the population of either

—never seemed

to attract the appro-

statisticians, this

was merely three per-

Lauderdale or Tallahassee

priate concern or outrage.

To

cent of the total vote, which

fell

within so-called "acceptable"

levels.

Perhaps these people voted more than once for the same office on a ballot, or

misread the directions, or purposely did not vote for a spe-

cific office.

concerned

These

soon shocked

figures belied a national figure that

citizens.

One

study found that throughout the country,

somewhere between 4 and 6 million votes were not counted

in

2000

because of confusing ballots, faulty equipment, and other problems. Illinois,

South Carolina, and Georgia,

uncounted

Upon

ballots that

in fact,

had

rates

of spoiled or

exceeded Florida's.

closer inspection, the issue of spoiled ballots

smacked of

may not have been as blatant effective. The crucial factor was race.

another form of disfranchisement, which as earlier forms, yet

was

just as

While approximately eleven percent of the Florida

electorate

was

African-American, a whopping 54 percent of the spoiled ballots were

from predominantly African-American

precincts.

The chances of

Tracy Campbell

312

/

Deliver the Vote

having one's vote "spoiled," therefore, increased tenfold in Florida if one

were African-American. In Gadsden County, the only Florida county with

a

predominantly black population,

1

in

were not

8 votes

counted, whereas in Leon County, a predominantly white county, the

same spoilage

rate

was

less

than

1 in

500. Counties with significant

African- American populations did not have the same kind of access to

machines that could detect erroneous votes and give the voter two more tries.

Counties with

this

updated technology (predominantly

affluent,

mostly white counties) had a far lower spoilage rate (.83%) than those

with optical-scan equipment (5.68%) or punch cards (3.93%), which

were more frequently used

in

African-American precincts.

African- American voters in Florida faced daunting challenges that

went

far

pened

beyond

Thousands did not even know what hap-

spoilage.

went

to their franchise until they

to vote.

Some

black voters

were denied the right to vote because they had been placed on a novote

list

following a purge of felons, deceased voters, or mentally

incompetent voters following the 1998 election. Nearly 58,000 African- Americans found themselves unable to vote because of the purge. Yet this purge system was fraught with errors, and an estimated

14 percent of the names on the

list

were erroneous. The company that

the Republican Secretary of State Sandra

assemble the

Hst,

Mortham had

hired to

DataBase Technologies (which had become Choice-

Point by 2000), did not extensively check their Hsts that were compiled

from matching birthdates, gender, and other

more than ten million casual match, and state,

characteristics, to a list

felons. Naturally, errors

DBT

of

appeared from such a

suggested that fiirther checks be used by the

such as financial records and address histories to confirm the

veracity of the

list.

Katherine Harris's office dismissed the suggestion,

placing a note in the

What was the Florida

files

that read

"DO NOT NEED."

even more astonishing,

list

late as 2007!).

at least three

hundred

were convicted of crimes dated in the

While some

"felons"

fiiture

on

(one as

counties responded to Harris's pre-election

AHiddenTimeBomb

directive to

313

remove the names from the voter

rolls,

some did

not. In

Madison County, Supervisor of Elections Linda Howell discovered

own name

her

in the felon Ust.

Others were denied the vote for mis-

About

takes in the registration system.

Cookman

fifty

students at Bethune-

College in Daytona Beach complained that they could not

vote because their names were not officially on the Volusia voter

rolls,

County

even though these students had participated in a voter-reg-

istration drive at their college six

weeks before the election and had

received their registration cards in the mail. In the aggregate, a study

by the U.S. Commission on closeness of the election,

it

Civil Rights

found that the "despite the

was widespread voter disenfranchisement,

not the dead-heat contest, that was the extraordinary feature in the Florida election."

Like so

many other

examinations of the election, the Commission s

report, issued the following

The

summer, was grounded

majority report was signed by Democrats, while a stinging dissent

was written by Republicans on the commission. Those led

in partisanship.

by Abigail Thernstrom, took

issue

in the minority,

with the methods and conclu-

sions of the majority. Their criticisms were not entirely off base.

menting on the "numerous" people who commission

as to

how

testified

Com-

before

the

they had been disfranchised, the dissenters

noted that only 26 witnesses had been called,

who

resided in just eight

of Florida's 67 counties. Additionally, the dissenters correctly pointed out that although one can gauge what was a predominantly African-

American precinct or county, one could not

distinguish whether the

votes that were thrown out were those of an African-American or a

Hispanic. The "testimony of witnesses

fails to

support the claim of sys-

tematic disenfranchisement," the dissent claimed, which said that for

obvious partisan reasons, the majority failed to distinguish between "bureaucratic problems" and "actual discrimination." The core problem

behind

all

was simple

of the

"irregularities" in Florida, according to the dissent,

—voter

error.

TracyGampbell/Deli\ertheVote

314

Indeed,

many of the witnesses cited by the commission did not reveal

any systematic

efforts to disfranchise

them. Although rumors were

rampant of Florida State Highway Patrol troopers intimidating black voters by setting

up roadblocks

in African- American neighborhoods,

only one was documented and

it

proved to be a vehicle checkpoint

located "within a few miles" of a polling place in a largely African-

American neighborhood.

Leon County, and was Church precinct

Specifically, the

checkpoint was in southern

located over a mile from the First Baptist

in Woodville,

where one third of the voters were

African- American. The checkpoint operated from 10:00 to 11:30 A.M.,

and the

assistant attorney general verified that the stop

in accordance with

normal procedures." Thirteen

driving violations, and eight of them were white.

drivers

"was not done

were cited for

No proof was

offered

of anyone denied the right to vote by the checkpoint or even of anyone feeling sufficiently intimidated to avoid voting.

Yet the essential point of the majority on the commission could not be dismissed.

The

details

of the Florida election revealed a system that

did not provide the same access or quality of machines, or of the correctly, to

aU races and loca-

Simply applying "voter error" to the events

in Florida ignores

chance of having one's vote counted tions.

the fact that over 175,000 citizens choices invalidated.

made them

Some made

who went

poUs had their

egregious errors in their ballots that

impossible to record as votes; others were the victims of

incompetent or inexperienced election bureaucratic

to the

snafus

or

inexplicable

officials;

others encountered

inconveniences.

The

obvious

inequity revealed by the election was disturbing, and whether one was

mistakenly on a purge

list

or had to use outdated machines with con-

fusing ballots, the fact remained that the chances of low-income

African- Americans having their votes invalidated were significantly

higher than for affluent whites.

The politics of race was injected into the Florida election for an obvious reason. African- Americans are one of the

few demographic groups who

— AHiddenTimeBomb

315

vote overwhelmingly one way.

someone's political

was

ties

While one can make

a reasonable stab at

based on gender or education or religion, nothing

as certain in Florida politics in

2000

of

as the partisan leanings

African- Americans, 93 percent of whom voted for Gore.

The

disfran-

chisement of African- American voters in Florida did not occur necessarily because

of their race, but because of their politics. And the dynamics

that resulted in removing those citizens from the roUs or in discounting their votes did not

happen

subtle effort to diminish

entirely

by

accident. It

was part of a not-so-

and suppress a considerable voting bloc.

"Count Every Vote" While the disfranchisement error," as the

issue

might be

readily dismissed as "voter

minority report of the Civil Rights Commission

said,

there were other charges that merit a closer examination. In Seminole

County, Bush led Gore in absentee votes by 10,006 to 5,209, yet the applications for absentee ballots that

problem.

The company

had been mailed

GOP

hired by the

to voters

a

to print the application

forms omitted asking for voter identification numbers, state law.

had

as required

by

When the applications began pouring into the county office,

they could not be processed unless the numbers could be obtained. Florida law specifically stated that only the applicant,

immediate

members of the

family, or a guardian could supply the information

application. Yet Supervisor of Election Sandra

on the

Goard allowed

local

GOP members to manually add the numbers to the applications. later

admitted that one Republican

another

official,

man in using laptop computers

She

Michael Leach, joined

to search a database in order to

quickly add the missing numbers to roughly 2,146 applications.

No

such courtesy was extended to the local Democratic party. Hundreds of absentee applications

—mostly from Democrats and Independents

stacked up without being corrected.

Even the former

state

Republican

Tracy Campbell

316

chair expressed

worry over the

legality

/

Deliver the Vote

of the move, and stated,

absolutely an issue of controversy as to whether public

be altered on an after-the-fact ratic attorneys

thrown

Republican forms.

were allowed to

officials

The Martin County elections

cations sat idle.

was

Following the election,

was launched

similar suit

to take these applications

were

Democ-

The

fix

a powerful

Martin County, where

in

about 500 tainted application

supervisor allowed

GOP officials

home, while hundreds of Democratic appH-

GOP claimed that only appUcations, not ballots,

and considering Gore's mantra

altered,

documents can

sued to have the entire Seminole County absentee vote

A

out.

basis."

"It is

to "count every vote,"

argument against throwing out the votes

in

it

Seminole

County.

On

the other hand, this was a matter that Republicans could not

quickly dismiss, either legally or on the public-relations front. These

were not

ballots designed

by

a

Democrat,

Beach County. Nor were these seas.

Those

ballots

and no party

as

had been the case

ballots sent to

Palm

miHtary personnel over-

were conflising, but so were the butterfly

official

in

ballots,

could correct any potential "voter error" there.

Rather, these were applications printed by the Republican Party, and

were treated

in anything but equitable fashion

by the GOP-led

elec-

tions supervisor.

The lower

court and the Florida State

throw out the absentee votes

in

Supreme Court refused

Seminole and Martin counties, in the

process validating the partisan treatment of the applications.

managed

to find that there

to

The

court

was no evidence of "fraud or other inten-

tional misconduct" that justified rejecting

all

of the

ballots,

although

it

did conclude that the handling of the applications was "troubling."

The

quick action by some enterprising election supervisors had been

indispensable in helping to save hundreds of

A

strange twist in the recount

Nassau County night.

Bush

happened

in the northeastern corner

carried

Nassau 2

GOP votes. in heavily

of the

state.

Republican

On

election

to 1. In the recount, in a state

where

A Hidden Time Bomb

317

4,000 additional votes were counted and 56 counties reported more votes after Election Day, Nassau actually lost 51 votes for Bush.

As

in

the other counties throughout Florida, the election board dutifully

second count. Yet

certified the

November

late Friday,

24,

on the eve of

Nassau canvassers reversed

Harris's official state certification, the

themselves and certified the original count. Harris quickly accepted the

first

count, restoring fifty-one precious votes to the

GOP column.

"Semi- Spontaneous Combustion" Despite the events in Seminole and Martin counties, and the overseas absentee ballots, a handful of votes could

With

the

tactic

was

manual recounts going on utilized

in

still

all

the difference.

Palm Beach County, another

by partisans that worked

nature of the election or even the recount partisans, led

make

to diminish the democratic itself.

Hordes of interested

by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and conservative Congressmen,

flocked to Florida to see the tumultuous events themselves. But

many

were not there by accident. In

West Palm Beach,

was riding

a fourteen-year-old

a skateboard,

and happened to

boy named Chris Miller ride

by the Palm Beach

County Governmental Center, where an angry crowd of GOP

stal-

warts was congregating. The crowd was led by a West Palm radio host,

Dick

Farrel,

who was among many

conservative radio personalities in

southern Florida encouraging the faithful to stop the recount. For Miller, his mistake

someone he

liked

was

in stopping near the

crowd and mentioning

Al Gore, because "He's pro-choice and

school on Saturday."

An

to

he's against

outraged Farrel screamed, "You don't vote!"

and the crowd clustered around the boy. Photographers caught the image of a glaring Farrel jabbing

his finger at the boy's chest. Despite

the pathetic demonstration, bullying tactics like Parrel's were

more commonplace. Indeed,

Farrel

was seen by

becoming

his followers as a cru-

Tracy Campbell

318

sading hero.

Nowhere was

there an objective attempt to ascertain the

some

people's will. Rather, in

areas

it

had become

could yell the loudest. Observers and media at antics as the acts affect the

a contest

first

dismissed these

outcome of the

election, but events

soon shifted.

the canvassing board's recount took place

in public view, as wearied canvassers inspected each ballot

peering through perforations to determine recorded.

On November 22^ an angry crowd

outside where the recount effort to bring as

of who

of a few rabid partisans whose behavior would not

Miami-Dade County,

In

Deliver the Vote

/

was under way.

many angry marchers

had been going on

for days.

how

by hand,

the vote should be

appeared in the halls just

A well-planned RepubHcan courthouse

as possible to the

Hundreds of calls had been made on

GOP

telephone banks to implore interested members of the party to go to the Stephen

R

Clark Government Center to protest the recount.

People also had been egged on by talk radio hosts, particularly those

who

appealed to staunchly Republican Cuban- Americans.

Congressman John Sweeney led to, in

Sweeney's words, "shut

it

New York

a group of Republicans to the Center

down."

As hundreds of pro-Bush marchers chanted outside the closed doors, the canvassers began the process of counting over a half million ballots.

Supervisor David Leahy suggested, above Republican objections, to limiting the recount to just 10,000 "undervotes," and to

moving the

proceedings to another floor where the counting machines and his office

were located. Leahy considered the new location

priate locale for counting the ballots, parties could observe

dows

and monitor the recount. Yet there were no win-

protestors realized they

had

more appro-

where representatives from both

for outsiders to observe the proceedings,

selves,

a

own

would not be

and when GOP-led

able to see the recount

them-

they grew violent. The chairman of the county Democratic party

to be escorted

down by

away by police

protesters

who

for his

own safety after he was chased

thought he was stealing a ballot (he was seen

taking only a sample ballot). Protesters

demanded

access to the

room

A Hidden Time Bomb

319

where the recount was

to occur,

and when they were refused, the

New

York Times reported, "several people were trampled, punched, or kicked." Sheriff's deputies

had

inside could hear the

to be brought in to restore calm; the canvassers

commotion and the angry

shouts.

Suddenly, the canvassers became cowed, and voted unanimously to call

off the recount entirely.

Leahy admitted the angry

protest outside

the doors of his office was "one factor" that "weighed heavily" in the decision.

The

crowd's intimidating tactics had worked beyond their

wildest hopes, and Republicans cheered the board's decision while

Democrats

cried foul. Wall Street Journal columnist Paul

approvingly of the "semi-spontaneous combustion" in

County

that produced a "bourgeois riot." After

involvement, local

activists to stop the recount.

leaders described the actions of the

on the episode came from several bearded

evision set next to

banana republic, the "...

denying any

crowd

as

Democratic party

smacking of "fascism."

recount stopped as Gore had picked up 157 votes.

showed

Miami-Dade

GOP leaders then took the stance of quiet pride in

having worked up party

The

first

Gigot wrote

A commentary

a cartoon in the Orlando Sentinel,

which

men in military uniforms watching a small tel-

some chickens. In soldiers

this clear representation

laughed heartily

at the

news that

of a

stated:

and now more on the democratic elections in America."

537 Votes

On November 26, Secretary Harris certified George W. Bush the winner in her state

by a margin of 537 votes. Harris refused Palm Beach's requests

to extend the recount and, in the process, rejected over four in

that

Gore had seem-

eyes were

on pregnant or

Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Nassau counties

ingly picked

up

in the process.

While most

hanging chads and butterfly ballots, the quietly provided

Bush with

late overseas

his ultimate

hundred votes

absentee ballots had

margin of victory. Democrats

Tracy Campbell

320

/

Deliver the Vote

vowed

to extend the count

as the

convening of the Electoral College approached, the chances of

and

to fight the certification in the courts, but

Gore winning Florida were fading fast. Considering what had

transpired

since Election Day,

one thing remained: Bush's 537-vote margin was

essentially a fictional

number that had no grounding in

it

would make him the 43rd president of the United

Bush

A

except that

States.

Gore

v.

final aspect

of the 2000 election was the matter of the judiciary,

which had long been seen the U.S.

reality,

many election cases. Yet

as the final arbiter in

Supreme Court had been

diligent in avoiding intrusion

upon

the sovereignty of the states in cases of contested elections. In fact,

when

considering

how best to

solve disputed presidential elections fol-

lowing the 1876 debacle. Congress

refiised to allow the

to settle fijture disputes. Senator John

most vocal

critics

determining tion that

is

who

Supreme Court

Sherman of Ohio was one of the

of giving the court such power, calling the matter of could

settle a

more dangerous

disputed presidential election "a ques-

to the future of this country than probably

any other." To Sherman and other members of Congress, elections were pohtical issues that should never involve the courts.

When

the U.S.

Supreme Court interceded

in 2000, there

was no

mistaking the fact that an extremely partisan court was taking on the

most highly charged poHtical case a considerable underdog.

in

The high

memory. In court's

this realm.

Gore was

makeup was decidedly

Republican: Only two justices had been appointed by a Democrat

(Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg). Chief Justice

Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence conservative RepubUcans. Scalia, in fact, had

RepubUcan recount

effort,

and

his

own

WUliam

Thomas were

two sons working

in the

inclinations were revealed in

his decision to grant certiorari in the first place:

AHiddenTimeBomb

321

The counting of votes

that are of questionable legality does, in

view, threaten irreparable

by casting

country,

a cloud

harm

to petitioner [Bush]

upon what he claims

and

my

to the

to be the legality of

his election.

No

mention was made of the potential harm that might come

and

his claims

from the

to

Gore

of his election." Scaha's comments

"legality

betrayed his partisan perception of the case from the outset.

Although appointed by Reagan, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was seen as a "moderate" by court observers. Yet her "moderation" in this case

was outweighed by her own partisan

proclivities.

the election results with friends, she exclaimed "This

news of Gore's victory

reporter asked the justice if she denied

spokesman

at the

is

terrible"

when

When

a

making these comments,

a

was announced

in Florida

While watching

early on.

Supreme Court had no comment. What went

unstated throughout the days leading up to the Supreme Court's final decision was that

Bush had four votes

servative Republicans appointed

either led or in

more vote

On that

which he was

solidly in his pocket

from con-

by administrations which

his father

vice president. All

end the game once and

to

for

he needed was one

all.

separate occasions in early December, the court heard the case

was simply known

as

Bush

v.

Gore. In the first instance, the court

blocked a Florida high court ruling in early December that extended the recount, and sent the case back to Florida for fiirther consideration.

During

that

had become

oral arguments, all

Scaha voiced an unspoken assumption

too clear since election night. In a discussion

about the rights of Florida citizens to vote for president, Scalia

reminded Democratic lawyers, "In under Article

The high

fact, there is

no right of suffrage

II."

court interceded again on

brought the election of 2000 to a

close.

December

12, 2000,

when

it

In a 5-4 decision (along with

Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, and O'Connor, Justice Anthony Kennedy,

Tracy Campbell

322

a

/

Deliver the Vote

Reagan appointee, joined the majority), the court ruled that no

ther recounting

would be permitted and,

fur-

thus, Harris's certified results

should stand. In a per curiam opinion, the majority did some judicial calisthenics that seemingly contradicted a cial

philosophy.

Amendment's sive

Having spent

good deal of their own judi-

their careers restricting the Fourteenth

"equal protection" clause, the majority used an expan-

view of this very same clause to

justify halting the recount.

When

the Florida Supreme Court had used the standard of "clear intent" to

determine the validity of a challenged

was unconstitutional, pretations

was

clear:

and was

ballot, the

since that standard

high court ruled

this

was subject

to varying inter-

The

court's language

not, thus, equal protection.

A state may not, by "arbitrary and disparate treatment, value

one person's vote over that of another."

A wave of reaction, almost exclusively on partisan grounds, met the ruling in Bush

Gore.

v.

Democrats

members of

assailed the five

the

majority for cynically using the equal protection clause to validate their political leanings

and award the election

claimed the detractors, the court had hurt

to Bush. In the process, its

own

reputation as an

entity above the clamor of partisan politics. Considering the disparate

ways Republicans had suppressed or counted votes, using the equal protection clause to validate the decision

RepubUcans, the

court's majority

smacked of rank hypocrisy. Yet to

had courageously stopped an out-of-

control process and vaUdated the rightful victory of George

To answer

all

W. Bush.

future inquiries considering the application of the

equal protection clause and elections, the court

made

a

most remark-

able statement, one that

had the weight of an imperial

than a precedent-setting

decision.

The

majority

decree rather

members of the

court

wrote:

Our

consideration

is

limited to the present circumstances, for the

problem of equal protection

many

complexities.

in election processes generally presents

A Hidden Time Bomb

3

23

For future reference, then, the complex issues concerning counting votes, in the court's reasoning, could not be scrutinized along the lines

of Bush tion

V.

was simply

Gore. It

and would go no

Stevens wondered

if

a decision that affected the

Although

further.

we would

ever

know

in his dissent

2000

elec-

John Paul

the actual winner, Harris's

537-vote majority for Bush was carved in stone.

"Our Votes Are Not Sacrosanct" On

January 20, 2001,

George States.

W. Bush

at the

was sworn

Along the parade

new

time prescribed by the Constitution,

in as the 43rd president of the

route, thousands of angry protesters

Donald Johnson,

United

demon-

D.C. bus

driver,

remarked, "the people of America were robbed of their choice."

A con-

strated against the

sulting engineer

from

president.

New York

came

to

a

Washington

to protest "the

disenfranchisement of black voters." But the scattered protests were

No

relatively quiet.

arrests

were made and newspapers generally

avoided the whole subject of questioning the election. In the spring of 2001, one of many recounts of the disputed Florida votes was published.

USA Today found

The one commissioned by

that

country and reiterated what

nonetheless.

to proceed

Gore campaign. Bush would

his lead to 1,665 votes.

wake of the

Miami Hera/d a.nd

had the recount been allowed

the standards set by the

widened

the

The

story

many had

election: the election results

Bush would win most

What was lost, however, was

under

actually have

was reprinted

across the

suspected in the immediate

were maddeningly

close,

but

scenarios by varying margins.

a rather simple notion buried well within

the story: had the recount proceeded "from scratch," and had the most inclusive standards exercise taught

sacrosanct."

been used. Gore would have

Herald reporter

Tom

won by 393 votes. The

Fieldler that "our votes are not

Tracy Campbell

324

/

Deliver the Vote

A year after the election, the New York Times reported that when the "over"

and "under" votes

would

still

in Florida

were carefully counted, Bush

have won. Yet had a recount of all 175,000 rejected ballots

been undertaken, Gore would have won, "no matter what standard was chosen to judge voter intent," with margins ranging from 60 to 115 votes.

The White House

seized

on the confusion generated by the

report and released a statement that displayed

how

nonplussed the

administration was by the assertion that perhaps the nation's chief executive should not be in office:

long time ago.

.

.

The

.

election

was

Yet attempts to ascertain the focusing solely on out, the

2000

how

"The American people moved on settled last year."

"real"

winner missed the point. By

various recount scenarios could have played

election has

been relegated

memory to

in our

little

more

than a one-time electoral nightmare that could never occur again.

The

historical evidence, however, tells us differently. If the circumstances

the

2000

election

had changed only

slightly,

how votes were

cast

of

and the Electoral College

hinged on a razor-thin margin of votes elsewhere, and closely at

a

if

we look

and counted in any one of a number of

counties or parishes throughout the nation,

does not seem so nightmarish after

what occurred

in Florida

all.

In the end, the vote in 2000 was another timely reminder that elections are not necessarily about getting the

ning.

From

realities

the outset, the

of elections

Florida were

more

most

votes, but about

win-

Bush campaign understood the working

far better

than did Gore's. Bush's supporters in

aggressive in purging likely Democratic votes

from

the roUs, claiming frontrunner status, counting problematic overseas

absentee votes, and using local and state officials to discount Gore votes in the recount.

As our

history informs us, this

was not

a

new

development. Rather, the events in the Sunshine State validated once again Boss Tweed's stark pronouncement:

outcome, the counters did."

"The

ballots didn't

make

the

"

Conclusion

"Something Very Personal

199

"You kno'w 'why until no'w?

isoe

Because

our democracy

Following

American

2000 was just a glitch

rective steps

isoe

don't 'want to

isn't really

to this

know

so sacred.

elections

were eased by the reassurances

in the nation's electoral system

in

upcoming

and that cor-

would soon foUow. Conjecture about new voting proce-

dures was plentiful, and so was the speculation about voters

that

the events in Florida, any lingering doubts about the

integrity of

that

never paid attention

how

outraged

Florida and throughout the nation would respond in contests.

Then came September 11. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in

New York and Washington, D.C., reminders that the 2000 election was a national embarrassment were obhterated by the focus terror.

So

little

cycle that the

did the anticipated outrage play in the next election

GOP reversed the usual mid-term party losses by regaining

control of the U.S. Senate, and Jeb

of Florida. Katherine Harris sentatives,

on the war on

and Al Gore

won

Bush was

easily reelected

a seat in the U.S.

later declined to

governor

House of Repre-

run for president in 2004.

Tracy Campbell

326

/

Deliver the Vote

For added measure, Congress passed the Help America to Vote Act

(HAVA)

in 2002,

which provided nearly $4

billion to the states to

replace outdated voting equipment, initiate voter-education projects,

and

train poll workers.

Although by the time the next

presidential race

came around only half of that money had

actually

been spent,

the federal government had reacted to the

crisis in

Florida with major

at least

legislation in order to restore pubUc confidence.

If

2000 did anything,

showed

it

that a disputed election could

change the course of American history in dramatic ways. Hardly had

Bush entered the White House than ical differences

it

became

clear that the ideolog-

between the president and Al Gore were

W.

far

wider than

many had assumed. The

election of

and

of a doctrine of pre-emptive military action

his later enunciation

without multilateral support, points in

George

may mark one of

American domestic and foreign policy

needed more to be reminded

how

Bush, in retrospect,

the greatest turning in a century.

No

one

elections can transform everything

than 140,000 American soldiers deployed to Iraq.

But the election

election of 2000 did

methods

an unwelcome acquired.

in just a

much more. By

closely

examining the

few Florida counties, Americans were given

civics lesson in the

ways

political

power

"You know why we never paid attention to

is

sometimes

this until

now?"

asked the co-director of the Indiana Elections Division during the

2000 recount. "Because we isn't really

don't

want

to

know

that our

democracy

so sacred."

While many Americans might have quickly forgotten the means by which the president had come

into office, other nations kept

longer memories. Similar to the ways Jim

Crow was

somewhat

used against the

United States by its Cold War adversaries decades ago when discussing abuses of human rights, American pronouncements on

abroad were casually rebuffed

as little

fair elections

more than hypocritical posturing,

considering what had happened in 2000. In

March 2004,

Russian's

president Vladimir Putin easilv won reelection by winning over seventy

"Something Very Personal"

percent of the vote.

and distributing

Amid

faltering,"

American concerns. "Four years

how

watching in amazement

was

charges of vote -buying, ballotbox-stuffing,

ballots to patients in psychiatric hospitals, Putin

trouble tossing aside

little

327

ago,

had

we were

the electoral system in the United States

Putin responded

acidly.

"So

I

hope that by criticizing us,

they will draw certain conclusions for themselves and will perfect their

own

democratic procedures, too."

2004 As

the

2004 contest between Senator John Kerry and President Bush

approached, worries of another tight race and the legitimacy of the election system itself increased.

The

ment malfunctions drew immediate

slightest hint

of possible equip-

indignation, and pundits

of an avalanche of lawsuits that threatened to

warned

forestall the selection

of

the president. Yet nothing of such dramatic proportions occurred on

Election Night as had happened four years

earlier,

and Bush

won

re-

election with a small but clear popular vote majority, yet with the

slimmest Electoral College margin for an incumbent since

Wilson.

When

Americans

Senator Kerry conceded the contest the next day, most

felt a

would not be

sense of relief that the troubles associated with

was Ohio, whose twenty

At

first,

2000

revisited.

Yet the 2004 race was not trouble

ance.

Woodrow

Kerry

free.

The new

Florida this time

electoral votes held the presidency in the bal-

trailed

Bush by 136,000

votes, but approximately

155,000 provisional votes remained.* These occurred where a voter appeared at a precinct and his or her roUs.

Under

would be

*

the

new

rules

cast, sealed,

name was not on

implemented

and (where

Bush's certified margin of victory in

in the

wake of 2000, the vote

legally registered)

Ohio was 118,457

the registry

votes.

counted

later.

Tracy Campbell

328

Coupled with in

polls,

Deliver the Vote

early exit polling that indicated a probable Kerry victory

Ohio, some Internet bloggers circulated

theft in the

/

Buckeye

State.

To account

stories

of definite election

for the discrepancy in the exit

one pundit even suggested that there might have been fraud in

the exit polling process.

Reasonable explanations might be found for Kerry losing surprisingly badly in

Ohio

counties with significant Democratic majorities,

but the possibility of untraceable electronic fraud was suspected

more

after the ugly disputes

months

thereafter, along

all

the

of 2000. Indeed, the doubts remained for

with an undercurrent of unease and a cottage

industry of conjectures about

how Kerry had been cheated.

Christopher

Hitchens, no fan of the Kerry campaign, later noted the strange anomalies in Ohio and

how

they

all

seemed

campaign. "Whichever way you shake

it,"

tilted

toward the Bush

Hitchens writes, "there

is

something about the Ohio election that refuses to add up." Another observer warned that because of 2000, a "ballot booths with

Grassy

KnoU

electronic voting

for conspiracy theorists."

academic speciaHsts and computer the 2000 recount had

about the

reliability

new

era

had dawned where

machines become the new

Some of the

scientists,

skeptics included

which demonstrated how

made many Americans

increasingly suspicious

of our election systems.

"Have a Nice Day" In the context of election fraud, the most striking contest in 2004 did not involve the presidency. In the governor's race in Washington State,

Democrat Christine Gregoire apparently

lost to

Republican Dino

Rossi by just 261 votes. During a mandatory recount, state cials

were furious when a local judge ordered

officials to give

GOP offithe

names

When the voters were called. Democratic workers asked them for whom they had voted. If the of provisional voters to the Democratic Party.

"Something Very Personal"

329

answer was Rossi, one party worker stated candidly, "we just to have a nice day." If the answer

tell

them

was Gregoire, then the party helped

supply written oaths to the voters testifying they had voted Democratic.

The

results

of the recount shrank Rossi's

Then, Democrats "found" more than 150 "misplaced" plastic tray at a

King County polling

site.

42

official lead to just

votes.

ballots in a

Understandably, Washington

Republicans compared the belated discovery of uncounted Gregoire ballots to the remarkable additions to

in 1948. In late

Lyndon Johnson's

senatorial vote

December, another recount gave Gregoire a ten-vote

After adding more lost votes from King County, her

lead.

margin of victory stood Six

Court

months in

129

votes.

after the election, a trial

which the

removed from

at

office

GOP

and

a

official

began in Washington Superior

argued that Gov. Gregoire should be

new election

not a case of some accidental

ordered.

To

the

GOP,

this

was

irregularities or technical malfunctions.

In his opening statement. Republican attorney Dale Foreman was clear:

"This

is

a case

of election fraud." Superior Court Judge John

Bridges was not persuaded by this line of argument and ultimately ruled for Gregoire. Bridges's response indicated ciary

how by 2005

and the larger culture recoiled from using the

Whereas

a court in the early 1900s

political

had used the word

the judi-

"F" word.

"slavery" to

describe the condition of voters living in a society without free and fair elections,

no court today would go quite that

far.

Rather, courts and

reformers alike take comfort in the assumption that

modern

problems can usually be reduced to correcting unintentional

election

errors.

New Machines Distrust of election results racy,

but the worst

may be

is,

of course, a dangerous thing in a democ-

yet to come.

One element

of the danger

is

the increasing privatization of American elections. Counties and states

Tracy Campbell

330

are relying

more on

Deliver the Vote

/

companies that specialize

private

in election

equipment, and these companies sometimes have questionable agendas and security precautions.

A popular solution to

the outdated

machines in Florida was the widespread use of the newest equipment to register votes, the touch-screen machine.

By 2004, one of the

largest

manufacturers of touch-screen voting machines was Diebold, Inc.,

whose CEO, Walden O'Dell, was

a

member of the

elite

"Rangers and

Pioneers," a group of wealthy businessmen committed to raising

$100,000 each for President George In a 2003 fiindraising

Ohio

helping

deliver

Senator Jon Corzine

letter,

he wants to

said,

'deliver'

Thomas

president,

Bush's reelection campaign.

O'Dell boasted,

"I

am committed

electoral vote to the president."

its

to

New Jersey

"Not only does Mr. O'DeU want the conmachine

tract to provide every voting tion,

W.

in the nation for the next elec-

the election to Mr. Bush."

A

Diebold vice

Swidarski, dismissed charges that programmers

could steal votes, and in a phrase eerily reminiscent of Boss Tweed, stated:

"Programmers do not

set

up the

Another danger, however, came

elections, election officials do."

in the very technology that

seemed

intended as a means of preventing the paper-ballot fiascos of 2000. Diebold's product, the touch-screen machine, had a perilous potential,

even

if

aU partisan suspicions were somehow

specialists

who examined

Computer

laid to rest.

the Diebold equipment concluded that

it

lacked adequate security precautions. David Dill, a Stanford computer scientist,

claimed that the problem extended to

all

manufacturers of

touch-screen systems. "If I was a programmer at one of these companies

and

I

wanted

to steal an election,

grammers could simply people to detect, and another. as

And you

it

would be very

insert software that

it

easy."

Pro-

would "be impossible

for

would change the votes from one party

could do

it

so

it's

not going to show up

to

statistically

an anomaly," Dill

and many of the

nation's leading

computer

scientists

and engi-

neers began devising election systems that could better ensure accu-

racy and minimize opportunities for fraud.

They came up with

a

"Something Very Personal"

331

The

Straightforward solution to verifying the accuracy of a vote. screen machines could print a paper receipt that the voter

had been recorded

to ensure that his or her vote

touch-

would check

correctly,

and then be

deposited in a ballot box. In a recount, the paper receipts would serve

At

as the ultimate source for verifying the true count.

first

glance, the

paper receipts seemed to solve one of the major problems arising from 2000.

With

a receipt, voters

they had voted

for, say,

would no longer have

Al Gore

to

worry whether

rather than Pat Buchanan.

This reform, however, represents the triumph of hope over

The

creation of a paper

methods used

trail

actually could bring

in the nineteenth century

common. Then,

too, voters

ever, there

it.

The

Paper

a

we have

having

seen,

how-

history of American elec-

receipts,

and intimidators found ways

even now, could not withstand the ingenuity

of computer programming. Hackers would have

gramming

polls,

first

shows that whenever technology raised new safeguards

against fraud, the manipulators, bribers, to adjust.

were

ballots

were supposed to leave the

were ample ways around

tions clearly

back many of the

when paper

deposited the one proof of how they had voted; as

history.

machine

actually cast for Y;

to record a vote for

and

it

would take

corollary, that a printed receipt for

Y

little

difficulty pro-

X every so often, when

little

more

it

was

trouble to add in a

be issued along with

it.

With

apparent proof in hand of how he or she had voted, the voter would be all

the less likely to suspect something was amiss. It

tion to be cheated but in the freshest,

is

poor consola-

most up-to-date way, and poor

comfort to imagine that touch-screen machines wiU deter corruption

where the other methods of reform have

failed to

do

so.

"The Long and Ugly Tradition" The

debate over paper receipts demonstrates

how

reformers

may have

misread some of the most crucial lessons from the 2000 election. focusing exclusively on verification and equipment, they overlook

By

how

— Tracy Campbell

332

modern

elections

really

work.

New

Deliver the Vote

/

machines and paper receipts

cannot solve some of the more fiindamental barriers to

one of which

is

to keep

some people from voting

at

across the country are finding themselves increasingly in registering

and going to the

many

polls, since

free elections all.

Minorities

on the defensive

are easily identifiable

for their party affiliation.

In a purge before a Louisiana Senate race in 1986, an internal

Republican

memo

stated that the purpose

was not

in curtailing fraud,

but to help "keep the black vote down." In 1990, Sen. Jesse Helms of

North Carolina used

a not-so-subtle technique to

accomplish

this

purpose that bypassed purging. Helms's campaign distributed 125,000 letters to tial

predominantly African-American

districts,

warning poten-

voters that any misleading statement concerning residency could

result in a prison sentence

of

five years.

Purging was used against

Native Americans in South Dakota in 2004, where poU at "Indian"

lican

names and created roadblocks

poU watchers

in

officials jeered

to registering, while

Repub-

Arkansas took photographs of African- Ameri-

cans as they went to the polls. In Texas, a Republican district attorney

threatened students at a predominantly African- American college

if

they attempted to vote using their campus addresses, which state law

allowed them to do. Just weeks before the

2004

presidential election, Florida state police

officers interrogated elderly black voters in

investigation into

some absentee

abuses.

Orlando

Many

as part

of these voters were

members of the Orlando League of Voters, which mobilized African- Americans to go to the polls. efforts

officers

the

city's

remarked that

their

were not part of an intimidation campaign against people reg-

istering

Democratic votes, but were

certain

selected out of a

New

The

of an

random sample

the people

we

Bob Herbert of

the

"just

to interview."

York Times later discovered that the investigation was conducted

in August, even

though the Florida Department of Law Enforcement

had found three months

earlier that "there

was no

basis to support the

"Something Very Personal"

allegations

3

33

of election fraud." Yet armed troopers visited the homes of

black voters nonetheless. Their presence happened to

fit

the Florida

Republican party's goal, best expressed by one anonymous party

member, who

said, "It's

Republicans

to restrain that turnout as

is

no

name of

secret that the

much

the

game

as possible."

for

Herbert

concluded: "The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is

and thriving

alive

in the

Sunshine State."

Another form of intimidation occurred idential

in the

primary. Michigan Democrats were

2004 Michigan presallowed to use the

Internet in the February caucus, in addition to voting by mail at 576

caucus

sites.

provide their

Union

members

a convenient

way to

lukewarm defense of the

sites in

cast their ballot,

that preceded the arrival of the secret ballot. a

work

leaders brought laptops to

order to

all

One union head

ways

in

offered

process, dismissing suggestions that voters

were coerced: "No one bothers

to

how

check to see

people vote."

The

executive chairman of the state Democratic party admitted there was

not even a "pretense to secrecy" with Internet voting, and made the unhelpful claim that online voting was as secure as absentee balloting.

In terms of effectiveness, absentee ballots remain the easiest

buying votes in advance, or swinging them whichever way works. This

is

after the results are in,

due, in part, to the widespread use of

absentee ballots, even in aU of their honest uses. perfectly legitimate; each side wants to get out

But absentee voting

way of

On its face, this seems

all

of the vote,

if it can.

also allows party operatives to avoid prohibitions

against electioneering near the polling place, as well as essentially

bypassing secrecy. According to one party

official,

absentee balloting

presents an opportunity for swinging votes. "You can't stand over their

shoulder and suggest to

move their hand for them," he

them

that this

is

said,

"but you can certainly

the candidate that deserves their vote."

Supporters of absentee voting point to decreasing levels of voter participation as a primary reason to retain them. Yet the evidence does

not bear this out. Although absentee balloting has doubled since 1980,

Tracy Campbell

334

/

Deliver the Vote

overall voter turnouts have not significantly increased. Oregon's mail-

in vote, for example, increased turnout

by

just 3.5 percent in 2000,

barely above the national average increase of 2.1 percent. a negligible affect

on turnouts, these

initiatives have,

While having

however,

made

a

vote buyer's job considerably easier.

A

series

played

how

of municipal elections in Dallas from 2001 to 2003 disabsentee fraud can have profound consequences. In a race

for city council, vote "brokers" in south Dallas exploited a Texas

that required the

names of aU people requesting an absentee

law

ballot to

be printed in the newspaper, along with the day that the ballots were mailed out. In numerous instances, the brokers, or "contractors," ally

waited

at the

nursing homes. ballot

mailboxes for the ballots to

The law even

it.

from the campaigns that hired them

Many of the in

areas in

arrive, especially at

allowed brokers to then take the marked

from the mailbox and deliver

each returned absentee

liter-

The

brokers usually received

five to twenty-five dollars for

ballot.

which the Dallas absentee fraud occurred were

poor and predominantly African-American neighborhoods, where

the margin for victory in tight races

the absentee ballots also in a

make

was often produced. Not only did

the difference in the city council race, but

referendum on a $2 billion Trinity River Project that passed

by just 1,600

votes. In

ways that

St.

Louis voters in the 1930s would

have understood, the river project would have a profound impact on the landscape and the citizens of Dallas, and whether the election had

been honest would not matter once the project was under way.

Add

together the latest technology and balloting procedures, and

the mixture

brewed to

it

is

a potent one,

aU the more so because

many of those who

often have no idea of its toxicity. In 2004, the Pentagon tried

implement an Internet absentee voting system

for the

upcoming

general election. In January, a panel of computer experts determined that this system

was "inherently insecure and should be abandoned."

combined the two most vulnerable

areas in

modern fraud

It

—absentee

"Something Very Personal"

—

and the Internet

ballots

335

in a system that could produce, in the

experts' opinion, a "catastrophic" result. Secure Internet voting, the

panel concluded,

is

an "essentially impossible task."

that were ready to use the

new system

in 2004,

Of the

seven states

one was Florida.

In early February 2004, the Pentagon reversed

itself

and canceled

plans to use the Internet for overseas absentee balloting.

The

disap-

pointed president of the company developing the project tried to reassure critics that Internet voting

enough

was

absentee ballots

through the Internet

and secure

"viable, valuable,

Her

to use for filing absentee ballots." "is

claims that sending

just as secure and reliable as

sending them by mail" provided a certain commentary on

some

election designers

know about

how

little

the intricacies of delivering votes.

Reclaiming Democracy What,

then, can be done?

What

does this history

to create a system of American elections as this little

more than the

good

baseless fabric of a naive

the culture of corruption at the very least, there are

is

tell

us? Is

start, states

possible

as its people?

dream?

Or

is

Realistically,

too endemic to be eradicated quickly. Yet

some changes

that

might not prove popular

but could curb the cheating and make voting abuses more

For a

it

difficult.

should consider making absentee balloting the

rare exception to the rule.

Absentee voting began long ago

allow soldiers to exercise their franchise

when

as a

way

to

stationed far from

home. Those conditions, of course, merit continuation of voting away from the is

precinct. Yet in too

many instances,

the integrity of the ballot

traded for casual convenience for millions of voters

on Election Day. The moment the and

integrity are

who

are at

home

ballot leaves the precinct, secrecy

compromised. If voters cannot be near home on

Election Day, they could vote in a secure machine beforehand rather

than submitting

it

by mail.

Tracy Campbell

336

Yet

new proposals

ballots easier

than

are

ever.

/

Deliver the Vote

making obtaining and manipulating absentee In

May 2004, Jeb Bush

signed into law a

bill

that allowed Florida voters to cast absentee ballots without even a wit-

ness signature. If this safeguard had been

removed

in 1997, the evi-

dence to overturn the Miami mayor's race would not have existed. The

new law stated: "Requiring

a

witness signature placed an undue burden

on law-abiding

voters, resulting in legitimate ballots being rejected

a technicality."

The Orlando

essentially vote

by

Sentinel casually noted that "Florida will

mail," since

absentee ballot, sign

it,

on

all

a voter

and return

it

needed

to

do was request an

without ever leaving home. Leon

County's Supervisor of Elections, Ion Sancho, who had previously tried to reject ballots,

some absentee

votes if the

same witness signed more than

six

worried that the lax requirements raised "the spectre of fraud-

ulent activity." Florida was not alone in relaxing rules for absentee bal-

In nineteen "swing states" in the 2004 election, only

lots.

witness signatures. In

many of these

states,

them

for mailing.

As

a

fraud investigator noted, "Everybody was worried about

the chads in the tions

required

party operatives can even

help voters complete their ballots and coUect

West Virginia

six

2000

election

when in fact by loosening up

the restric-

on absentee voting they have opened up more chances

may

Mail-in votes and the Internet

for fraud."

help end long lines of people

waiting to vote, yet they cannot guarantee that the votes wiU be accurately counted,

and they provide an easy

target for vote buyers.

Internet voting discriminates against poorer and less educated people

with limited access to a computer, no doubt raising equal-protection claims.

The modern

proliferation of identity theft, especially with

online purchases, should also give us pause as voters are distanced ever flirther

look;

from

it is

their local poUs.

This

is

not necessarily a desperate out-

simply a reminder that countering the culture of corruption

means looking ahead and not just backward. For over two hundred years, reformers have noted the Electoral

CoUege would make

how

eliminating

selecting the nation's chief executive

"Something Very Personal"

more democratic. But it.

It

there

337

is

another argument in favor of abolishing

would diminish many of the opportunities

dential level.

At

for fraud at the presi-

the very least, state legislatures could decide to award

electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote.

dard argument against dential

contests,

this holds that states

Although the

would

stan-

lose clout in presi-

eliminating the winner-take-all design would

certainly help discount the temptation to steal or suppress a handfiil of

votes in

some

selected areas.

essentially boils

down

With

the Electoral College, the election

to fifty separate state elections,

and the oppor-

tunities for mischief are significantly increased in a tight race, as evi-

denced in 1844, 1876, 1884, 1888, 1960, and 2000. Yet it would be unrealistic to conclude that with the elimination of the anachronistic Electoral CoUege, fraud presidential races or

would not be practiced

in future

might not even provide the margin of victory

especially close contests.

However, for partisans hoping to

in

steal votes, the

complexities of doing so in a national election involving over one hundred million votes

would be multiplied no end with the elimination of the

Electoral College. In 2000,

million

more votes

Bush supporters would have had to find a half

to win, rather than a

mere few hundred

in Florida. In

2004, Kerry supporters would have had an even more daunting task, considering Bush's popular vote lead of well over three million.

Vote "brokering" or "hauling" buying, although

it

people to the polls

is

is

another time-tested means of vote

usually presented as an effective

who

way

to get

have no means of transportation. Without

such intermediaries, as the defense goes, the disabled, the shut-ins, and the poor would effectively be disfranchised. nition of the role these agents play in

Without

modern

a proper recog-

election fraud,

no honest

discussion of regulating their activities can occur. Additionally, virtually all discussions

fijnds raised in

of campaign-finance reform ignore

modern

elections

and to purchase absentee

Low

is

how

part of the

spent to pay brokers to bribe voters,

ballots.

voter turnout and election corruption of the ballot are not

Tracy Campbell

338

mutually exclusive. In helps explain

game

play. Additionally, if

be

in

is

one

West

is

cynical voters was,

anyway."

in the

is

field

is

opt not to

not seen to

increased. In recent elections in

pondered why voter-participation

rates

low twenties. The standard answer from

"Why bother, the election has

Some choose

among Amer-

many will

going to play where the

Virginia, observers

some counties were

participation levels

perceived to be rigged,

the temptation to cheat

level,

rural

the steady persistence of election fraud

fact,

some of the declining

ican voters. If the

Deliver the Vote

/

to sell their vote as a

way

already been decided to actually get

some-

thing from a state or local government to which they have no connection anymore, while

some choose

If the only situation in results occurs

ruption

is

when

to stay

away from the poUs

entirely.

which voters accept the legitimacy of election

their side wins, the longevity of the culture of cor-

ensured.

More than

ever, the civic life

of the nation needs people going to

public poUing places to cast their votes, rather than through the Internet

or by mail.

The

voting machines and procedures used in East

Harlem

should be the same as those in West Palm Beach. Voters should be able to

go to the polls protected by expanded electioneering-free zones.

Courts must be willing to throw out understand that

civil rights

illegal votes. Finally, voters

must

safeguards involve the counting, not just

the casting, of a free ballot.

Even with some or

all

of the above changes, history provides us

with another sobering assessment:

No

how trustworthy wiU fmd new ways to manipulate and

implemented, no matter appear, partisans

how many reforms are the new voting devices

matter

cheat.

Consid-

ering the rare penalties, the payoffs are simply too high for partisans to ignore the opportunities to nents' advantages, issues

pad

their leads or

minimize

their

oppo-

and the future promises more of the same. As the

of abortion, stem-cell research, privacy rights, and public dis-

plays of religion produce even

the justification to

win

more

at all costs

bitter political divisions, so does

on Election Day.

"Something Very Personal"

339

"Something Very Personal" American

voters have long

assumed that our

elections are the gold

standard for the rest of the world to emulate. But sometimes budding

democracies have something to teach us about our collective desire to

"move forward" once an

may

the vote totals

election

is

over. If the evidence indicates that

not reflect the will of the electorate, the recent

example from Ukraine shows what

is

democratically possible from an

electorate that refused to "go on." Just days after Bush's victory in

2004, the Ukrainian presidential contest was marked by widespread intimidation of government workers and election

officials,

ballot

stuffing, absentee fraud, "fantastically high" turnouts, repeat voting,

and even the attempted assassination by poisoning of the opposition candidate,

who

it

seemed had

lost the race to the candidate

endorsed

by Vladimir Putin. However, the theft did not succeed. While many of the methods deployed in the Ukrainian election had long histories in the United States, the

Crowds

European reaction was stunning

in the streets protested the

threat to democratic forms.

a reality. "This

stolen

was

from us

—the

observers.

The Ukrainian Supreme Court

won the

a case in

American

enormity of the fraud and the

the election results invalid and called for a

opposition candidate

to

revote, the

new

election.

declared

When

the

"Orange Revolution" became

which something very personal was being one participant in the uprising

right to vote,"

explained. It is

an irony that contemporary American voters, to use the old

cliche, believe "it can't

happen

here."

The example from Ukraine

is

a

reminder of what can occur when an engaged electorate and judiciary refuse to accept a tainted election.

There was and

is

no means

voiding an American presidential election and calling a

new

one;

for that matter, elections for governor or the local school board.

perhaps there ought to be; despite what some

may

say,

new

for or,

But

elections

Tracy Campbell

340

would damage the

/

Deliver the Vote

of the election process

credibility

far less

than a

result that nearly half the electorate considers illegitimate, leaving

them prepared

Not

win other

to

all crises

in an explosion

in a

election contests

by any means

democracy show themselves

of outraged violence.

in

possible.

an angry crowd or

Some of them can be

lingering,

pervasive, a constant, corrosive force, gradually destructive of the

values in

which

faith in the

consent of the governed

among

degradation of the polling place ranks

is

The

based.

these, even

when

its

manifestations are less sensational than Bleeding Kansas, the stolen election of 1876, "Ballot

Box

two centuries of persistent

become resigned

hanging chads of 2000. After

13," or the electoral

to a different reality,

corruption, Americans

have

one where they do not even rec-

ognize that "something very personal" has been taken from them.

To

reclaim the ballot box,

we must

start

beginnings, the awareness that there really

is

with the humblest of

a problem,

the uncomfortable truth that election fraud has been a

ponent of our

and confront

common com-

nation's electoral history, and, in the aggregate,

mines the only check that the people have over their

under-

leaders.

This

fundamental threat to our democratic birthright must no longer be dismissed by partisan fmger-pointing or trivialized by technological updates.

The

stakes are too high.

Endnotes

Introduction p.

XV

Before the polls even opened

.

.

North American Review (December 1887):

.

679-82. p. xviii

a crime that usually pays

makes

a similar

.

.

.

:

A

recent appraisal of

modern American

society

argument. In David Callahan's The Cheating Culture, the ways

doctors, attorneys, athletes,

CEOs, and

various other groups cheat are detailed.

Callahan notes that societal and professional temptations to cheat have grown

markedly stronger since the 1960s. The culture of corruption that

Callahan analyzes. Yet unlike steal flilly

knowing what they do

sional ethics, the politicos in this

"Man's capacity Darkness,

." .

.

suggest

is

an

is

politics has

morally indefensible or an affront to profes-

book have no such qualms. Rather, they see

actions as contributing to the public p. xix

I

many similarities with the culture many of Callahan's subjects, who commit fraud or

important component of American

their

good and, therefore, fiiUy justified.

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children ofLight and the Children of

xi.

Chapter One p.

3

Colonial elections in ship, 144;

.

.James H. Kettner, The Development ofAmerican CitizenCreation of the American Republic, 166-70; Chilton

Richard R McCormick, The History of New Jersey, 22-23, 37-47; Harry C. Silcox, Philadelphia Politics From the

Williamson, y^wenVflw Voting in

.

Gordon Wood, The

Bottom Up, 18-19.

Suffrage, 5-8, 100;

Tracy Campbell

342

p.

3

In 1742,

.

.

.

Norman

:

S.

Deliver THE Vote

/

Cohen, "The Philadelphia Election Riot of 1742,"

Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (July 1968): 310-13; William T. Parsons,

"The Bloody Election of 1742," Pennsylvania History 36

(July 1969):

290; Steven Rosswurm, yf rw5. Country, and Class, 92-93. p.

4

While paper

Nash

ballots

.

.

Gary

:

.

B. Nash, The Urban Crucible, 16-18, 89, 235-38.

notes that in Boston, the most important offices, such as clerk or treasurer,

were not elected posts but "were regularly

edged leaders

whom

to

filled

from a small pool of acknowl-

the lesser people ordinarily deferred (17)."

tion to the issue of secret ballots

ballots as early as 1670, although in

voce because "any person

who

One

excep-

was South Carolina, which employed paper 1745 Governor James Glen supported viva

attends the balloting box,

sleight of hand, give the election to

whom

may with

a very little

he pleases." See Albert McKinley,

The Suffrage Franchise, 141, 156-57; Charles

S.

Sydnor, Gentleman Freeholders,

14-15, 19-26, 67-69; and G. B. Warren, Boston: 1689-1776, 31-32.

Montesquieu, among others, was worried about the

of those without

ability

land who, through the device of the secret ballot, could conspire to destroy property rights.

He

supported viva voce because "the lower class ought to be directed

by those of higher rank, and restrained within bounds by the gravity of eminent

Quoted

personages."

other hand,

Tom

in

Williamson, yfwmcaw Suffrage, 11-12, 40-41.

Paine thought

it

was wrong

to "disfranchise

any

class

On

the

of men,"

because the vote was "the primary right by which other rights are protected."

Quoted p.

5

in Eric Foner,

In running

.

.

.

Chauncey Ford,

:

Tom Paine and Revolutionary America,

ed..

The Writings of George Washington,

Dinkin, Voting in ProvincialAmerica, 102-06,

His Time,

vol. 1,

1 15-16;

52-53; Robert

vol. II,

J.

Dumas yiAont, Jefferson and

129-30. See also Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Birth ofa Nation, 14.

Treating was not confined to colonial America. tion practices in Great Britain. Treating

A

Hull, and Kent.

was used

It

had

a direct link to elec-

had become an elaborate

sumptuous dinners and picnics

land, complete with

treating

144.

Rupert Hughes, George Washington, 366-68; Worthington

ritual in

such

in areas

Eng-

as Beverley,

student of this period in Hanoverian England states that

to reward loyal voters, or, in a considerable understatement, in

also "arousing their anticipation." If a party refused to treat voters, they paid the

price at the poUs. In

nomination monies: Present p.

6

some

elections.

areas, election breakfasts often directly

See Frank O'Gorman, "Campaign

The Social Meaning of 135 (May 1992): 85-86.

In general,

.

.

.

:

and Cere-

Elections in England, 1780-1860," Past

Williamson, American

Oliver Wolcott wrote in 1821 a

preceded party

Rituals

Suffrage,

and

50-5 1 Connecticut Governor .

summary of voting practices

in

New York in the

men of decent character have failed at some time when desired." Even some paupers, Wolcott wrote,

previous century. Then, "few to acquire the qualification

had 49.

at times

The

been permitted to vote. Quoted in Williamson, y^wmcaw Suffage,

practice of "fagot" voting

was not new

to the colonies. In

England, Par-

liament attempted in 1711 to curb the practice of splitting up estates to qualify

someone

to vote. See

McKinley, The Suffage Franchise, 8-9.

343

Endnotes

Alexander Keyssar has authoritatively demonstrated that enfranchisement varied according to locale. "As the Revolution approached," Keyssar writes, "the rate

of property ow^nership was

who were Right

Jamin

p.

became

7

.

.

were among

Sheriffs

.

.

141 (April 1993): 1399-1401.

.

:

McCormick, The

8

p. 8

In

The

9

History of Voting in

New Jersey,

of an election

at

appointed clerks representing each candidate to admin-

sheriffs also

New York

With

name and

address of each

A sheriff found violating this statute could face a fine up to 300 pounds. .

.

.

Nash, The Urban

:

the outbreak

.

.

.

:

87-98, 143-46.

Crucible,

Williamson, ^/w^ncaw

Suffrage,

77-78; Nash, The Urban

54-56.

Crucible, p.

53-55; Dinkin, Voting

New Jersey sheriffs to post news

oaths to voters. These clerks then registered the

voter. p.

Suffrage,

McKinley, The Suffrage Franchise, 458-59, 465.

twenty days prior to an election, and prohibited moving the location of the

poUs. ister

American

Y^f'iWidimson,

:

.

46-60. The 1725 law required least

in

The His-

and Theoretical Meanings of Alien Suffrage," University

in Provincial America, 117; p.

B. Raskin, "Legal Aliens, Local Citizens:

Law Review

of Pennsylvania practice

than sixty percent." Keyssar, The

less

Robert E. Brown, Middle-Class Democracy and the Revolution

torical, Constitutional,

The

and the proportion of adult white males

was probably

eligible to vote

to Vote, 7;

Massachusetts, 40-48;

7

falling,

In some states

.

.

.

:

James Schouler, "Evolution of the American Voter," Amer-

Review 2 (July 1897): 666; John Chalmers Vinson, "Election-

ican Historical

eering in North Carolina, 1800-1835," North Carolina Historical Review (April 1952): 171-88. p.

9

Perhaps no elections

.

.

.

:

Samuel Eliot Morison, "Struggle Over the Adoption

of the Constitution of Massachusetts, 1780," Massachusetts Historical Proceedings

L (May

Revolution, notes that

would now

B. Nash, The

Society

Unknown American

"The people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

under a constitution they had rejected (303-04)"; for Adams's

live

role in writing the constitution, see

While guaranteeing

that

"all

David yicCxiMon^, John Adams, 220-25.

elections

noted that "with

stitution also

Gary

1917): 353-412;

ought to be

free," the

grateflil hearts," the

thanked "the great Legislator of the Universe,"

who

Massachusetts con-

people of Massachusetts

allowed the people to form

the compact "without fraud, violence, or surprise." p.

10

As

the framers

.

.

.

Keyssar, The Right to

:

that although there

is

no

Vote,

21-25. Abigail Thernstrom notes

explicit right to vote in the federal constitution, that

"certainly implicit" in the guarantee that every state shall have a repub-

right

is

lican

form of government, and members of the House would be selected by "the

People of the several States." Determining exactly could vote was

left to

Oxford Companion

to the

p.

10

"The

W.

p.

11

An example

election

erns, 16.

.

.

.

.

.

:

.

:

who

"the People" were

who

the states. "Right to Vote," in Kermit L. Hall, ed., The

Supreme Court, 899.

B. Allen, ed., George Washington:

A Collection,

448.

V^iiil-imson, American Suffrage, 168-84; Robert A. Dahl,

Connecticut repealed the Stand

Up Law in

Who Gov-

1817, but only after a concerted

Federalist effort to keep the law. Raskin, "Legal Aliens, Local Citizens," 1400.

Tracy Campbell

344

p.

11

In the infamous

.

.

.

Deliver the Vote

/

Leonard L. Richards, The Slave Power, 40-43; Garry Wills,

:

A

"Negro President", 1-13, 50-61.

context of the 2000 election

recent analysis of the 1800 election in the

Joyce Appleby, "Presidents, Congress, and

is

Courts: Partisan Passions in Motion," Journal of American History 88 (Sep-

W.

tember 2001): 407-14; William Joanne B. p.

12

While the

p.

13

While

p.

13

structure

the debate

.

.

.

.

.

.

:

Freehling, The

Road

to

Disunion, 559;

199-261.

Yrttm'i.n, Affairs of Honor,

Keyssar, The Right to

Vote,

29, 330-32.

Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union,

:

234-50; Freehling, The Road to Disunion, 267. Besides expanding

.

.

.

:

Leonard D. White, Thejacksonians, 342-43. In the 1824

presidential election, six of the twent)'-four states stiU selected their electors in

the state legislatures. Jackson's supporters in Societ)'

New

York within the

elected a slate of pro-Jackson candidates in an

employing repeaters

Tammany

1827 primary by

brandishing hickory sticks to ward

as well as intimidators

John Quincy Adams. See Gustavus Myers, The History of Tammany, 73-74; Jerome Mushkat, Tammany: The Evolution of a Political

off voters loyal to

Machine, 84, 107. p.

14

Kentucky had

problem

a chronic

.

.

.

:

"The Importance of a Register Law

Purity of the Elective Franchise" (Louisville, Ky.: N. p.

14

One loyal Whig.. Thurlow Weed

.:

H. White,

to the

1840).

William Smith King to Thurlow Weed, November 27, 1858,

papers, University of Rochester; Detroit Free Press, April

8,

1860.

Early attempts to challenge the constitutionality of registry laws proved unsuccessful. p.

15

See Capen

In the 1857

.

.

.

:

v.

Foster 12 Pickering

485

for an

Maryland Constitutional Convention (1851),

and

1832 case

in Massachusetts.

Iowa Constitutional Convention Proceedings (1857), 863-64;

Class Politics in

New York

41; 7\nthony Gronowicz, Race

City Before the Civil War, 111-12; Joel

The Partisan Imperative, 141-43; Eric Foner, Free

Soil,

H.

Silbey,

Free Labor, Free

Men,

230; Williamson, yfw£T/cfl« Suffrage, 275-76. p.

15

In the Maryland

p.

15

The

essential

.

.

:

.

James

arguments

.

.

W. .

Harry, Maryland Constitution of 1851, 38, 73.

Kenneth

:

J.

Winkle, The

Politics

of Community,

76-83. p.

17

In Massachusetts

.

.

.

:

New

Bedford Mercury, quoted in the Massachusetts

Constitutional Convention, vol.

I

(1853): 582-83; Jerrold

G. Rusk, "The Effect

of the Australian Ballot Reform on Split Ticket Voting: 1^7 6-190?)," American Political Science

Review 64 (December 1970): 1221; J. AUen Smith, The Growth

and Decadence of Constitutional Government, chise the wage earning population without ballot

was

power."

to give, in large measure, the

To Smith,

36, 48-55, at the

who

noted "To enfran-

same time ensuring

a secret

form without the substance of political

"conservatives appreciated the advantage oi viva voce." (36);

Richard Franklin Bensel, The American Ballot Box, 55-57; Reeve Huston,

and Freedom, p.

17

30; Schouler, "Evolution of the

In a constimtional convention

.

.

.

Convention (1849-50), 201, 226.

:

American

Land

Voter," 670.

Proceedings of the Kentucky Constitutional

Endnotes

p.

17

34 5

In Massachusetts

American p.

18

New York

In

.

.

.

.

.

received in 1851 from

were stolen and violence

p.

22, 1853; Williamson,

at the

also writes

of the consid-

Tammany HaU, when

ballot boxes

poUs was exercised to wrest control of key county

from the Whigs. Myers, The History of Tammany Hall, 118-19.

offices

18

November

Hartford Courant,

:

Mushkat, Tammany, 186. Mushkat

:

Marcy

erable help

.

21 A.

Suffrage,

Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A

The

source

New

York City to 1898, 823-25; Kenneth D. Ackerman, Boss Tweed, 37-59;

.

.

.

:

History of

Myers, The History of Tammany Hall, 120, 135; Leo Hershkowitz, Tweed's York: Another Look, 8-9, 18; Alexander B. Callow,

p.

19

See also New York Evening Post, October 10, 1856. Tammany employed New York Evening Post, October .

.

.

:

and Glenn R. Simpson, Dirty

28, 1854; Larry J. Sabato

1851 and October

10,

Little Secrets, 276; Peter

Livingston quoted in Williamson, yfwmcaw Suffrage, 56; John Election Frauds of New York City p.

22

One

Louis

St.

.

.

.

:

New

The Tweed Ring, 110-12.

Jr.,

I.

Davenport, The

and Their Prevention, 93-94.

Kate Kelly, Election Day: An American Holiday,

An American

History, 86. p.

22

New

In

Orleans

November

.

New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, October 30 and New Orleans Bee, November 1, 1852; New Orleans

.

.

1852;

1,

:

November

Louisiana Courier,

11, 1853;

Mark Wahlgren Summers, The

Plun-

dering Generation, 57. p.

23

practice Roy R Easier, ed., The Collected Works ofAbraham Lincoln, I, 212-13. Other major newspapers that kept close tabs on election procedures are

The

.

New

the

.

.

:

York Evening Post,

New

York Herald, Detroit Free Press, IndianapoHs

Daily Sentinel, Philadelphia Daily News, Providence Journal, Daily Chicago Times,

New York Morning Express,

Commercial, and the p.

23

In

New

Orleans

.

.

.

Chicago Times

& Herald, Cincinnati Daily

Newark Advertiser. :

New

Orleans Bee, October 16, 1855; "Address of Charles

Gayarre, to the People of the State, on the Late Frauds Perpetrated at the Election

Held on the 7th of November, 1853,

Edward

Clifton

Memorial p.

25

Wharton Family

in the City of

.

.

.

:

WiUiam

Seem

E. Gienapp, "Politics

thing: PoHtical Culture In the North, 1840-1860," in

Essays on American Antebellum

Politics,

V.

Brightley,

Cicott 16

A

Mich. 295; People

Collection of

whether one's knowledge

examined by

a

is

v.

Tuthill 51

Leading Cases on the

Enter Into EveryE. Gienapp,

et.

v.

Cook 8

New

York 67;

Law

of Elections. Determining

law constitutes fraud was

courts. In Massachusetts in 1835, a court decided

not criminally liable for

a qualified voter

to

WiUiam

N.Y. 550; in Frederick C.

in breaking existing election

number of state

that a defendant

was not

HiU

23-29.

Cushing, Massachusetts Election Cases, 583; People People

Orleans," in

Library, Louisiana State University Library.

How widespread al..

New

Papers, Folder 10, Special Collections,

and was

illegally

voting unless he

also attempting to vote as

in other states, however, ruled that ignorance

an

knew he

illegal act.

Courts

of the law was not an excuse. In

Tracy Campbell

346

Deliver the Vote

/

Tennessee, a defendant could be tried for vote fraud even that he

was breaking

that the voter

know of a

state

done," the law assumes

People

V.

to have

"it

with the defendant."

lies

he was not aware

must appear

of facts which would, in point of law, disqualify

him." In California, the law stated "where an unlavirhil act

or excuse

if

state statutes; yet, in order for conviction, "it

is

proved to have been

been intended, and the proof of justification

Mc

Guire

State of Tennessee 7

v.

Humph.

54;

Harris 29 Cal. 678.

methods of

Several

fraud, including intimidation, illegal registration,

and

paying one not to vote, would not be found in simply examining vote returns.

Looking

solely at

whether returns were

inflated over an arbitrary five percent

mark

misses the culture of fraud that did, indeed, permeate antebellum elec-

tions.

See also the exchange by Walter

Jerrold G. Rusk in the American

Dean Burnham,

Political Science

Philip E. Converse, and

Review 68 (September 1974):

1002-57; Burnham, "Those High Nineteenth-Century American Voting Turnouts: Fact or Yiction}

"New

613-41. In

,""

Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Spring 1986):

Perspectives

on Election Fraud

in the

Gilded Age," Peter H.

Argersinger notes that "the subject of election fraud thus not only represents a challenge to the methodology of the

problem of data

validity,

new political

history in terms of raising the

but also raises questions of deeper significance con-

cerning the portrayal of political culture and the party system." Political Science Quarterly 100 (Winter 1985-86): 672-73. p.

25

In 1844,

Look

.

.

:

.

Thomas

F.

Redard, "The Election of 1844 in Louisiana:

Ethno-Cultural Approach," Louisiana History 22

at the

419-33; John

M.

^2.ditr,

A Perfect War ofPolitics,

A New

(Fall 1981):

124-25, 237; Michael

F Holt,

Tie Rise and Fall ofthe American WhigParty, 198, 203; Mushkat, Tammany, 219; Charles Sellers, "Election of 1844," in Arthur

M.

Schlesinger,

History ofAmerican Presidential Elections, vol.

Israel, eds..

1,

Jr.

791-95;

and Fred L. ?)c]\^e.rs,

James

K. Polk: Continentalist, discusses allegations of Whig impropriety in Pennsyl-

New York (155); Henry Clay to P R. FendaU, October 28, 1848, Mis-

vania and

Henry Clay papers, Filson Club, Louisville. In looking ahead

cellaneous Letters, to the

1848

election,

Clay warned that Whig candidate Zachary Taylor "may be

cheated out of Pennsylvania as

I

was

in 1844."

Remini, Henry Clay, 663-65.

In the 1848 presidential race, a curious anomaly arose in Virginia. Although the Free Soil candidate, former president Martin

Van Buren,

received

more than

ten percent of the vote nationwide, in Virginia he tallied only nine votes.

When

Free SoUers charged fraud in the election, one unrepentant official replied: "Yes, fraud.

And

we're

still

looking for the son of a bitch

Jimmie Rex McClellan, "Two Party Monopoly American versities, p.

26

Politics"

(Ph.D.

diss..

Union

for

to

who

voted nine times."

Third Party Participation

in

Experimenting Colleges and Uni-

1984), 75.

In an 1855

.

.

.

April 14, 1854.

:

New York Evening Post, November 2,

1855; Providence Journal,

Endnotes

p.

27

347

In Louisville

.

.

.

:

American Party of Kentucky, "Proceedings of the Grand

Council of Kentucky" (August 20, 1856),

5;

Thomas

P.

Baldwin, "George D.

and the 1855 Bloody Monday

Prentice, the Louisville Anzieger,

Riots," Filson

Club History Quarterly (October 1993): 482-95; Charles E. Deusner, "The

Know Nothing

Riots in Louisville," Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

(April 1963): 122-47; Holt, The Rise

and

Fall of the American

Whig

Party,

935-36. p.

28

The City Council Louisville Weekly Democrat, August 8, 1855; George H. Two Hundred Years at the Falls of the Ohio, 66-70; Baldwin, "George D. .

.

:

.

Yater,

Prentice, the Louisville Anzieger, p.

28

By midday

.

.

.

and the 1855 Bloody

Louisville Daily Courier,

:

Years at the Falls of the Ohio, 69-70;

A New History of Kentucky,

ment

in the

bellum

August

Post,

pouring into the Daily Tribune,

29

In

New

Two Hundred

Lowell H. Harrison and James C. Klotter,

Monday Riots," 494; Stephen E. MaizHsh, "The The Know-Nothing MoveGienapp,

in

et

al..

Essays on American Ante-

190-91; Summers, The Plundering Generation, 65-67;

March 1856 mayoral

p.

Monday Riots," 485-88.

1855; Yater,

the Crisis of the Union:

Antebellum North,"

Politics,

Evening

8,

123; Baldwin, "George D. Prentice, the Louisville

Anzieger, and the 1855 Bloody

Meaning of Nativism and

August

15, 1855.

election

The

had been stolen by

city to stuff ballot

March

Orleans

.

.

.

5 and

8,

Irish

and Cathohc "foreigners"

boxes for "the Black Democratic ticket." See

1856.

Leon Cyprian

:

New York

Chicago Daily Tribune concluded that a

Soule, The

Know

Nothing Party

in

New

Orleans, 46-80.

Chapter Two may

31

"I

p.

34

"The people of every

p.

34

In the village of Douglas

coln,

here be ...

Alexis de TocqueviUe, Democracy in America, vol.

p.

:

.

.":

.

II,

110.

Douglas quoted in David Herbert Donald, Lin-

232. .

.

.

:

"Special

Committee Appointed

to Investigate the

Troubles in the Territory of Kansas," U.S. House of Representatives, 34th gress, 1st Session (Serial 869), no. 200, 3-5, testimony, 2,

referred to as the p.

34

Howard Committee). Howard Committee,

Although Whitfield torical

.

.

.

:

5-9; Chester H. Rovft\[,

and Legal Digest ofall the Contested Election

tatives

of the United States from the First

Con-

882 (hereinafter

A His-

Cases in the House of Represen-

to the Fifty-Sixth Congress,

1789-1901,

56th Congress, 2d Session, Doc. 510, 1901, 145-47. See also R. H. Williams, With the Border Ruffians, 82. p.

34

The

outcry

.

.

.

:

Howard Committee,

990-91, 1012-13, 1060-61; David

9-35, 132-33, 168, 174-75, 357, 389-91,

M.

Potter,

The Impending

Crisis,

201-02;

Chicago Daily Tribune, January 5 and 28, 1856.

The Kansas ritorial

requirement for residency was very lean compared to other ter-

examples. In 1789, the

first

Congress reenacted the Northwest Ordi-

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

348

nance of 1787 to allow freehold aliens

who had been

residents for

two years the

right to vote. See Raskin, "Legal Aliens, Local Citizens: 1402-03. p.

37

May

In

1856

.

.

.

Kenneth Stampp, America

:

145-46; Richard O.

in 1857,

Boyer, The Legend ofJohn Brown, A51, 494-503. p.

37

"crime against Kansas": David Herbert Donald, Charles Summer, 278-82.

p.

37

The new 4,

pro-slavery

.

.

New York

:

.

Times, October 24 and 27, 1857, February

1858; Stampp, America in 1857, 144-81; James A. Rawley, Race and

Politics,

214; Jeffrey D. Schultz, Presidential Scandals, 98-100. In June of 1856, Senator Robert

Toombs of Georgia

would have

rejected both the "border ruffian"

government

in Kansas.

Toombs wanted

a

new

introduced a

which

bill

government and the

free state

federal census ordered in Kansas

supervised by officials appointed by President Pierce. After determining the

new

proper voters in Kansas, a

1856

new

for a

election

Republican congressmen defeated p.

38

Its essential

p.

38

In his inaugural address

p.

39

In the Oxford precinct

1858;

would then be ordered

constitutional convention.

ideology

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

:

:

December

Bigler,

the bUl,

Soil,

Free Labor, Free

Men, 43-48, 59-61.

Richards, The Slave Power, 201.

Chicago Daily Tribune, January 5, 6, 10, 16, and 20,

New York Times, October 24 and 27,

William

November

passage.

its

Foner, Free

:

.

for

While Democrats supported

25, 1857,

1857, January 26, 1858;

McCasUn to

William Bigler Papers, Historical Society

of Pennsylvania; Potter, The Impending

Crisis,

204; Stampp, America in 1857, 65,

155, 262-64. p.

40

"In 14 or 15

.

.

.":

McCaslin

William

to

Bigler,

December

25, 1857, Bigler

Papers. p.

41

The Lecompton

constitution

Rawley, Race and

H. p.

43

Politics,

.

.

.

Stampp, America

:

in

1857, 291-93, 328-29;

202-52; Richards, The Slave Power, 202-11; Richard

Sewell, Ballots for Freedom, 343-45.

In 1855

.

.

.

:

Madison Daily

December 14 and

State Journal,

August 31, November

27, 1855, January 5, 25, and 28, February 26,

and 25, 1856; Chicago Daily Tribune, January

and 28, 1856; Charles R.

Tuttle,

An

10, 14, 21,

Illustrated History

and

3, 5,

March

7,

21, 22,

and 23, March

2, 27,

of the State of Wisconsin,

306-09, 316-21; Robert C. Nesbitt, Wisconsin: A History, 232-33. p.

44

"What

p.

45

In San Francisco

is

popular government

.

.

.

":

Madison Daily

State Journal,

March

25,

1856. .

.

.

:

New

Ethington, The Public City,

,

York Evening Post, August 20, 1856; Philip

75-76,

1 1 8-20.

in another West Coast setting, see Paul

J.

For discussion of viva voce elections

Bourke and Donald DeBats, Washington

County, 8-12, 174-81; and Kelly, Election Day, 92-94. See also

Mary P Ryan,

Civic Wars, 148-49.

The 1856

election in

New

lence, but the party could not

nando Wood, whose

York City

also witnessed

Know-Nothing

vio-

compete with the election skUls of Mayor Fer-

forces used brickbats, axes,

and

pistols to intimidate

any

Endnotes

349

opposition, also breaking into several ballot boxes.

won

See also p.

46

To

Edward K. Spann, The New

defeat a slate

.

.

.

3,

1,

2 and

3, 4,

1857; Richmond Dispatch, June 2 and

New

1856, June 2, 3, 1857;

6,

jamin Tuska, Know-Nothingism 48-49, 170-72; Sister

Mary

St.

3,

New

1857;

1857; Washington

York Daily Times,

November

6,

1856; Ben-

The American Ballot Box,

in Baltimore, Bensel,

Patrick

3,

McConviUe,

"Political

Nativism in the

dissertation. Catholic University

America, 1928), 115-20; Sewell, Ballots for Freedom, 265-77. For

Nothingism p.

48

"It

Zane

in Cincinnati, see

cannot have escaped"

.

.

.

:

easily

62-65.

1857; Baltimore Sun, June 2 and

York Times,

1830-1860" (Ph.D.

State of Maryland,

York,

Metropolis, 382-83.

Washington Daily Union, June 2 and

:

Daily National Intelligencer, ]une

November

Not surprisingly, Wood

Samuel Augustus Pleasants, Fernando Wood ofNew

reelection.

of

Know-

L. Miller, Boss Cox's Cincinnati, 65-66.

Baltimore Sun, June

3,

1857.

The Washington

Daily National Intelligencer tvtn found the railroad companies which had transported the "plug uglies" from Baltimore to Washington to be partly Uable: "Is

not the Railroad

Company

way?" the paper asked. June p.

50

In the Twelfth

many

Ward

.

.

.

:

responsible for any injury done to property in this 4,

1857.

Donald, Lincoln, 255-56; Myers, The History of Tam-

Hall, 195-96.

Chapter Three p.

51

"In the worst days

p.

52

In 1862,

.

.

p.

53

Democrats

.

.

:

.

Henry Adams, Democracy: An American

.":

.

.

Novel, 72-73.

Myers, The History of Tammany Hall, 203-04. .

:

M. McPherson, Battle Cry ofFreedom,

James

1864 saw "some

that the election of

irregularities,"

505-06,

who

notes

but dismisses their overall

impact because the partisan cheating "tended to cancel each other out." In a statement that one can interpret in a variety of ways, voting of soldiers in 1864 was about as

McPherson concludes

and honest

fair

"the

as

19th-century elections

WiUiam M.

Burcher, "A History of

generally were" (805 n. 69). p.

53

"It

would be worse

.

.

.":

Seymour quoted

Soldier Voting in the State of New York,"

462.

Seymour vetoed

in

New York History 25

(October 1944):

a bill authorizing soldier voting in the field. After the leg-

islature failed to override the veto,

amendment

enabling constitutional

New

York lawmakers

hastily passed

an

that bypassed the governor. In 1872, a state

constitutional revision assembly extended the suffrage to

members

serving in

the state militia. p.

53

Some

states

allowed

.

.

.

:

Josiah Henr\' Benton, Voting in the Field, 306-09;

Oscar Osburn Winther, "The Soldier Vote

in the Election

of 1864,"

History 25 (October 1944): 440-47; Joseph Allen Frank, With Ballot onet, p.

55

New

York

and Bay-

94-95.

Rep. Lazarus Powell

March

.

.

.

:

"Speech of Honorable L.

3-4, 1864 (Washington, D.C.: Constitutional

W.

Powell of Kentucky,"

Union

Office, 1864), 8-9.

Tracy Campbell

350

p.

55

With

much

so

.

.

.

McPherson,

:

Cry of Freedom, 690-94; Benton, Voting

Battle

4—16; Frank, With Ballot and Bayonet, 95; Davenport, The Election

in the Field,

Frauds ofNew York, Keyssar, The Right

where the

Deliver the Vote

/

104—05. For a Missouri election

to Vote,

local militia controlled the poUs, see Bruce v.

W. McCrary, ^ Treatise

on the American

Law

Loan

Jean H. Baker, Affairs of Party, 314-16; Benton, Voting

New

Benton concludes that

York

George

in the Field,

158-64.

York Governor Horatio Seymour had "commis-

men

sioned a lot of irresponsible, unscrupulous

New

(1862), in

of Election, 346.

as inspectors, to get the vote

of

McClellan, and when they could not get the votes for

soldiers for

McClellan they forged them (167-68)." See Stewart Mitchell, Horatio Seymour

ofNewYork, 376-81. p.

56

Republicans, wary

.

.

.

Myers, The History of Tammany Hall, 206; Davenport,

:

The Election Frauds of New

60-64;

York,

New

York Times,

Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, Rude 1863 draft

drew

riots, see Iver

election. Lincoln

falsely register

them;

it

9,

1864;

Thomas Nast

copying the names

appeared the weekend before the

remarked that "Thomas Nast has been our best recruiting

ser-

Kenneth Ackerman, Boss Tweed, 35-36.

geant."

57

Bernstein, The New York City Draft Riots.

a Harper's Weekly cartoon that depicted "copperheads"

of war dead in order to

p.

November

Republic, 176-77. For the

While Indiana

.

.

.

Altschuler and Blumin, Rude Republic, 174-75; Winther,

:

"The

Soldier Vote in the Election of 1864," 452-53. After the Civil War, fifteen

states

had repealed

acts allowing soldiers to vote

by the end of the 1800s. Only

Michigan, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, and Rhode Island kept those statutes on the books.

As

the role of the military

ment over allowing

grew

in

American

life

in the 1900s, the argu-

soldiers serving their country to vote

increased. For the statewide

movement

by absentee method

to repeal soldier voting, see Benton,

Voting in the Field, 314-15. p.

58

In 1867, Generals

.

.

.

:

and

Foner, Reconstruction, 314, 342, 442; Joseph G. Reconstruction, 75-77; Joe

Gray

Dawson

111,

Army

Taylor, Louisiana Reconstructed,

150-53. p.

58

The Ku Klux Klan historian Steven

the Civil

.

.

.

:

Hahn

Allen

W.

Trelease, White Terror, 34-35, 113-85.

describes an ironic

form of

The

electoral intimidation after

War: African-Americans intimidating other freedmen who dared vote

One Mississippi African-American justified the attacks on black Democrats: "We don't believe they have a right to acquiesce with a party who Democratic.

refuse to recognize their right to participate in public affairs."

Under Our

Feet, 226. Paul Ortiz found the

American women p.

58

p.

60

Former

Under Our

.

.

Feet,

.

:

"Condition of Affairs in Georgia," 67-72; Hahn,

288-92.

slaves in Mississippi

.

.

.

:

House of Representatives, 40th Congress, Document no. 53, 5-30, 149-50, 219; Tre-

U.S.

3rd Session (1868), Miscellaneous lease,

A Nation

in Florida. Ortiz, Emancipation Betrayed, 23.

In Camilla, Georgia

A Nation

Hahn,

same dynamics used by African-

White Terror, 88-89, llA-l-i.

Endnotes

p.

60

In

351

St.

Landry Parish

.

763-65; Trelease, IVbite

:

.

.

U.S.

Terror,

House Reports, "Condition of

the South,"

127-36. Trelease concludes that due primarily to

Klan intimidation, Louisiana and Georgia were carried by the Democrats

in

1868 (185). p.

61

When

committee

a joint

.

.

.

:

Supplemental Report of the Joint Committee of

Assembly of Louisiana, "Conduct of the Late Elections and the

the General

Condition of Peace and

Caddo

Violence in

Good

Order," v-xxvi; Gilles Vandal, "The Policy of

Parish, 1865-1884," Louisiana History

32 (Spring 1991):

Army Generals and Reconstruction, 86-92; Taylor, Louisiana Reconstructed, 172. Dawson writes that with General LoveU Rousseau in command of federal troops in Louisiana, there was a much more relaxed atmosphere 164-78; Dawson,

in

which

before.

to steal the election than

Dawson

with General Buchanan just a few months

says Rousseau's actions bordered

and had allowed the Democrats almost p.

62

Georgia provided

.

.

:

.

U.S.

a free

on "the point of negligence

hand

in several parishes" (92).

House of Representatives, 40th Congress, 3rd Ses-

sion (1869), "Condition of Affairs in Georgia," Miscellaneous

Document

no.

52, 39-64. p.

62

In

New York

.

.

.

Davenport, The Election Frauds ofNew

:

York,

139-40, 168-72;

Charles H. Coleman, The Election of 1868, 365-67; Hershkowitz, Tweed's

p.

65

New

325-26; Stewart Mitchell, Horatio Seymour, 474-80.

York,

In Arkansas

Report no. Steven

.

.

.

:

"Election Fraud in Arkansas," 42nd Congress,

"Boles

5;

vs.

Lawson, Black

F.

2nd

session.

Edwards," 42nd Congress, 2nd session. Report no. 10; Ballots, 4; Keyssar,

The Right

Reports, "Condition of the South," 43rd Congress,

to Vote, 106.

2nd

U.S.

House

Session, no. 261,

352-61. For other examples of election fraud in Louisiana in the elections pre-

New

ceding 1876, see 1, 2, 7, 8, 9,

country,

and

York Times,

13,

PoUtical Machine,

1970), 74-76;

New York

1821-71" (M.A.

The thesis,

p.

67

Not

1865-1877" (Ph.D.

Times,

.

12,

New

1870;

.

.

:

6, 7, 8, 10,

visor John

New

Tri-

Foner, Reconstruction, 565-68; James E. Campbell, The

Mark Wahlgren Summers, The Era

20, 24, 25, 26, and 27, 1876.

1876.

of Good Steal-

New

York Times,

New York City election

to address the possibility

by methodically verifying

6,

State,

October 22, 1870.

registry

of fraudulent voters were published in the Times. See

29 and November

York

Milwaukee News, February 28, 1874; Chicago

Davenport was prepared

in the city's election

Philadel-

University,

20, 1869; Steven Jeffrey Fram, "Puri-

288-90; Alexander C. Flick, Samuel Jones Tilden, 320;

October

York Herald,

dissertation, Yale

of Electoral Procedure in

11, 1875; Detroit Free Press,

surprisingly

and 29, 1874, January

Cornell University, 1983), 101, 106-09; Cincinnati

American Campaign, 171-75; ings,

December

Politics

Enquirer, January 19, 1869;

March

14, 17, 19,

Howard Frank Gillette, "Corrupt and Contented:

1872;

2,

fying the Ballot?:

bune,

November

February 24, 1875. For examples in other areas of the

Philadelphia Inquirer, October

see

November phia's

10,

lists.

super-

of wholesale fraud

On election eve, lists

New York

Times, October

Tracy Campbell

352

p.

67

In Mississippi

.

.

.

:

Deliver the Vote

/

Documents, 44th Congress, 2nd

U.S. Senate Miscellaneous

Session, "Testimony as to the Denial of the Elective Franchise in Mississippi at

Document

the Election of 1875 and 1876," Misc.

no. 45,

Examiner,]u\y 26 and September 28, 1876 and "Testimony the Elective Franchise in Mississippi," 320-24. in

somewhat purple prose

p.

68

to a degree "vdthout a parallel in the annals

history."

Hahn, J Nation Under Our Feet, 302. New York

January

1,

The January

1877.

totals as

In Florida

:

.

.

.

1

edition of the

coming from

of

Times, October 9, 1876,

Times mistakenly Hsts the

Mississippi.

H. Shofner, "Fraud and Intimidation

Jerrel

Denial of

A federal grand jur)' concluded

that in the Mississippi election, "fraud, intimidation

and violence" had been practiced

Alabama vote

316-18; Aberdeen as to the

in the Florida Elec-

tion of 1876," Florida Historical Quarterly (April 1964): 323-24;

Roy Morris, Jr.,

Fraud of the Century, 147. p.

69

In East Feliciana

.

.

Burr Richardson,

.

Dawson, y^rwy

:

William E.

Generals

Haworth, The Hayes— Tilden Disputed York Times, 18, 1876.

November

do

1876; for South Carolina, see

7,

number of troops

184—87; Paul Leland

Presidential Election of 1876, 118;

Although troops were stationed

polls, the small

and Reconstruction, 232-34; Leon

Chandler: Republican,

in

New York Times,

New

October

Louisiana ostensibly to protect the

in the state betrays the fact that they could

their job effectively. In 1866, there

not

were 9,772 troops stationed in Louisiana;

by November 1876, there were just 800. See Dawson, yfrwy Generals and Reconstruction,

appendix

III.

In "The Negro, the

Republican

Part}',

and the Election of 1876

Louisiana," Louisiana History (Spring 1966): 101, T. B. Tunnell, the apparent loss of the black vote in Louisiana lence but rather to dissatisfaction "with

was not due

RepubUcan

to

Jr.,

in

argued that

Democratic vio-

rule." Years later,

Tunnell

recanted this view entirely. See Crucible of Reconstruction, 212. p.

70

p.

70

One The

resident explained election

margin

.

.

.

.

.

.

:

:

New York Times, December

16, 1876.

U.S. Senate Report, "Florida Election, 1876," 44th

Congress, 2nd Session, Report no. 611, 12-13, part

II,

12-15. This report

is

helpful in observing the partisan nature of the 1876 recount, as Democratic and

Republican senators and their counsel differed on everv contention of fraud.

p.

71

New York Times, November 14, 1876. When a train Llovd Robinson, The .

.

.

:

Stolen Election, 148; C.

ward, Reunion and Reaction, 111-13; Allan ^tv\ns,

Abram

S.

Vann Wood-

Hewitt: With Some

Account of Peter Cooper, 319-23; Haworth, The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Election,

55; JerreU

Count of 1876,"

H. Shofner, "Florida

Jones Tilden, Flick argues that Tilden the

in the Balance:

won

Electoral

Louisiana, although "intimidations of

Democrats undoubtedly affected the voting, but not

mine the

The

Florida Historical Quarterly (October 1968): 123-24. In Samuel

result" (343). In a

sufficiently to deter-

formula that would be repeated by countless other

scholars in analyzing the significance of fraud

and intimidation. Flick con-

cluded: "Republican frauds in registration offset Democratic intimidations"

Endnotes

353

zero-sum approach,

(343). This

it

should be noted,

is

often offered without any

corresponding evidentiary material. p.

p.

73

73

Both

parties

.

.

.

:

See Claude G. Bowers, The Tragic Era, 522-40,

the election the

"Crowning Crime" of the

In a Key

precinct

West

.

.

.

:

who termed

era.

U.S. Senate Report no. 611, "Florida Election,

1876," 5-7. p.

74

Although on

Sherman

to

...

D.

New

:

F.

Orleans Republican,

Boyd, December

4, Special Collections,

7,

HiU Memorial

November

14, 15

and

17, 1876; John

1876, in David French Boyd Papers,

Box

Library, Louisiana State University, "Tes-

timony Taken by the Select Committee on Alleged Frauds

in the Presidential

Election of 1876," 45th Congress, 3rd Session, Misc. Doc. 31; Keith Ian Polakoff, The Politics ofInertia, 210-14; Taylor, Louisiana Reconstructed, 490-93.

By 1876

contrast, the

New

Orleans Daily Picayune found nothing corrupt in the

election, reporting that the voting

tranquility." If anything, the

defrauded.

Many

paper

was conducted "with uninterrupted

later claimed,

it

was the Democrats who were

African-Americans wanted to vote Democratic, the paper

claimed, but were threatened by Republicans. Since the election, the paper

found that with Tilden supposedly in the

lead, the

freedmen "have manifested

The Daily Picayune gave Louisiana to Tilden by a margin of over 9,000 votes. See November 8, 9, 13, 14, and 15, 1876. See also Baton Rouge Daily Advocate, November 8, 1876; New York Times, the utmost enthusiasm over the results."

February 14, 1877. p.

75

In any event

.

.

Wormley Hotel where

.

:

A

meeting of selected Republicans and Democrats

Washington has sometimes been perceived

in

a "secret" deal, or the

"Compromise of 1877," was formalized whereby

Democrats would support Hayes

in return for the essential

See Woodward, Reunion and Reaction, in the spring of 1877: "This

at the

as the location

end of Reconstruction.

who writes that something else was at stake

was the question of whether the country could regain

the ability to settle Presidential elections without the resort to force (13)." p.

76

Hewitt declined Allan Nevins,

December

7,

.

.

.

:

"Secret History of the Disputed Election, 1876-77," in

ed., Selected Writings

1876 and March

ofAbram

2,

1877;

S.

Hewitt, 168-85;

New York Times,

Woodward, Reunion and

Reaction,

153-54; Foner, Reconstruction, 578-81; Summers, The Gilded Age, 35-36; Polakoff, The Politics ofInertia, 232-314; Robinson, The Stolen Election, 115-27.

Also in dispute during the election of 1876 were the electoral votes of

Oregon. Hayes had won Oregon's three electoral votes by a 500-vote margin, yet one of Oregon's ally

electors

was

also a postmaster

and was, therefore, constitution-

prohibited from participating in the Electoral College since he held a federal

office.

Oregon's Democratic governor refused the elector's certificate and

appointed a Democrat to Tilden. The Electoral

fill

his place,

who would

Commission denied

then cast the 185th vote for

the Governor's action, saying that the

popular will of Oregonians was clearly for Hayes and placed toral votes in Hayes's

all

of Oregon's elec-

column. Outraged Democrats responded by wondering

Tracy Campbell

354

why p.

77

the

Commission did not

/

Deliver the Vote

give such prominence to the voters' wishes in

Louisiana and Florida. See

New York Times, December 8, 9, and

"No

Morris, Fraud of the Century, 227-28. Another argu-

facts"

ment was

.

.

"is horrible":

.

Haworth, who wrote "no one

offered by Paul Leland

10, 1876.

familiar with the

evidence and with the attitude of the southern Democrats toward Negro suf-

moment doubt

frage will for a

toral votes

of the

was

that there

sufficient intimidation to

Haworth concluded, "m

the whole result." In the final analysis,

change

equity the elec-

of Florida belonged to Hayes." The Hayes-Tilden Dis-

state

puted Presidential Election, 76. p.

77

"violated the sanctity".

p.

77

Earlier writers

.

.

.

.

Quoted

.

in Ortiz,

Emancipation Betrayed, 216-17.

Woodward, Reunion and Reaction,

:

576 n 22; U.S. Senate Report 611, 12-13. Most

19; Foner, Reconstruction,

recently,

Roy Morris

dismisses

of Democratic suppression of the African-American vote and finds that

cries

what happened

to

TUden was nothing

less

than a "virtual coup d'etat." Morris's

claims regarding the onslaught against the ability of former slaves to vote rests

on quick references ical reality

to other secondary

suffrage as a right that

would take over

Fraud ofthe Century, 256. For the F.

77

One

South Carolina,

see

Ronald

(Autumn 2001): 169-91.

Congressional committee

Grover Cleveland.

.

.

.

:

New

bill

York Times,

May 24,

1878.

"window" was in the

One rem-

passed in 1887 and signed into law by

the counting of the electoral votes to be done in

It called for

The

the states within six days of the Electoral College meeting.

six-day

innocuous phrase that came to be of great significance

a relatively

2000 recount. See Haworth, The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Elec-

305-06.

tion,

79

polit-

a century to acquire outright. Morris,

election results in

nant of the 1876 election was a

p.

and

social

King, "Counting the Votes: South Carolina's Stolen Election o{\%7 6" Journal

of Interdisciplinary History 33 p.

works and ignores the

of the post-War South and the culture that saw African- American

Potter and the Democrats

.

.

.

:

New York

Times,

May

17, 18, 23,

and 28, 1878;

Haworth, The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Election, 307-08. p.

80

"privilege

16,

McLin ment and

and duty"

.

.

.

and 28, June 6 and

:

Nation,

9,

1878.

May 2, The

1878;

New York Times, May

"confessions" since he had waited until after failing to secure a govern-

post. "At first blush

it

seems

a little singular," the

Times

his cohorts "waited so long before they cleansed their

ilous stuff

1940,

11, 14, 15,

Times, a Republican paper, dismissed the

which must have weighed upon

Leon Burr Richardson defended

their hearts"

the Republican

felt,

that

McLin

bosoms of the per-

(May

19, 1878.) In

efforts in the

South

because of Democratic "intimidation or fraud," which he understood was "a

matter of course in the South." Regarding McLin, Richardson dismissed him as a

"somewhat unstable and

dler,

p.

81

shifty character." See Richardson, William E.

Chan-

186-89.

"Here, then"

.

.

.

:

"Investigation of Alleged Electoral Frauds in the Late Presi-

dential Election," 45th Congress, 3rd Session, Report no. 140, 2, 67;

Haworth,

Endnotes

355

The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Election, 311-28. The Potter Committee

from the contested

listed the individuals

who had

states

received appointments

from the Hayes administration. From Florida, there were eighteen people; Louisiana, there were over

Chapter Four The New York p. 83

Times

p.

84

"beUeve

p.

84

In 1880,

p.

86

Big Tim Sullivan

p.

86

In 1884,

p.

86

In Florida

it is"

.

.

.

.

.

August 20, 1896.

.

Glenn Feldman, The Disfranchisement Myth,

:

.

.

^om^, A Historical and Legal Digest, 381-84. New York Times, September 27, 1964.

.

.

:

.

.

.

.

.

Rowe\[,

:

.

.

:

A Historical and Legal Digest, 399-400, 406-08. A Historical and Legal Digest, 468-70; Ortiz, Emanci-

RoweU,

:

"Who

pation Betrayed, 37-39; Kenneth C. Barnes,

Historical Quarterly p.

88

"These

p.

88

An

titans

.

.

Killed

M.

John

Clayton?:

Arkansas, in the 1880s," Arkansas

52 (Winter 1993): 371-404.

cheated consumers": Callahan, The Cheating Culture, 15-16.

.

example

illustrative

sippi,

Conway County,

Violence in

Political

89

22.

Stephen Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy, IS-lb, 224-28; Francis Butler Simkins, Pitchfork Ben Tillman, 61; .

Chester H.

p.

in

sixty.

.

.

.

:

Stephen CressweU, Multi-Party

29-32, 50-51; Paul Lewinson, Race,

Chicago ward heelers

.

.

.

Politics in Missis-

and Party, 76-78.

Class,

Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy, 48-49; Donald

:

L. Miller, City of the Century, 468-82; Bruce C. Nelson, Beyond the Martyrs, 159, 177-200. p.

91

"Men

p.

92

In the South

of the"

.

.

.

.

.

Nation,

:

:

.

November

18, 1880.

Mark Wahlgren Summers, Rum, Romanism,

289-301; Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, 95-96, 102-04; Gilles Vandal, Violence in Bourbon Louisiana:

The LoreauviUe Riot of 1884

as a

& Rebellion, "Politics

and

Case Study,"

Louisiana History 30 (Winter 1989): 23-42.

By

A

1880, the diminishment of the Southern black vote was already evident.

Hahn

combination of what the historian Steven

Democratic gerrymandering, poU

rorism" with

produced declining numbers of black than half the rest

state's eligible

of the South was not

voters. In

labels "paramilitary ter-

taxes,

and election fraud

Georgia and Mississippi,

far

behind.

To Hahn,

these were

no mere "precursors

or preludes to the era of Jim Crow." Rather, these impediments to

were part of the "advent of Jim

Crow

sponsored and sanctioned social and constituencies of support." W2i\\n, p.

92

A bill ...

p.

93

"Well, now".

p.

93

The bill stalled

:

Keyssar, The Right to

Democrats

.

.

.:

.

.

racial hierarchies in search

A Nation

Vote,

:

democracy

and of the "construction of

itself"

state-

of formulas and

Under Our Feet, 367.

108; John A. Garrity, Henry Cabot Lodge, 118.

Summers, Party Games, 255; .

less

African- Americans showed up at the poUs, and the

Keyssar, The Right to

Vote,

Ortiz, Emancipation Betrayed, 57.

110-11. By 1913, in

in the Senate chaired a/Zof the eight

fact,

Southern

major committees in the Senate.

In the House, Southerners chaired eight of the nine major committees the same

3

Tracy Campbell

56

year. All

of these members benefited from the

Deliver THE Vote

/

of the Lodge

failure

bill,

which

allowed them to amass the seniority that would bring them to the chairmanships

twenty years p.

93

later.

214 (1876); Ex Parte Yarbrough,

In 1876 ...-.U.S.

v.

Reese 92 U.S.

651 (1884);/flw«

V.

Bowman 190 U.S. 127

et al.

110 U.S.

Mississippi

170

U.S. 213 (1898), the Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the

lit-

(1903). In Williams

v.

eracy tests and poll-tax qualifications established by the Mississippi constitution

of 1890. Those requirements, the Court reasoned, "do not on their face discriminate between the races, and istration

was

evil;

only that

Southern Democrats

evil

it

stole elections

ists in

p.

94

how

Bissett examines

admin-

Hyman, The Anti-Redeemers, 192-94.

fraud was stiUfuUy used against Midwestern Social-

Agrarian Socialism in America, 112-37.

The 1888 tion:

that their actual

from Greenbackers and other independent

candidates in the 1880s, see Michael R.

Jim

shown

has not been

was possible under them." For some of the ways

election

.

.

.

James L. Baumgardner, "The 1888 Presidential Elec-

:

How Corrupt?," Presidential Studies Quarterly 14 (Summer

1984): 417-22;

James Henry Jacobs, "The West Virginia Gubernatorial Election Contest, 1888-1890," West Virginia History 7 {K^rW 1946): 159-220. The 1888 race also

saw

West

a major dispute in

Virginia in the governor's race, where months of

manipulation finally cheated the

GOP candidate out of the election. Democrats

claimed, for example, that returns from Lewiston should be thrown out because the election commissioners there had not been properly sworn to their duties. p.

95

Yet the most explosive

.

.

Nation,

:

.

November

22, 1888; Richard Jensen, The

Winning of the Midwest, 26-30; Baumgardner, "The 1888 Presidential Election," 421; Robert F. Wesser, "Election of 1888," in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,

p.

96

ed.. History

ofAmerican Presidential Elections, 1615-1700.

"practically

of no

Right p.

97

to Vote,

avail"

.

.

.

:

151-59; Joseph

"If the act of"

.

.

.

:

Nation,

National Economist, April 27, 1889; Keyssar, The P.

Harris, Registration of Voters, 72-77.

November 22,and December 13 and

franchise the People:

The Iowa

Ballot

Law and

Election of 1897,"

America 63 (January 1981): 18; Herbert J. Bass, "The in

New York

F.

Reynolds, Testing Democracy, 49-61; Sarah

State,

1888-1890,"

Democracy: Electoral Reform sertation,

Columbia

New

in the

Politics

United

University, 1995), 43-45;

M.

Henry, "Progressivism and

1888-1919" (Ph.D.

States,

January

4,

dis-

Alan Ware, "Anti-Part}dsm and

tralian Ballot," British Journal of Political Science.

98

Mid-

of Ballot Reform

York History (July 1961): 253-72; John

Party Control of Political Reform in the United States:

p.

20, 1888; L.

H. Argersinger, "To Dis-

E. Fredman, The Australian Ballot, 31-39, 46; Peter

30

The Case of the Aus-

(Jan. 2000): 1-29. Nation,

1894.

But the evidence ... 110-11; In Colorblind

J.

Morgan

Injustice

Kousser, The Shaping of Southerri

Politics,

Kousser notes the secret ballot was deployed

mainly "with the intent and effect of disfranchising

illiterates,

disproportionately African-Americans or immigrants

who were

very

(34)." Reynolds, Testing

Endnotes

357

Democracy, ch.

3; see also

Mark

Schultz, The Rural Face of White Supremacy,

186-87. p.

99

In Vermont

p.

99

If the secret ballot

.

.

.

Summers, Party Games, 242-45.

:

.

.

.

For information on the Myers machine, see the

:

Web

site

of the Federal Elections Commission atwww.fec.gov/pages/lever.html. Because

many movable parts, they were highly susceptible The Belgian inventor was Albert Snoeck, whose

voting machines contained so to mechanical breakdowns.

machine differed from Myers's in that two doors were used. The voter entered one to vote, and another to

and the gears were p.

100

There

no better example

is

Once

exit.

the exit door shut, the vote was recorded

reset for the next voter. .

.

.

Gregg

New York

220-21; Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise, Clanton, Populism, 100; Woodward, Origins of the

New

Times,

Cantrell, Kenneth

Tom

August 20, 1896.

and John

B. Rayner,

110-53, 515-55;

Gene

Watson, 241-42, 257-58;

Woodward,

South, 235; National Economist, April 27, 1889,

October 29,

1892. Based on the results of the 1892 election, the national organ of the People's

National Economist, predicted

Party, the

Party]

"It is

highly probable that [the People's

wiU supplant the Democratic Party in 1896." November

19, 1892. Thomas

E. Watson, The People's Party Campaign Book, 123. p.

100

"It is

p.

100

In 1894

the religious duty" .

.

.

:

.

.

.

:

William Ivy Hair, Bourbonism andAgrarian Protest, 260.

William Warren Rogers, The One-Gallused

Rebellion,

283-89;

Feldman, The Disfranchisement Myth, 21-22. In an 1892 campaign, Kolb was denied permission to speak in several counties, causing him to swear out war-

who had

rants against those 5,

denied him a venue. National Economist, November

1892. In his superb study of Mobile, Michael

stakes were high enough, the

was

W.

Fitzgerald notes that "If the

Democrats manipulated voting

returns, but this

than the preferred option." Fitzgerald, Urban Emancipa-

a last resort rather

249.

tion, p.

101

A local judge

p.

101

On

p.

102

In fact

p.

102

In the

p.

102

"It is true"

.

.

.

.

.

.

Rogers, The One-Gallused Rebellion, 290-92.

:

Election Day,

.

.

.

Cantrell, Kenneth

:

Woodward,

:

Alabama .

.

.

.

:

.

.

and John

New

B. Rayner,

239-40.

South, 321-27.

Feldman, The Disfranchisement Myth, 49, 122.

:

Woodward,

The Shaping of Southern tice,

Origins of the

Origins of the

Politics,

New

South, 321, 326, 342; Kousser,

224, 236-46, 251-61; Kousser, Colorblind Injus-

15-16. In Texas, the aftermath of the popuHst revolt reveals that the dis-

franchisement

among

black voters occurred in rapid fashion. In 1896, 85

percent of black Texans had voted in that year's presidential race. Just six years later,

that figure

had plummeted

to

23 percent. See Cantrell, Kenneth and John

B. Rayner, 248. p.

104

"started

by whites"

New South, p.

105

In 1894

.

.

.

:

105

.

.

:

Nation, February 25, 1897;

Woodward,

Origins of the

Glenda E. Gilmore, "Murder, Memory, and the Flight of the

Incubus," in David p.

.

326.

S.

Cecelski and

North Carolina Democrats

.

.

.

:

Timothy

Raymond

B. Tyson, Democracy Betrayed, 76.

Gavins, "Fear, Hope, and Struggle:

Tracy Campbell

358

/

Deliver the Vote

Age of Jim Crow,"

Recasting Black North Carolina in the

in Cecelski

and

Tyson, Democracy Betrayed, 189. p.

105

Led by Waddell

.

.

R. D.

:

.

WiUiamson, The

273-74; Joel

106

In 1899,

.

.

.

:

Courier-Journal,

November

and Clarence Poe, The Life and Speeches

239; Timothy

of Charles Brantley Aycock,

p.

W. Connor

James C.

Klotter,

November

6, 7, 8,

Done Sign

William Goebel, 33-35, 46-49; Louisville

November 6 and

Origins of the New South, 377-79; Kentucky Irish-American, p.

107

Election

Evening

Day

itself

.

.

.

November

Post,

Cincinnati Enquirer,

:

8,

1899;

Woodward,

November

November

9,

William D.

and Mountain Bushwackers, 9-32. The Ken-

how papers

such as the pro-Democratic Courier-

Journal responded to close elections: "The Courier-Journal received just as the other newspapers did, fact p.

107

well

is

known

.

.

.

:

returns

full

and has withheld them from the pubUc. This

newspaperdom,

in

December 1899

In early

11, 1899.

1899; Louisville

11, 1899; Klotter, William Goebel, 86-91;

Forester, Flatland Election Thieves

tucky Irish-American explained

My Name,

1899; Louisville Evening Post, August 17 and

1899; Cincinnati Enquirer,

7,

B. Tyson, Blood

Crucible of Race, 195-96.

if

not by the pubUc" (November

December

Outlook,

7,

1899).

16, 1899; Louisville Courier-

Journal November 18 and December 8 and 12, 1899; Klotter, William Goebel 91-93. p.

108

By

the end of January

.

.

.

:

LouisvUle Courier-Journal, January

1900; Louisville Evening Post,

November

5,

17 and 21,

17, 1899; Klotter, William Goebel,

92-99. p.

108

On

morning of

the

.

.

Louisville Courier-Journal, ]2in.\idXY 31

:

.

and February

1,

1900; Klotter, William Goebel, 100-04. Although he was not in Frankfort at the

time of the shooting, Caleb Powers was indicted nation.

He was

tried three times, as

an accessory to the

as

assassi-

packed juries convicted him with often per-

jured testimony. Each time, the Court of Appeals threw out the decision, and a fourth

ended

trial

deadlock. In 1908, Republican Governor Augustus

in

WUlson pardoned Powers, who later served in

Congress. The question

Goebel remains unsolved. See

fired the shot that killed

as to

who

Klotter, William Goebel

114^25. p.

108

Both look,

the

sides

.

.

.

LouisviUe Courier-Journal, February

:

2, 3, 4,

and

15, 1900;

Out-

February 10, 1900; Klotter, William Goebel 105-14; Woodward, Origins of

New

South,

377-79. "Put a shirt"

.

.

.

:

New

York Times, February 9, 1900,

originally printed in the Lexington Leader, n.d.

Chapter Fht p.

113

"No people

p.

114

After Reconstruction tion,

.

.

."

Louisville .

.

.

Evening :

Post,

May 22,

1907.

Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Popula-

part I, box; George C. Wright, Life Behind a

"Louisville

Pohtics,

1966), 2-4.

See

1891-1897" (M.A.

also

thesis.

Veil,

68-72; James

T Wills,

University of Louisville,

Tracy A. Campbell, "Machine Pohtics, PoUce

Corruption, and the Persistence of Vote Fraud:

The Case of

the Louisville,

Endnotes

359

Kentucky Election of 1905 ," Journal of Policy History 15 (Summer 2003): 269-300. p.

114

Throughout the 1880s

M.

1887; Charlene

.

.

.

:

Louisville Courier-Journal,

December

Cornell, "Louisville in Transition: 1870-1890"

1,

6 and

(M.A.

University of Louisville, 1970), 93-100, 124-32. During the electoral

7,

thesis,

crisis fol-

lowing the 1876 presidential election, Henry Watterson's Courier-Journal, in the

Vann Woodward, was

estimation of C.

ward off

violent resistance to

the "strongest Southern exponent" of

RepubUcan

a

Woodward, Reunion and

victory.

Reaction, 110-11. p.

115

After reading

.

.

.

Louisville Courier-Journal, ]znuary 14

:

and December 5 and 20, 1888,

August

and 23, February 19

1888, and January 24, 1892; Nation,

6,

10, 1889, April 30,

December 13 and

October 22, 1891, and January 14 and Feb-

ruary 4, 1892; Cornell, "Louisville in Transition," 134; Fredman, The Australian Ballot,

Don't

Why Americans

31-32; Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward,

Writing

Vote.

in 1887,

William

M.

"would remove every one of the foundation stones that

lie at

the base of our

present organized political machinery." Ivins, Machine Politics Elections in

New

Still

Ivins claimed that a secret ballot

York City, 90-91, 119; Keyssar, The Right to

and Money

Vote,

in

142-43. In

1902, a European observer, Moisei Ostrogorski, noted the Australian system

end

"has, in fact, put an

practiced

on the

to the

open intimidation and

electors; the elections are

in an orderly manner."

Quoted

Arnaldo

in

to the coercion

which were

now, with few exceptions, conducted Testi,

"The Tribulations of an Old

Dtmocrzcj," Journal of American History 88 (September 2001): 422. In 1888, Massachusetts became the thirty other states p.

115

John WhaUen

.

.

first state

had followed .

Undated newspaper

:

Louisville Police Records, Filson

McCullough Scrapbook, Whallen's

to adopt the Australian ballot,

and by 1891

suit.

clipping,

J.

H. Haager Scrapbook,

Club Library; undated clipping from

Louisville

Hugh

PoHce Records, Filson Club Library. For

power, see Karen R. Gray and Sarah R. Yates, "Boss John

rise to

Whallen: The Early Louisville Years {1S76-1SS3)," Journal of Kentucky Studies (1984): 171-86; Karen R. Gray and Sarah R. Yates, "John Henry Whallen," in The Encyclopedia of

John Kleber,

ed..

December

1913; Kentucky Elk, n.d., Filson Club Clippings File; Wills,

4,

Louisville,

935; Cincinnati Enquirer,

"Louisville Politics," 29-31. See also Wright, Life Behind a

"The

Billy

Club and the

Ballot: Police Intimidation

Veil,

71-75; Wright,

of Blacks in Louisville,

Kentucky, 1880-1930," Southern Studies 23 (1984): 23. In the harsh winter of 1912, the Whallen brothers distributed over $10,000 in cash to needy Louisvillians. Louisville Times, p.

116

Louisville native

p.

116

In 1892

.

.

.

.-.The

.

.

:

February

7,

1912.

Arthur Krock, Myself When Young, 212-13.

Critic,

October

9,

1892; Louisville Post, October 12 and 15,

1892; Louisville Courier-Journal, October

4, 6,

The figure of who had voted for election. Gary M. Cox

11 and 14, 1892.

13,108 eligible Democratic voters was based on the number the Democratic

nominee

in the previous gubernatorial

360

Tracv Campbell

and

Morgan Kousser have noted

J.

temporar}' sources. partisan sources.

It is, after all,

Even

/

Deliver the Vote

the difficulty of locating vote fraud in con-

an

illegal activity'

legislative hearings

and

ripe for exploitation

by

and court records, they contend,

"were inherently biased, since the lawyers for each side were more interested in

making

a case for their clients than in dispassionatelv uncovering facts." In their

Cox and Kousser examined

study,

fortv'-eight local

so doing, they admitted to casting "a

newspapers in

New York. In

wide and lengthy research

and

net,

to

counteract the bias of individual papers and reporters" by balancing their respective ideological

651-53. In

and geographical persuasions. "Turnout and Rural Corruption," of Louisville, numerous newspaper accounts of various

this study

political persuasions, in addition to court

and pohce records, have been

in a similar effort to balance all possible partisan lovalties in order to

utilized

understand

the scale and scope of the local corruption.

In "The Effect of the Secret Ballot on Voter Turnout Rates," Jac C. Heck-

elman

asserts that within a "rational voter

framework," the secret ballot eUmi-

nated a market for buying votes, and therefore voters "were rational to stay away

from the poUs" (107). As the example of Louisville

affords, the secret ballot

eliminated no such market. In "Revisiting the Relationship Between Secret Ballots

and Turnout," Heckelman concludes that "income, rather than race or

eracy,

was the

crucial

that with a decreased abihtv to bribe voters, those of lesser to vote.

The

lit-

determinant for voting in secret ballot elections" (211), in

means were

less likely

case study of Louisville calls into question the entire evidentiary

base of such studies, which relv on voter turnout and not on the social reality

surrounding the poUs on Election Day. p.

117

WhaUen

reappeared

.

.

The

:

.

Courier-Journal concluded "the voters of

Louisville spoke in thunder tones against the continuance in office of the worst

administration with which this Journal,

November

cit}'

has ever been cursed." Louisville Courier-

1897; Wright, "The Billy Club and the Ballot," 26-27;

3,

Wills, "Louisville Politics," 117-118. p.

118

Without

the strong

William D.

arm

Miller,

169-70; Robert

M.

.

.

.

:

Zane MUler,

Memphis During

—

100-01, 141-45,

Fogelson, Big-City Police (Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 1977), 2-5, 33-34, 67-68; Cyril

Police

Boss Cox's Cincinnati, 93-96, 165-67;

the Progressive Era,

D. Robinson, "The Mayor and the

the Political Role of the Police in Society," in

Police Forces in History,

George L. Mosse,

ed.,

281-82, 295-97; for a wider discussion of the techniques

of police corruption, particularly the role of ward and precinct leaders in protection rackets, see V. O. Kev, Jr., "Police Gx'aSt," American Journal of Sociology

(March 1935): 624-36.

WhUe

Peter McCafiferv' writes that boss rule in Philadelphia was dependent trol over the process

practices."

40

not specifically discussing the role of the police,

on

its

of city elections, "through a variety of extralegal and

con-

illegal

McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia, 136-40; for an extended

discussion of the

methods of controlling votes

as well as the use

of police and

Endnotes

361

firefighters

on election

day, see

David Harold Kurtzman, "Methods of Con-

trolling Votes in Philadelphia" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsyl-

vania, 1935). p.

118

By 1900

.

.

.

Wright, Life Behind a

:

Veil,

186, 190; Ernest Collins,

"The

Polit-

Behavior of the Negroes in Cincinnati, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky"

ical

(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1950), 50. Within the 1891 Kentucky Constitutional debates, there was extended discussion of the secret ballot

and worries of election fraud, but no pubHc proclamations of the intentions to disfranchise African-Americans, such as occurred in

conventions. In

and took

numerous other southern

the framers were anxious not to disfranchise illiterate voters

fact,

The absence of such "legal" dismade the Democratic machine in

steps to ensure their suffrage rights.

franchisement schemes in Kentucky

Louisville especially willing to disfranchise African-Americans

p.

118

RepubUcans by

illegal

Pat Grimes

:

.

.

.

and well-to-do

means on Election Day.

Undated chppings, Haager Scrapbook, Filson Club;

Louisville

Times, n.d. p.

118

when it became Louisville Courier-Journal, November 10 and 11, 1899; Two Hundred Years at the Falls ofthe Ohio, 147. Future Kentucl^^ Governor Augustus Willson was one of the members of the League who did not support

Yet

.

.

.

:

Yater,

violence, but called attention to the Declaration of Independence

of the people to

added

"I

do not

'you have

The

gone

believe in violence, but far

and the right

reform, or aboUsh" any form of government. Willson

"alter,

enough!'

I

would say

to

Goebel and

his followers,

"

evidence of Whallen's compHcity in Goebel's murder was very thin.

few weeks before the assassination, he allegedly attempted to bribe state senator to

A

Kentucky

a

oppose Goebel's contest. Whallen repUed that he had merely

given the senator $5,000 "to act according to what he represented to be the true dictates

of his conscience." Also, a significant aspect of Goebel's election contest

concerned the election proceedings in Louisville, where Whallen was mentioned specifically as an "agent" of the

L

&N Railroad. Klotter, William Goebel,

46-48, 93-95; see also Urey Woodson, The First New Dealer, 208-12. p.

119

An election

in

1903

.

.

.

:

Speech of Marshall Bulhtt before the Kentucky Court

of Appeals, 1905 Election Speeches, BuUitt Family Papers, Filson Club. Louisville Evening-Post, October 10 and

After the 1903 election,

Thomas W.

Bullitt

Oxmoor

collection,

November 3 and

and Judge

W.

4,

1903.

O. Harris issued a

report finding "there was a preconceived plan to subvert the will of the electors

and p.

119

to prevent a fair election."

With

Robert W. Bingham to undisclosed person, August W. Bingham Papers, Filson Club Library, Louisville; 14 and 18, 1905; Louisville Evening-Post, May 23, 1907.

the 1903 election

10, 1905,

.

.

.

:

box 30, Robert

Louisville Herald, July

In Political Corruption in America, George C. election frauds occur in areas of one-party

S.

Benson concludes

that "most

dominance" (169). For an extended

Tracy Campbell

362

of various

analysis

H.

Argersinger,

on the

'A Place

"

by the major

as the efforts

Ballot':

Deliver the Vote

sought to upset the existing two-

political insurgencies that

weU

party system, as

/

parties to

end them,

see Peter

Fusion Politics and Antifiision Laws,"

American Historical Review 85 (AprU 1980): 287-306. For an example of the success of flisionists in nearby Cincinnati, see

Zane MiUer,

Boss Cox's Cincinnati,

165-67. p.

120

When

made

challenges were

.

.

.

:

Scholl v. Bell, no.

volume

no. 41524, Jefferson Circuit Court,

Helm Bruce

accused

Helm

Clark,

Wilson,

v.

91-93, Special

to as Scholl

v. Bell).

appeal to the Kentucky Court of

October

Bruce, Public Defender, 32-34;

Upon

27-28.

him of hiring

of social history that contains

own words how an

in their

Louisville Evening-Post,

systematically stolen.

Ballot,"

's

It is a rare piece

hundreds of LouisvUle citizens stating

and the

vol. Ill,

comprises thousands of pages of detailed sworn testimony

as such,

concerning the 1905 election.

Thomas D.

41519, and Peter

16-17, 46,

Kentucky (hereinafter referred

Collections, University of

This case formed the core of

Appeals and,

1,

repeaters

election

4 and

3,

5,

was

1905;

Wright, "The Billy Club

reading that the Louisville Evening-Post had

from

St.

Louis, John

Whallen promptly charged

the paper with slander and sued for $25,000 in damages. p.

121

Roman Leachman

.

.

.

Louisville Evening-Post,

:

Irish-American, October 14, 1905;

J. F. Bullitt to

18, 1905, file 308, Bullitt Papers; Yater,

Ohio, 147-48. McAuliffe

1906

Two Hundred

was dismissed from the

unbecoming an

for "conduct

October 20, 1905; Kentucky

Thomas W.

Bullitt,

October

Years at the Falls of the

Louisville police force in April

Force Book, 24,

officer." Louisville Police

Louisville Police Records.

Ward

p.

121

In the Tenth

p.

121

Charles Schuff

.

.

.

.

.

.

:

Scholl v. Bell, vol. V, 31-35.

Scholl v. Bell, vol.

:

1,

231-44;

vol. II,

292-93. For an extended

of turn-of-the-century methods of disfranchising African-Americans

analysis

and thereby diminishing Republican Shaping of Southern

Cox and

Politics.

totals in

Southern

states, see

Kousser, The

Kousser, "Turnout and Rural Corruption,"

655, discuss the process of paying people not to vote as a form of vote-buying. p.

122

Of 356

p.

122

Bank

election officers

records

.

.

.

.

.

.

:

Scholl

v. Bell, vol. I,

Scholl v. Bell, vol.

:

erably smaller, totaling $23,078.09,

day costs, and $6,120.70

I,

230-31.

634.

The

Fusionist fund was consid-

which included $3,100.00

much

a comparison, James Bryce wrote in the early 1900s that "as

was being spent on ican

a congressional race in

Commonwealth,

vol. II, 148.

Nearly

suitable candidacy for U.S. Senate in

Southern

Politics,

for registration-

for election-day expenses. Scholl v. Bell, vol. IX, 1-3.

New York. James

fifty years later, V.

As

$50,000"

Bryce, The Amer-

O. Key found that

South Carolina had

to

a

spend $50,000.

465.

p.

123

Fred R. Bishop

p.

123

The manner in which Scholl v. Bell, vol. 1, 202-03; Louisville November 6, 1905; Clark, Helm Bruce, Public Defender, 36-38.

.

as

.

.

:

Scholl v. Bell, vol. II, 190, .

.

.

:

197-99. Evening-Post,

'

Endnotes

p.

123

"whatever they

say".

363

."laying around": Scholl v. Bell, vol.

.

I,

204-09. For other

examples of election fraud in Kentucky, see Malcolm E. Jewell and Everett

Cunningham, Kentucky Simpson, Dirty p.

124

298-300.

Little Secrets,

After acquiring

.

.

.

Scholl

:

W.

16-18, 30-37, 53-71, 225-33, and Sabato and

Politics,

v. Bell, vol. I,

446-59;

vol. V,

196-97; Louisville

Evening-Post, October 2, 1905; City of Louisville, Board oi Aldtrmtn, Annual

Report for 1905, 413-14; Speech of Marshall BuUitt before Kentucky Court of Appeals, Bullitt Papers; "Louisville Election Contest Cases: Report of James

P.

Helm, Chairman of the Committee of One Hundred," pamphlet, Filson Club; 586-87.

Scholl V. Bell, vol. II, p.

p.

124

On

125

Movement," The Encyclopedia of Louisville, 325. When the poUs opened Scholl v. Bell, vol. VI, 1-5, 125-29, 289-93, 381-87,

election eve

.

.

.

.

.

125

Ward Tenth Ward

In the Sbcth

.

.

p.

125

In the

p.

126

B.

p.

126

In the Twelfth

p.

126

Throughout the day

p.

127

While

M.

Rivers

.

.

.

:

.

Scholl

:

.

.

.

127

Ward

Fusionists

.

.

7,

v. Bell, vol. Ill,

.

.

.

Scholl

:

.

.

.

128

723-25.

v. Bell, vol.

November

LouisviUe Evening-Post,

:

368-72.

IX, 250-56.

November 7 and

amendment was

Leading the Fusionist campaign

.

.

.

:

November

11, 1905. Ironically,

on the November 1905

also

11, 1905;

8 and 9, 1905.

have banned the Australian ballot, but p.

179-86.

Louisville Evening-Post,

:

V, 272-73;

V, 102-20.

Scholl v. Bell, vol. VII,

:

vol.

1905.

Scholl v. Bell, vol.

:

...

.

Calling themselves a constitutional

299-304, 366, 682-84;

II,

Scholl v. Bell, vol. II,

Louisville Courier-Journal, p.

vol.

November

Louisville Evening-Post,

Bruce, Public Defender, 35-36; "Fusionist

:

.

555-63, 700-02, 823-29;

p.

Helm

Clark,

:

it

Helm

Want?" September 26, 1917, pamphlet

ballot that

would

was defeated. Bruce,

"What Kind of City Do You

at the Filson

Club

Library.

William

Marshall Bullitt was appointed U.S. SoHcitor General by President Taft in 1912. p.

128

At

the beginning

700-02;

.

p.

128

"frauds perpetrated"

p.

129

In

March 1907

.

.

.

.

Scholl v. Bell, vol. XI, 1-5,

:

125-29, 289-93, 381-87,

1-42, 128-29; vol. V, 423-24.

vol. XIII,

.

:

.

.

.

:

Louisville Evening-Post,

November

Louisville Election Contest Case,

13, 1905.

"Opinion of Chancellors

Miller and Kirby, April 16, 1907," Filson Club; "Twelve Plain Facts

Whallen and Judge Miller

—Their Relations

for

About Col.

Twenty Years," Bingham Mis-

cellaneous Files, Bullitt Papers. Outlook,]unt 15, 1907, 306-07. In 1910, as head

of the Democratic Committee, Whallen chose Miller to replace Judge Henry

S.

Barker on the Kentucky Court of Appeals. Barker had decided against the

Democrats Clark, p.

129

"We

in the

Helm

1905 contest

case; LouisviUe Evening-Post,

March

23, 1907;

Bruce, Public Defender, 44-49.

have the best election laws"

.

.

.

:

Louisville Courier-Journal, January 13,

1906. p.

130

"When

the Apostle Paul"

.

.

.

:

Speech of Marshall

Bullitt, n.d., Bullitt Papers.

Tracy Campbell

364

p.

130

Bullitt presented

p.

131

On May

.

.

.

22, 1907

Louisville Evening-Post, April 18, 1907.

:

.

.

.

May 22, 1907; Louisville May 23, 1907; Outlook,]\int

Louisville Evening-Post,

:

May 23,

Courier-Journal,

Deliver the Vote

/

1907; Louisville Herald,

306-07; Clark, Helm Bruce, Public Defender, 49-51, 84-85; Scholl

15, 1907,

XIII, 23-50. Judge Lassing noted that had the disfranchised voters

Bell, vol.

v. all

voted for the defeated candidates in the various municipal races, "they would

have been elected by majorities ranging from 3,425 to 5,332"(50). In Februarv 1907, the Court of Appeals invalidated an election in rural

on grounds of vote

Princeton, Kentucky

fraud. Louis\'ille Evening-Post, Feb-

ruarv 22 and 23, 1907. Writing for the majority. Judge Henn.' that the court understood

work" of there

was

"ought not, for light and

it

the voters, but if sufficient e\ddence a fiindamental principle at stake:

equal, the democratic principle

name

will exist in p.

131

Ellis,

133

Orr

Bingham

.

.

is

.

undo the

warranted such drastic action,

"Whenever elections

are not free

and

dead, and the republican form of government

Kevil et al, 100 S.W. 314.

et al. v.

Governor J. C. W. Beckham 22, 1907,

p.

onlv."

Barker wrote

S.

trivial causes,

Robert W. Bingham to Bon Robinson, August

:

Papers; Louisville Evening-Post, ]une 27, 1907; William E.

Robert Worth Bingham and the Southern Mystique, 31-48.

The day before Bingham Papers; .

.

.

Bingham

:

Louisville

Louisville Evening-Post,

November

Eames MacVeagh, August

to

November

Courier-Journal,

November

1,

2, 3

and

1,

8,

1910, box 34,

3 and 4, 1909;

1909; Louisville Herald,

5,

15, 1909; Kentucky Irish-American, October 30, 1909;

Robert

Ellis,

Worth Bingham and the Southern Mystique, 42-48; Yater, Two Hundred Years at the Falls of the Ohio, 149-52;

ran for a seat

on the

Wright, Life Behind a

state court

African- Americans from registering. is

won, but tory

Bingham

Bingham wrote Governor Augustus

true,"

for the

won by

November

most general and

such methods

Veil,

190-92. When Bingham

of appeals in 1910, Whallenites forcibly kept lost the race

flagrant intimidation

and

always very dearly bought."

is

22, 1910, box 34,

Bingham

Courier-Journal and was appointed

by 1,600

E. WiUson, "that

Papers.

Ambassador

bribery,

Bingham

Bingham

to the

votes. "It

we should have

later

Court ot

and a

to

vic-

WiUson,

bought the St.

James by

Franklin D. Roosevelt. p.

134

By 1908

.

.

.

:

Louisville Police

FUson Club; Robert Police

From

Cusick,

48-51.

One

Histor}' of the Louisville Division of

(M.A.

thesis. University

officer involved in the vote corruption, Lt.

home of the

honorar)' pallbearer at James 16, 1930; Krock,

134

"The

of

James

Kinnarney, resigned in July 1907 and later became chief of the special police

of Churchill Downs,

p.

Department Records, Force Book, 1904-21,

Jr.,

the Founding of the City to 1955"

Louisville, 1964),

W.

I.

Kentuck\^ Derby. In 1930, Kinnarney was an

WhaUen's

frineral. Louisville

In 1923 and 1925

.

.

.

:

Louisville Courier-Journal,

November

1923, Januar}' 29 and 30, 1924, June 13, 1925,

December

Herald-Post,

March

Myself When Young, 138.

11, 1925, Januarv'

7, 15, 19,

November

1,

4,

and 22, and

28 and 29, Februar}- 4 and 26, 1926, and June

19, 18,

Endnotes

36 5

1927; David R. Castleman, "Louisville Election Frauds in Court and Out,"

National Municipal Review, December 1927, 761-69; 1927;

New York Evening

New York

Times, June 16,

June 16, 1927.

World,

Chapter Six p.

136

In 1905,

"Rhode

.

.

.

Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the

:

A

Island:

Cities,

198, 203; Steffens,

State for Sale," McClure's Magazine, February 1905.

E. L. Godkin's critiques of Gilded

Age American

politics

lems of Modern Democracy, and The Triumph of Reform:

Nov.

Political Revolution,

6,

Some of

can be found in Prob-

A History

1894 (New York: Souvenir, 1895). See

of the Great also

John D.

Buenker, "The Politics of Resistance:

The Rural-Based Yankee Republican

Machines of Connecticut and Rhode

Island,"

New

England Quarterly (June

1974), 212-37. p.

137

New Jersey, for example tory of Voting in New Jersey, .

p.

138

p.

139

Although the

p.

140

One

Hearst's father

W.

.

.

.

:

Kelly, Election

Day, 174-75; McCormick, The His-

200-06; Keyssar, The Right

to Vote,

150-51.

David Nasaw, The Chief 67-142, 160-67, 180-83, 194-99;

:

.

.

A. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst, 204-223.

New York Times, November 7, 1905. New York Times, November 8, 1905; Nasaw, The

of money

role

newspaper

city

.

.

:

.

.

.

.

:

Chief,

198-99; Mrs. Fremont Older, Willia?n Randolph Hearst, American, 281-85.

The

1905 election coincided with the publication of Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, a candid appraisal of some of the inner workings of the machine. In G. Plunkitt

s

view, votes needed to be seen as "marketable goods," and the

W.

more one

could deliver to the machine, the more valuable he became. Plunkitt 's candor

was defeated

backfired, as he

for reelection to the

Tammany Democracy district

leadership in that election. See William L. Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall,

34-35, 52-53. p.

140

By

p.

141

"the dignity of"

p.

141

The

p.

141

An unusual voice Origins of the New

night's

142

... .

:

.

.

following day .

Tiger, p.

end

.

.

New York Times, November 8, 1905; Nasaw, The Chief 199. New York Times, November 9, 1905. New York Times, November 10, 1905. New York Times, November 11 and 14, 1905; Woodward, :

.

.

.

:

:

South, 324;

Harold C.

Syrett, ed..

The Gentleman and the

227-28.

On November 27

...

:

New York Times, November 28

and December

14,

27 and

28, 1905. p.

143

Once

again

.

.

.

:

New

York Times,

May

29 and 30 and June

2, 25, 26,

and 27,

Nasaw erroneously concludes "There was no recount" of the 1905 mayoral election. While it did not happen until the summer of 1908, a recount actually occurred. Nasaw was correct in noting that "Tammany 1908. In his book, David

Hall got away with robbery" in defrauding Hearst of the mayor's office in 1905.

Nasaw, The Chief 200. p.

144

The

price of a vote

.

.

.

:

Genevieve B. Gist, "Progressive Reform

Community: The Adams County Vote-Fraud Case," Mississippi

in a

Rural

Valley Historical

Tracy Campbell

366

The Century 44 (October 1892), 940-945; A. Z.

How We

Sellers:

Deliver the Vote

W. Jenks, "Money

Review (June 1961): 62-63; Jeremiah Rural Vote

/

Blair,

in Practical Politics,"

"Seventeen Hundred

Disfranchised a Quarter of the Voting Population

of Adams County, Ohio," McClure's Magazine (November 1911), 35. p.

144

Blair

found

.

.

"Seventeen Hundred Rural Vote

Blair,

:

.

Reform

gressive

Sellers," 38; Gist,

"Pro-

Community," 66-67; Cincinnati Enquirer, December

in a Rural

24, 1910. p.

145

"It

p.

146

"Many

has been"

.

.

.

December

Cincinnati Enquirer,

:

people sold their vote"

Good

Roosevelt, "Applied

.

.

.

:

26, 30, and 31, 1910.

Literary Digest, February 4, 1911;

Citizenship," Outlook,

nati Enquirer, January 4, 1911. In 1913, the

November

Ohio

Theodore

11, 1911; Cincin-

legislature passed a bill

Adams County who had lost it during the Governor James B. Cox (the Democratic nominee for presi-

restoring the franchise to those in

vote-fraud

trials.

dent in 1920) vetoed the biU, saying that only the chief executive had the conright

stitutional

Community," p.

147

Writing

grant pardons. Gist, "Progressive

to

Reform

in

Rural

a

77.

Court

for the

.

.

.

:

U.S. v. Moseley

Roberts to A. O. Stanley, June 20, 1915, box

238 U.S. 383 (1915); 3,

Donn M.

A.O. Stanley Papers, Special

Collections, University of Kentucky; Neiv York Times, January 2, 6 and 13, and

March p.

148

10, 1915.

Roberts allegedly

.

November 1923

p.

149

In

p.

152

Literacy

p.

152

In the early 1900s Suffrage

p.

152

.

.

New York

:

and 20, 1915; Frank

13,

.

.

.

:

tests, poll taxes, .

.

.

.

.

.

:

.

.

.

and 21, and April

2, 4, 7,

1915, Stanley Papers.

Times, January 20, 1924.

Chapman

Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler,

Keyssar, The Right to

Sara Hunter Graham,

:

11, 12,

May 26,

Keyssar, The Right to Vote, 128-29.

and Politics, 170-73, 186-87;

In a Texas

March

to Stanley,

New York

Carrie

:

Times,

Roby

S.

Woman

Vote,

Suffage and the

Woman

194.

New Democracy,

71-72, 133-34. p.

153

In Florida

.

.

.

Ortiz, Emancipation Betrayed, 191-228. For a portrait of the

:

ways white supremacists fought

to curtail the black vote in Detroit, see

Kevin

Boyle's miignificent Arc ofJustice, 250-53. p.

154

Between 1789

.

.

RoweU, J Historical and Legal Digest, 510-1901; Neil Mac-

:

.

NeU, Forge of Democracy, 135-36; George B. Galloway, History of the House of Representatives, 32-33; p.

154

Senate contests election only

the

.

when

historian with level,

.

.

New York

Times, February 27, 1921.

Losing candidates usually contested a House or Senate

:

the margins were close.

While

some remarkable evidence about

these contests provide the

election fraud at the

ground

contested elections should not be used as an accurate barometer to analyze

full

extent of fraud in a given era.

"Contested elections

may

As

the historian

Mark Summers

notes,

underestimate the number of cases in which fraud

played a role in defeating one candidate.

As long

as

one side

won

handily, the

other was discouraged from bringing formal charges that might suUy but could

not change the overall

result."

Summers, Party Games, 114-15.

Endnotes

p.

155

367

One

of he most famous

Wendy

Butler and

156

.

New

:

.

York Times,

December

Anne M.

16, 1926;

323-25.

Cases, p.

.

Wolff, United States Senate Election, Expulsion, and Censure

In several Philadelphia wards

.

.

Samuel J. Astorino, "The Contested Senate

:

.

Election of WUliam Scott Vare," Pennsylvania History 28 (April 1961): 192-93;

p.

156

Maynard C. Krueger, "Election Frauds in Philadelphia," National Municipal Review (May 1928): 295-97; McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia, 137-39. The committee stated Butler and Wolff, United States Senate Election, .

and Censure

Expulsion,

.

.

:

328-29. Following the Senate vote on Vare and

Cases,

Wilson, Governor Fisher appointed Joseph R. Grundy to p.

157

In 1924

.

.

sure Cases, p.

158

.

and Cen-

312-14.

In a 1930 Democratic primary tion,

fiU the vacancy.

Butler and Wolff, United States Senate Election, Expulsion,

:

and Censure

Expulsion,

.

:

.

.

Butler and Wolff, United States Senate Elec-

342-45.

Cases,

highlighted in the Senate's dismissal of

Lyndon Johnson

The Heflin and Bankhead case was Coke Stevenson's contest against

1948 Texas Democratic primary runoff race.

in the

Chapter Seven p.

161

Democrats claimed

.

.

.

:

M. Rudwick, Race Riot in East St. Louis, 4, 7-15, St. Louisans ignored their own role in elec-

Elliot

184-89. Rudwick notes that white

by 1917

tion fraud, so that

New York

p.

In a 1922

p.

162

The overwhelming problem

p.

163

"not Hable

Box 163

.

:

.

.

.

.

.

St.

:

Louis Post-Dispatch, August 16, 1935.

Franklin Roosevelt to Bernard Dickmann, February 19, 1934,

:"

.

Memorial Archives,

Louis (here-

St.

JNEMA).

In July 1934

of the

(10).

Times, January 13, 1924.

48, Jefferson National Expansion

inafter p.

.

.

and vote fraud appeared synonomous"

"race

161

St.

.

.

.

W.

:

C. Bernard, "A Comprehensive Program for Reclamation

Louis Riverfront, to be Effected

of a Riverview Freeway, 1934," Bernard

By

the Construction and Operation

F Dickmann

Papers,

Box

2,

Western

Historical Manuscript Collection, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia. p.

164

As

saw

the city leaders

May

Louis Star-Times,

it

.

.

.

:

13, 1935.

Louis Post-Dispatch, August 16, 1935;

St.

Members of the Memorial Commission

Louis were representative of the

city's financial elite:

the presidents of three

major banks, the manager of the Railway Exchange Building, and Louis mayor. p.

165

"You 3,

Louis Star-Times,

St.

are familiar".

.

.

Wade T.

:

May

165

"also a real estate".

p.

166

One group

former

Childress to Russell Murphy, July 26, 1935,

.

.

.

:

.

.

St.

:

St.

Box

Louis Post-Dispatch, August 9 and 16, 1935.

St.

Louis Post-Dispatch, September 5 and

Ward, "Washington Weekly," Nation, March 167

a

16, 1935.

JNEMA.

p.

p.

St.

in St.

4,

ciation Pamphlet, Clifford

Greve Papers, Missouri Historical

"The Shylocks of finance

.

.

.":

News

Release from

National Memorial Files, Special Collections,

6,

1935; Paul

W.

1936; Taxpayers Defense Asso-

St.

W.

Society, St. Louis.

C. D'Arcy,

n.d., Jefferson

Louis Public Library.

"

Tracy Campbell

368

p.

167

"take charge".

/

Deliver the Vote

."property owners": Bertha K. Passure to Luther Ely Smith, June

.

JNEMA; "Excerpts of Minutes of Board of Directors of Chamber of Commerce, June 4, 1935," JNEMA; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 23, 1935.

29, 1935,

home owners

p.

167

"wreck

p.

158

A pamphlet

.

.

.

.":

.

Louis Post-Dispatch, September

St.

Joseph Harris

.

et

August 30, 1935. Labor support

ment of the p.

168

"We

to

St.

for the

bond

.

.

1936.

issue can be seen in the endorse2, 1935.

September

St. Louis Post-Dispatch,

.":

9,

JNEMA, n.d., JNEMA; St. Louis Argus,

Louis Union Labor Advocate, September

know

will

al.

8,

1935;

St.

Louis

Globe-Democrat, August 29, 1935. p.

169

The Chamber of Commerce

.

.

.

:

St.

Louis Chamber of Commerce, "Down-

town Riverfront Occupancy Survey, August 1935," John G. Marr n.d.,

tions,

Andrews

1935,

A

9,

Political scientist

170

Louis Post-

Lana Stein concluded

St.

that Dick-

merely "successfully urged city voters to pass the bond referendum," the

usual description of the electoral politics. Stein,

p.

St.

1935; April Lee Hamel, "The Jefferson National

Depression Relief Project" (Ph.D. dissertation,

Louis University, 1983), 56.

St.

v. Ickes, JNEMA; Bond Issue JNEMA; 3,

in Baiter

Box

CoUege of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio;

Library,

September 4 and

Expansion Memorial:

mann

9,

scrapbook one, Paul O. Peters Collection, box 21, Special Collec-

News,

Dispatch,

Murphy, April

to Russell

St.

Louis

Politics,

32-34. See also

Louis Star-Times, September 10, 1936.

A crucial moment

.

.

Louis Post-Dispatch, September 10 and 11, 1935;

St.

:

.

St.

Louis Globe-Democrat, September 11, 1935. p.

170

The

relative

p.

171

One

such precinct

September 13, 1935, p.

171

The

calm

.

.

.

St.

:

Louis Post-Dispatch, September 11 and 12, 1935.

."more valuable": Mrs. Charles CarnaH to Russell Murphy,

.

.

JNEMA; William

13, 1935,

D'Arcy

to E.

Lansing Ray, September

box 71, JNEMA.

Citizens' Non-Partisan

.

.

.

:

Paul O. Peters to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sep-

tember 24, 1936, box 21, Peters Collection; "Public Necessity or Just Plain Pork?," scrapbook 2, Peters Collection; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 22, Sep-

tember

8,

9 and 11, 1936. Roosevelt turned the matter over to the Justice

Department, where Assistant Attorney General Joseph B. Keenan responded that he referred

Administration

to the "investigating division of the Federal

it

Emergency

.

p.

172

In one barbershop

p.

173

"Ward and

p.

174

"Irregularity seemed".

.

.

.

precinct"

:

.

.

.

Louis Post-Dispatch, July 23 and 28, 1936.

St. .

St.

:

.

St.

:

Louis Post-Dispatch, July 23, 1936. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 24 and September 12,

1936. p.

175

Not

p.

175

p.

176

p.

176

By the end of July St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 31, 1936. The details of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 10, 1936. "One of the Democratic". ."number of votes": St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August

surprisingly

.

.

.

.

.

St.

:

.

.

.

.

Louis Post-Dispatch, July 25, 26, and 27, 1936.

:

:

.

4 and September 10, 1936.

Endnotes

p.

177

369

To Chairman Waechter and September 9 and

p.

178

Yet the grand jury

and September

.

.

.

.

.

.

Louis Post-Dispatch, August

St.

:

17, 1937; St. Louis Star-Times,

"The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial," p.

179

The

project stalled

.

.

.

the Jefferson National Expansion

of Patience, Perseverance, and Determination," Cherry

Ickes,

JNEMA Vertical Files; Harold

in

489; Cary

Schneider, "St. Louis

Louis Post-Dispatch, December

"The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial," supporters of the memorial

.

.

William Allen White, June

1936; Hamel,

4,

98.

the result": Paul O. Peters to Luther

."affect

Ely Smith, November 26, 1936, December to

M.

A Case History of an Urban Icon" (Honors Paper, Cor-

nell College, 1970), 18. St.

Smith

1933-1980"

to Thirty Years

and the Gateway Arch:

The

Site,

Louis University, 1983), 24-26; Dickson Terry, "A Mon-

L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L.

180

Memorial: Developing

a

Memorial National Historic

Diamond, Missouri Athletic Club (Sept. 1964),

p.

Hamel,

10, 1936;

St.

(Ph.D. dissertation,

ument

September

94.

Sharon A. Brown, "Making

:

and 20

Louis Post-Dispatch, December 12, 17, and 23, 1936,

St.

:

6, 14, 15,

September 22, 1936.

18, 1936; Washington Post,

9,

1936, Greve Papers; Luther Ely

Greve Papers;

16, 1937,

St.

Louis Post-

Dispatch, January 14, 1937. p.

181

Peters's

attempt

p.

182

The

p.

182

In

p.

183

Most

.

.

.

court declared

May

1938

New York Times,

:

April 10, August 18, 1936; Baiter in

JNEMA.

March

29, 1937.

Court of Appeals, Washington, D.C.,

no. 6827, U.S.

.

.

.-.St.

Louis Post-Dispatch,

...-.St. Louis Post-Dispatch,

substantial group

.

.

.

May 21, 22,

v. Ickes,

and 23, 1938.

"Property Holdings of Opponents to the Jefferson

:

National Expansion Memorial, Including Owners, Lessees, and Tenants," June 1,

p.

183

1934, Greve Papers.

One member

of Congress

1st Session, 1937, 4518,

April 19, 1939; a

St.

.

.

.

:

Congressional Record, vol. 81, 75th Congress,

8117-18; Appendix, 1806;

St.

Louis Globe-Democrat,

Louis Star-Times, September 10, 1936; Brown, "Making

Memorial," 61-62; James Neal Primm, Lion of the

Lambertson

called

Valley,

452-54. Rep.

an investigation of the entire Jefferson National

for

Expansion Memorial, but the House did not even take action on suggested that

if

the memorial was built, a special

structed "to exhibit

He

then

also

con-

it.

room should be

the historical documents and evidences of fraud and

all

corruption." p.

184

In order to understand Jefferson

JNEMA; "St. 71, JNEMA. p.

185

.

.

.

:

"Meeting of the

St.

Louis Real Estate Board and

National Expansion Memorial Association, January 21,

Louis Real Estate Exchange, September

Real estate companies owned

.

.

.

:

Ralph

W.

5,

1935,"

1935 Resolution," Box

Coale, Assessor,

"Combined

Assessments on Ground and Improvements on Real Estate Located Between

Eads Bridge, Poplar

Street,

1934," Greve Papers; Legal

Third

Street,

and the Mississippi

Committee Memo,

n.d.,

JNEMA.

River,

June

1,

Tracv Campbell

370

p.

186

"Real estate men".

p.

186

"Whereas the

St.

:

.

.

.":

.

JNEMA;

olution,"

1939;

.

cit}'

Louis Globe-Democrat, August 29, 1935. Louis Real Estate Exchange, January 23, 1936, Res-

"St.

Louis Post-Dispatch, Februar)' 10 and June

St.

The

Louis Star-Times, February 14, 1939.

5^.

Deliver the Vote

/

1,

19 and 22,

appraisers of the property

were appointed by the federal courts, and were composed primarily of attorneys

and

The

real estate agents.

Interior

condemned

final price for the

Department eventually purchased the prop-

which was 11.2 percent greater than the assessed value. The

erty for $5,970,000,

between the warring factions

was

propert}'

bond

in the

a source of considerable debate

issue.

Paul Peters claimed the prop-

erty would cost a staggering S27.5 million, while supporters were

more

saying in 1935 the propertv' was worth S5.7 million. "Bulletin to

August 29, 1935, Greve Papers;

Special Committee,"

accurate,

Members of

Louis Star-Times,

St.

August 24, 1935. p.

187

Despite the claims

.

Louis Commerce, J2inmr\' 10, 1940; Hamel, "The Jef-

.: St.

.

ferson National Expansion Memorial," 129-30. p.

187

One was A. W.

Albrecht

.

.

:

.

p.

188

Mrs. Elsa Pappas

p.

188

After World

.

War

.

:

.

II

4,

1936.

Louis Post-Dispatch, June 21, 1939.

St.

...

Congressional Record, vol. 81, 75th Congress, 1st

March

Session, 1937, 8118; Nation,

New York

:

and October 24 and

Times, June 15, 1941,

29, 1965. p.

189

Once

November

again ...-.St. Louis Globe-Democrat,

9,

1966,

March

8, 9,

1967.

Cii\PTER Eight p.

193

When

Jim died

.

.

.

:

Rudolph H. Hartmann, The Kansas City

M.

11-13, 58-59; Maurice

Investigations,

Milligan, Missouri Waltz, 169-203; see also John

Gunther, Inside U.SJl., 344-48. p.

194

Like

big city bosses

all

Hamby, Man of the

.

.

.

St.

:

Louis Post-Dispatch, July 26, 1936; Alonzo L.

102-03; Roy

People,

^Missouri" (Ph.D. dissertation,

Ellis,

Columbia

"A Civic

Histor)' of Kansas Cit\',

University', 1930),

231-33; Lyle

W.

Dorsett, The Pendergast Machine, 59-61. p.

p.

Robert H. FerreU, Truman and Pendergast, 26-30; David

194

Truman's victory

195

McCuUough, Truman, 211-12; Richard 176; Hamby, Man of the People, 195-96. The details Kansas City Star, March .

.

.

.

.

.

:

:

(Kansas) Traveler,

March

S.

Kirkendall,

Kansas

p.

196

September 3 and

In the general election Post-Dispatch,

Truman

also

.

December

and 28, 1934; Arkansas

6, 7, 27,

cit\'

Eugene Rippert resigned

Cir\' police chief

.

.

:

17,

4,

finds

to

in late

March 1934;

St.

Louis

St.

Louis

1936.

FerreU,

Truman and

Pendergast, 40—43;

1936 and Februar)- 17 and 24, 1937. As senator,

worked unsuccessfliUy

it

Cit)'

Due

voters during the election,

to block MiUigan's

District Attorney; Milligan, Missouri Waltz, 160. In

Hambv

History of Missouri,

31, 1934; Milligan, Missouri Waltz, 138-44.

extensive criticism of his inability to protect

Post-Dispatch,

A

"realistic to obser\'e that

Man

appointment

as U.S.

of the People, Alonzo

the percentages had

some connection

Endnotes

371

and esteem that Truman and Cochran had achieved

to the respect

To

bailwicks. (196)"

vote takes the notion of "respect and esteem" to p.

197

In a 1946

.

.

.

:

Kansas City

Star,

new

198

home city

heights.

September 29 and 30 and October

1946; "The Kansas City, Missouri Primary Election of 1946,"

p.

in their

Cochran winning 98.9 percent of the Kansas

describe

1, 7,

Tom

and

12,

C. Clark

Papers, Harry

S.

Truman

His brother,

.

Hearings Before the Special Committee of Campaign Expenditures,

.

.

:

Presidential Library, Independence, Missouri.

United States Senate, 72nd Congress, 2nd Session (hereinafter referred to

as the

Overton Hearings), 792-800; Robert SherriU, Gothic

South,

20;

Politics in the

Deep

Glen Jeansonne, Leander Perez, 71-72.

p.

199

Long's support

p.

199

As

p.

199

a

.

.

.

Jeansonne, Leander Perez,

:

freshman senator,

Expulsion,

and Censure

.

.

.

Cases,

Broussard's specific charges

.

xvi,

69-74, 99-100.

Butler and Wolff, United States Senate Election,

:

T Harry Williams, Huey Long,

351-52; .

.

604-05.

Overton Hearings, 16-17, 138, 967; Buder and

:

Wolff, United States Senate Election, Expulsion, and Censure Cases, 353; Williams,

Huey Long 607-09. p.

201

In

November 1932,

.

.

.

Overton Hearings, 2710-28; Williams, Huey Long,

:

654-55. p.

201

The Louisiana Attorney General

.

.

.

:

Overton Hearings, 2726-28; Williams,

Huey Long, 655-57. p.

202

When

the jury

George Guion

.

to

.

.

Warren O. Coleman

:

to R. Whitley,

Warren O. Coleman, August

LSU; Overton

File, Special Collections,

25, 1934, in

August 27, 1934;

Huey

P.

Hearings, 2728; Williams,

Long FBI

Huey Long,

657-58. p.

202

Meanwhile, a new grand jury

.

.

.

:

Washington Herald, December

7,

1933;

Williams, Huey Long, 658-59. p.

204

By

the end of 1934

12, 1934, p.

204

The Honest

205

In 1934

.

.

205

Adam

206

United for California

As

the Depression

Leader,

:

November

File,

.

Times, .

:

.

New York .

.

5,

.

:

.

to Marvin H. Mclntyre, September LSU; Williams, Huey Long 660.

.

.

:

Pamela Tyler,

Silk Stockings

and Democracy,

and Ballot Boxes,

35.

Greg Mitchell, The Campaign of the

Century,

August 29, 1934.

Greg Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 366, Times, October 25, November 4, 7, 8, 1934.

Louisville Courier-Journal,

6 and

A New History ofKentucky, taineers,

Edgar Hoover

J.

Fairclough, Race

New York

407, 427, 476-77; p.

.

."away from the poUs":

329, 333-34; p.

.

Election League's

83-87, 127-33; p.

.

Huey Long FBI

8,

December

9,

1927; Lexington

1920; James C. Klotter and Lowell H. Harrison,

352; Ronald D. Eller, Miners, Millhands,

and Moun-

5-85.

In a 1925 election for sheriff in Harlan County, four precincts in Lynch

made

the crucial difference, delivering a vote of 2,483 to 61 for the winning can-

didate, the

margin necessary

for victory.

"About every election law upon the the election in the

Lynch

A

statute

local circuit

judge concluded that

books was violated

precincts." Green v.

in the

Ball28S S.W. 309.

holding of

Tracy Campbell

372

p.

207

When

Guard

the National

.

.

.

:

/

Deliver the Vote

Louisville Courier-Journal,

August

5,

6 and

8,

1933. p.

208

p.

208

p.

209

Three months

later

.

.

.

Givss

:

v.

Ball SI S.W.

.

.

.

.

:

.

:

Forester,

Harlan County Goes

210

"Harlan County

p.

210

The

details

and

10, 1942; Louisville Courier-Journal,

sends".

.

.

:

of Chandler's popularity

Federal District

Judge

.

.

.

Hugo

joined by Justices

was

stuffing

.

.

.

15, 1942.

Harlan Daily Enterprise, November 4

:

May

10 and June 20, 1943.

a dissenting opinion, Justice

7,

1944; U.S.

v.

William O. Dou-

Black and Stanley Reed, said that ballot-box

Kentucky

a crime under

118-19.

LouisviUe Courier-Journal, JinuiLry

:

Saylor322 U.S. 385 (1944). In glas,

to War,

Harlan Daily Enterprise, November

p.

210

Louisville Courier-Journal,

November 8 and 9, 1933. Middleton v. Poer 121 S.W. 2d 28; Louisville CourierThe National Guard Journal, November 3, 1937, and November 9, 1938. Harlan (Ky.) Daily Enterprise, November 2 and 10, 1942; "If you fail". William D.

p.

2d 409;

law,

and that the federal government had

once written election fraud into law during Reconstruction, but had subsequently repealed the measure and allowed states to govern fraud. In a statement that revealed

how

little

Douglas understood about the history of election fraud,

he wrote: "Let the states of this great Union understand that the elections are in their

own feel

hands, and

there be fraud, coercion, or force used they will be the

if

Responding

it.

purity in elections,

to a universal sentiment

many of our

States have enacted laws to protect the voter

to purify the ballot. These, under the guidance of State officers, have

and beneficently; and

satisfactorily,

efficiently,

if

p.

p.

211

211

Among

the ninety-nine

ruary

1945.

By

8,

the

summer of 1945

in every State

.

.

.

.

.

.

:

:

to

and

worked

these federal statutes are

repealed that sentiment will receive an impetus which,

wiU carry such enactments

first

throughout the country for greater

if

the cause

still

exists,

of the Union."

Harlan Daily Enterprise, June

6,

1943, and Feb-

Louisville Courier-Journal, July 28

and 29, 1945;

Harlan Daily Enterprise, July 29, 1945. p.

211

C. C.

Ramey

.

.

.

:

United States ofAmerica

v.

Clinton C. Ball, et

al.

case 11145,

grand jury report, U.S. District Court, London Division, Eastern District of Kentucky, records in National Archives, Southeast Region, East Point, Georgia; LouisviUe Courier-Journal, July 28, 1945. p.

212

One month

after

Courier-Journal,

.

.

.

:

August

Harlan Daily Enterprise, August 3,

5,

1945; Louisville

1947.

Chapter Neve p.

215

In 1942,

.

.

.

:

John Egerton, Speak

Now Against the Day,

373-79. In the 1877

Georgia constitution, governors were limited to two successive terms of two years each. After serving these terms, a former governor could not run again until four years after the

end of the second term. In 1941, the constitution was

Endnotes

373

changed to allow governors

to serve

one four-year term, and could not be

gible to run again until four years after the

had been

and then reelected

elected in 1932,

first

was elected again

interim, he

in 1940, but

eli-

end of the previous term. Talmadge in 1934. After the required

was defeated by ArnaU

in 1942,

who

could serve only one term. p.

216

White Southerners came on

tion fraud. In U.S. a

.

.

.

Smith

:

v.

Allwright 321 U.S. 649 (1944); the Smith case

the heels of another crucial case involving primary elections and elec-

313 U.S. 299 (1941), the Court ruled that voters

v. Classic

in

Louisiana primary race had a right to have their ballots counted. Lawson,

Black Ballots, 100; Keyssar, The Right to

248-49; Egerton, Speak

Vote,

Now

Against the Day, 380. p.

216

Gene Talmadge

.

.

.

p.

218

"There was no

p.

219

p.

219

The The

Now Against the Day,

finesse".

race for governor

source

.

.

.

:

Man From

William Anderson, The Wild

:

215-33; Egerton, Speak

.

.

:

Deep

Sherrill, Gothic Politics in the

:

.

.

.

Egerton, Speak

Atlanta Journal,

South, 38-39.

Now Against the Day,

March 2 and

ering the frauds in Telfair County,

Sugar Creek,

382-88.

3,

1947. For his

Goodwin was awarded

388-89.

work

in

uncov-

PuHtzer Prize the

a

following year. p.

220

"mad

p.

220

Senator E.

p.

221

because".

Two weeks

."may be held": Atlanta Journal

.

Griffith

F.

later

.

.

.

:

.

.

:

.

Atlanta Journal

Atlanta Journal,

Against the Day, 483; Sherrill, Gothic p.

221

A

bomb went

off ...

March

5,

Deep

Sherrill, Gothic Politics in the

:

member of the county League of Women

2,

Voters,

members of the county Democratic

3 and 4, 1947.

1947.

19, 1947; Egerton, Speak

Politics in the

Atlanta Constitution, June 29 and 30 and July

eighteen

March

March

Deep

1950. In

Brenner said she witnessed

South, 42, 54-55;

DeKalb County,

a

Madeleine Brenner, charged

executive committee with election

fraud. Since her complaint involved federal elections, the investigate.

Now

South, 49.

ballots being

FBI was asked

to

removed from the boxes

before the polls were closed. See Atlanta Constitution, July

1,

1950;

New

York

Times,]\x\y\,\9S0. p.

223

"forcefijUy [beUeves]"

p.

223

South Texas

.

Parr family, see

Lone Star

.

.

.

.

Evan Anders,

224

"Parr was the Godfather

p.

224

But Johnson broke

p.

225

In 1948

.

.

.

p.

225

On

.

.

:

Dallas

226

to

Power; Ronnie Dugger, The

Politician,

235, 323.

22, 1948; Robert A. Caro,

Means of

172-76; Dallek, Lone Star Rising, 315-16.

primary day

Soon

Dahl, Ballot Box 13, 88-89.

For the background of the 1941 Texas election, see

Morning News, August

.

.

.

:

Caro, Means ofAscent, 264—66, 303-08; Dallek, Lone Star

Rising, 318; Kahl, Ballot p.

and Segregation, 78-79.

Boss Rule in South Texas, 171-93; Robert Dallek,

.":

.

.

:

Robert A. Caro, The Path

Ascent,

E. Talmadge, You

Kahl, Ballot Box 13, 80-91. For a background on the

Rising, 330.

p.

.

Herman

:

.

Mary

:

after the

Statesman,

Box

poUs closed

August

.

30, 1948.

13, 93; Dallas .

.

:

Morning News, August

29, 1948.

Dallas Morning News, August 29, 1948; Austin

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

374

p.

227

"We

didn't rush"

.

.

Caro, Means of Ascent, 308-12; Dallek, Lone Star

:

.

Rising, 327. p.

227

After some Houston precincts

.

.

.

Morning News, August 30 and

Dallas

:

1948; Austin Statesman, August 30 and September Ascent, p.

228

Then

31,

Means of

1948; Caro,

1,

313-15; Kahl, Ballot Box 13, 128.

Parr had

.

.

.

Dallas Morning News, September 2, 5, 7 and

:

Statesman, September 3 and 7, 1948; Kahl, Ballot

Box

13,

1948; Austin

8,

100-05; Caro, Means

ofAscent, 316-17.

was beaten"

Caro, Means ofAscent, 318-20.

p.

228

"I

p.

228

E.

p.

229

Stevenson took his case

.

.

H. Shomette

.

:

.

.

News, September p.

229

While

Austin Statesman, September

.

.

.

.

9,

1948.

Morning

Dallek, Lone Star Rising, 330-34; Dallas

:

12, 1948.

the legal battle

.

.

.

Dallas

:

Morning News, September 14 and

22, 1948;

Austin Statesman, September 13 and 14, 1948; Caro, Means ofAscent, 346-48;

Kahl,5a//o/5o>:iJ, 143. p.

230

Bv

that one vote

Lone Star

.

.

.

Austin Statesman, September 24 and 28, 1948; Dallek,

:

Rising, 336-43; Kahl, Ballot

September 25 and 30 and October

Box 6,

210-11; Dallas Morning News,

13,

1948; Laura Kalman, Abe Fortas,

201-02. p.

231

Stevenson also asked

.

Second or 'Run-OfF' friends,

.

Tom

:

.

Truman

Clark Papers,

C. Clark to LBJ, Februar)'

"Memorandum With

Library;

Primar\'," Clark Papers.

and President Johnson

later

1949, in

1,

Tom

C.

Respect to the Texas

Clark and Johnson remained close

appointed Clark's son, Ramsey, attorney

general in 1967. p. 21)2

The Texas Journalist Long

p.

Russell

p.

234

While Johnson and

.

.

.

.

.

.

Dugger, The

:

Politician, 341.

Robert Mann, Legacy

232

:

Russell

.

.

.

:

to

Power, 91-93, 141-42.

For background on the

Ed

Prichard case, see

Tracy CampbeU, Short of the Glory, 7-130, 133-40, 166. p.

236

By

the early 1960s,

.

.

.

Baker

:

U.S. 368 (1963); Reynolds Vote,

v.

v.

Carr 369 U.S. 186 (1962); Gray

v.

Sanders 2>72

Sims 377 U.S. 533 (1964); Keyssar, The Right

to

284-87; Jimmy Carter, Turning Point, 26-41.

One of the workers

counties in Carter's district, Terrell, was

as "Terrible Terrell"

known by

civil rights

because of the vast disparin- between white and

black voting rights in the countv'. In 1958, 64.4 percent of the county's 4,700

white citizens could vote, whereas only 1.7 percent of the county's 8,500 black citizens possessed the right to vote.

The

countv*

was well known

as

one where

whites intimidated and defrauded black voters, and where white election officials

purposefviUy prohibited blacks

passing the literacy p.

237

Early on Election

p.

238

Due

Day

.

who had

See Lawson, Black

tests. .

.

:

:

206-07.

Atlanta Journal, October 23 and 26, 1962; Carter,

Turning Point, 83-89; Peter G. Vtonrnt, Jimmy to the ...

graduated from college from

Ballots,

Carter,

Atlanta Journal, October 26 and

115-19.

November

1,

4 and

5,

1962;

Bourne, //wwj Carter, 121-26; Carter, Turning Point, 100—02, 118, 155-56.

Endnotes

p.

239

375

On November

1,

.

.

November

-.Atlanta Journal,

.

7,

1962; Bourne, /z'wwjy Carter,

128-30. p.

240

In remembering the case

.

.

.

Pennington

:

sable in saving Carter's career. In 1980,

when he was told Carter,

by President Jimmy Carter. According

visited

was

nington's last wish it

also felt that his role

to ride

was indispen-

John Pennington was dying of cancer to Carter,

back to Washington on Air Force One,

would be "payment

for helping

Pen-

for, as

he

you get to be president." Carter,

Turning Point, 198. p.

241

"Give us the ballot"

.

.

.

King quoted

:

in Keyssar,

The Right to

Vote,

258; Lawson,

Black Ballots, 155-64.

Chapter Ten An example p. 242

is

...

examination p.

243

243

In

.

.

.

Logan County

.

.

An

Dallek,

:

Humphrey, West

vs.

works

early

Theodore H. White, The Making of the

are

A

Thousand Days, 74-78.

A

recent

Robert DaUek, yf« Unfinished Life, 295-96.

In order to wdn

Kennedy p.

is

Two

:

13-36; and Schlesinger,

President, 1960,

.

F.

:

Dan

Unfinished Life, 257-58;

B. Fleming,

107-18.

Virginia, 1960,

Keith Davis, West Virginia Tough Boys, 138-41,

Raymond Chafm and Topper Sherwood, Just Good Politics, 130-50; Harry W. Ernst, The Primary That Made a President, 16-17. Some of Chafm's opponents dismiss his claims, saying Chafm would never have spent that much money on a county campaign and would have kept the money himself. Others 152-54;

say the figure exceeded $35,000. p.

244

"utterly flabbergasted"

.

.

.

:

Barry

M.

Goldwater, With

No Apologies,

105-07.

Goldwater and the agent, Walter Holloway, assumed the report was simply "too hot to handle" for Rogers and Nixon. Rogers ordered an FBI investigation of the

West Virginia primary, but in June 1960 concluded no evidence of fraud could be found. Federal law at the time did not specifically prohibit vote-buying.

Chap-

manville mayor Clyde Freeman was indignant at the Justice Department's con-

of

clusions, saying "all sorts

New York Times,]une One

can only surmise

Kennedys and the 1960

p.

244

irregularities"

13, 1960; Fleming,

how much

took place in Logan County alone.

Kennedy vs. Humphrey, 111-14.

evidence Hoover's

election, since his secretary,

FBI

collected

on the

Helen Gandy, destroyed

especially sensitive files such as Kennedy's

upon Hoover's death. See Athan G.

Theoharis and John Stuart Cox, The

325-32.

As

Election

Day approached

.

.

.

:

Boss,

News

release,

November

3,

National Committee, November 1960 Scrapbook, Thruston

1960, RepubUcan

B.

Morton

Papers,

Special Collections, University of Kentucky; Houston Chronicle, November 24,

1960;

New York

p.

245

"That guy

p.

245

The

Daily

.

.

.":

Times, June 13, 1960.

Nation, September 3, 1960.

News

.

.

.

:

Adam Cohen

263-64; Chicago Daily News, October

and Elizabeth Taylor, American Pharaoh, 6,

1960; see also John Landesco, "Election

Fraud," in John A. Gardiner and David J. Olson, eds.. Theft ofthe City, 51-59.

Tracy Campbell

376

p.

246

Benjamin Adamowski

.

.

Edmund F.

:

.

how

Deliver the Vote

Kallina, Jr., Courthouse

22, 46-47. Kallina's account of the 1960 election

of

/

Over White House,

an exhaustive examination

is

fraud played a crucial role in Chicago elections, and understands that

1960 should not be seen

as either

an aberration in Chicago political history or

dismissed as an irrelevancy where fraud was minimized. Kallina's book that should be seen as a corrective to the vast

from Kennedy 1960

who

insiders,

discount or dismiss fraud as a

George C. Edwards

election. See also

amount of literature,

III,

Why

one

is

particularly

critical player in

the Electoral College

is

the

Bad

for America, 123-24. p.

246

As

the polls closed

.

.

.

NLxon wrote

:

had asked the Justice Department Chicago,

247

New

419.

Crises,

Late on election night

.

.

Washington Evening Star,

:

.

York Times,

November

1960; Los Angeles Times,

November

I960;

avoided conceding and instead

p.

249

When

an

19,

November

10, 2000;

12,

David Greenberg, Nixon's Shadow,

Len

35;

156-62. In his comments after Election Day, Nixon carefully

Clout,

Kennedy will be

November 10 and

12, 1960; Washington Post,

The Making of the President, 1960,

188-89; Theodore White,

O'Connor,

1962 that many supporters wished he

have the ballot boxes impounded following the election.

as well as

Richard NLxon, Six p.

in

to have U.S. marshals police the polls in

said: "If the

present trend continues. Senator

the next president of the United States." Nixon, Six Crises, 389.

official ballot

.

.

.

:

Morton

National Committee,

News

release,

Papers;

November

Mike Rovko,

29, 1960, Republican

118-19; "Report on

Boss,

Election Procedures in the 39th Ward, 25th Precinct, Located at 3801

Lawrence Avenue, Chicago, p.

249

Meanwhile, the charges

.

.

Illinois,

.

on November

8,

1960,"

Morton

W.

Papers.

Houston Chronicle, November 19, 22, 24 and 26,

:

1960; O. Douglas Weeks, Texas in the 1960 Presidential Election, 61-64. p.

251

On November 24

p.

252

By December Daily Tribune,

New York

...

Times,

.

.

:

.

November

December p.

5,

Morton

1960,

"The Republican

25, 1960; Nashville Tennessean,

Over White House, 118; Albert Fay

Kallina, Courthouse

253

Houston Chronicle, November 24 and 29, 1960.

:

New York Herald Tribune, December 5 and 6, 1960; Chicago November 30, 1960; New York Daily News, December 2, 1960;

1

actions"

Chicago's American,

254

.

December

"preserve the sanctity"

.

.

.

:

December

.

3,

:

December

Chicago Daily Tribune,

1960; Chicago Sun-Times,

December

Chicago Daily Tribune,

Thruston B. Morton Oral History

word and

calls

the vice president's

"in the best tradition of American poUtics." See

103-04. NLxon was

as

2,

1960;

3,

1960;

December

3,

1960; Interview 1,

1974,

Project, Special Collections, University

Kentucky. In his account of the 1960 election, at his

1960;

Pharaoh, 268.

with Thruston B. Morton, conducted by Charles Atcher, October

NLxon

2,

Thruston B. Morton,

Papers. .

Cohen and Taylor, American p.

to

Edmund

F. Kallina, Jr.

"refiisal" to

of

accepts

contest the election

From Courthouse to White House,

experienced as anyone on the American poUtical scene in

Endnotes

377

1960 and understood the

difficult)^

election, as well as the stain

it

He

Nixon had been inaugurated.

Morton and

role in the recount effort

255

New York

own words

Slate,

November December

GOP

Lawyers for the Texas

.

Houston Chronicle, December see

successflil

and

from

indicate that

Nixon took

a larger

than has been acknowledged. David Greenberg, "Life

Times,

After Certification,"

p.

campaign was

if his

certainly distanced himself in public

the recount effort, and subsequent historians have accepted this

version at face value. Yet Morton's

19, 1960;

of the task before him in challenging the

would produce

.

15, 18

Evening

Star,

November

and 23, 1960.

New York Herald Tribune, December 5,

:

.

8,

18, 2000; Chicago

1960;

1960. For the Republican challenge in Nevada,

Las Vegas Sun, November 30, 1960 and Las Vegas Review-Journal, November

Kennedy won Nevada by just 2,493

24, 1960.

p.

256

By December

p.

256

On

p.

256

Despite the pessimism

Sunday

.

7

.

.

.

.

Washington

:

Post,

.

.

.

December

8,

1960.

December

Chicago Tribune,

:

its

nearly 6,000 votes.

1960.

8,

December 4 and

Chicago Tribune,

:

.

GOP centered

and the

votes,

JFK won by

recount contest in Clark County, where

1960;

8,

Cohen and

Taylor, American Pharaoh, 268-69. p.

257

judges in both Texas and Illinois 1960; Chicago Daily News, 1960;

p.

p.

258

258

New York

December

Times,

.

.

.

December

:

Chicago Daily Tribune,

16, 1960; Houston Chronicle,

December

13,

December

13,

13, 1960.

The recount covered Adamowski referred to

the recount as "justice by bankruptcy" (158).

On

Morris

.

December 16

...

:

.

.

:

KaUina, From Courthouse

J.

to

White House, 146-56.

Wexler, "Report to the Honorable Richard B.

Austin, Chief Justice of the Criminal Court of

Cook

County," April 13, 1961;

Cohen and Taylor, y^wmcflw Pharaoh, 277. In January 1962, the Board of Election Commissioners issued a report that stated that no fraud had occurred election, with the lone exception

had p.

259

of understanding." KaUina, FromCourthouse

a "lack

"We won"

of ninety election judges whom the

.

.

.

:

to

in the

1960

BEC termed

White House, 220.

"Excerpts from Address by Sen. Thruston B. Morton, January

26, 1961, at Chicago, Illinois," General Correspondence,

Nixon Pre-Presidential Papers, National Archives,

Box 533, Richard M.

Pacific

Region, Laguna

Niguel, California; Greenberg, Nixon's Shadow, 189. p.

260

There were

also suggestions

Agnes Waldron, September

.

.

.

:

Richard

M. Nixon

to

Chuck

Lichtenstein and

12, 1961, "Six Crises Manuscript," Folder 258,

Nixon Pre-Presidential Papers. The charges of Joe Kennedy's influence with Giancana and the Chicago syndicate

Seymour Hersh, The Dark p.

260

Nbcon picked up

p.

261

As

usual

.

.

.

:

...

:

Kallina,

plan would

power of small

1960 election

are highlighted in

From Courthouse

to

White House, 163-66.

Houston Chronicle, November 28, 1960. Mundt's plan had some

self-serving aspects. In a state such as district, his

in the

Side ofCamelot, 131-53.

still

South Dakota with

a single congressional

be a "winner-take-all" system, thus skewing the

states in the Electoral

College even

fiirther.

Tracy Campbell

378

p.

262

In order to verify

p.

262

But the Tribune reporters

p.

265

Over the succeeding days and

11, 12

.

.

.

:

Chicago Tribune, .

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

March

March 23 and

29, September

15, 1972.

way of life"

p.

266

"Vote fraud

p.

266

In September 1972

a

is

.

.

.

.

Chicago Tribune, September 13, 1972.

:

Chicago Tribune, September 16, 1972; F. Richard Cic-

:

"Making Votes Count," Chicago History (Winter 2002):

cone,

24, 1972.

March 25 and

Chicago Tribune,

:

Deliver the Vote

23, 1972.

Chicago Tribune,

:

/

13.

The demise of

Daley's methods did not completely alter Chicago elections. In a 1979 mayor's race,

when asked how many votes had been cast in his precinct, one officer "We won't know how many votes we got until we find out how many

responded:

we p.

267

need."

In 1976

and

.

.

.

New York

:

Chicago by 425,000

November

Times,

Cohen and

1976;

4,

same

election,

and

a

won

for

fu-e

ican ministers in

its

The

number of Daley

a landslide victory for governor in

allies

suffered defeats.

In the 1976 Democratic primary in California,

came under

November 2

1976; Chicago Tribune,

50,000 fewer than Kennedy's margin in 1960.

votes,

Republican candidate, Jim Thompson, the

5,

Taylor, American Pharaoh, 554-55. Carter beat Ford in

Jimmy

Carter's

campaign

use of "street money." Several prominent African- Amer-

Oakland were given between $1,000 and $5,000

for "routine

campaign expenses" from the Carter campaign. The money did Carter

good

Golden

in the

State, considering that

Brown and

to Jerrv

he

lost

the state to Gerald Ford in November. In the

1976, the Carter campaign estimated

it

voters.

neighborhood

Los Angeles Times, August

in "street

to a local

club, or even food

ward

and drink to

1976. Like 1960, the 1976 election was a

8,

won Ohio and

very close one, and had Gerald Ford less

summer of

had spent over $200,000

money," or "walking-around money," that could be a payment boss, a "contribution" to a local

Httle

both the California primary

Hawaii, which he

lost

by

than 15,000 total votes, he would have remained in the White House.

ClL\PTER ElE\'EN p.

269

Southern demagogues 1-31;

p.

269

J.

In 1957, to Vote,

p.

269

.

.

Todd Moye, Let .

.

.

:

.

:

Dan T Carter, From

George Wallace to Newt Gingrich,

the People Decide, 40-86.

Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate, 165-202; Keyssar, The Right

259.

In 1963,

.

.

.

Lawson, Black

:

Ballots,

284-86; John Dittmer, Local

215-302; Moye, Let the People Decide, 114-147. For the FBI's

role in the

People,

Voting

Rights Act, see Kenneth O'Reilly, Racial Matters, 49-77. p.

270

"bore a strong resemblance"

p.

270

Since the 1960s

p.

271

Challenges along First

.

.

.

:

.

.

.

:

Keyssar, The Right to Vote, 263-64.

Lizabeth Cohen,yf Consumers' Republic, 331-44; Callahan,

The Cheating Culture, 1-97.

Amendment

.

.

.

.•

Burson

v.

Freeman 504 U.S. 191 (1992).

In his dissent. Justice John Paul Stevens (joined by Sandra

Day O'Connor

and David Souter) wrote that "Even under the most sanguine scenario of

Endnotes

379

participatory democracy,

imagine voter turnout so complete as

difficult to

it is

to require the clearing of hundreds

of thousands of square feet simply to ensure

that the path to the polling place door remains

open and that the curtain that

protects the secrecy of the ballot box remains closed." See also Robert Brett

Dunham,

"Defoliating the Grassroots: Election

Speech," Georgetown

Law Journal

Day

Restrictions

on

Political

77 (August 1989): 2137-2200. The Wis-

consin zone of five hundred feet was later ruled unconstitutional, since even private property owners within the zone could not place a yards.

An appellate

ment on

campaign sign

in their

court ruled that this constituted an "impermissible infringe-

805

free speech." Calchera v. Procarione

The Wis-

Supp. 716 (1992).

F.

consin legislature later redrew the zone to the one-hundred-foot mark. For the

Kentucky

case, see

Anderson

v.

Spear 189

F

Supp. 2d. 644 (2002). In January

2004, the panel from the U.S. Sixth Circuit ruled that while the state provided

"ample evidence of Kentucky's history of election fraud and corrupt elections practices, glaringly thin

arrived at a distance of

evidence as to

is its

500

feet."

The

why

the legislature

.

.

.

ultimately

three-judge panel agreed that "this over-

broad restriction significantly impinges on protected speech." Louisville Courier-Journal, January 17

and 22, 2004. According to a county clerk

mountain county of Kentucky,

as the buffer

jobs of vote buyers and thugs was

when

In 1986, tice,

Justice

made

increasingly harder. "Distance

and intimidation," he

tant in preventing corruption

in a

zone around the poUs increased, the

said.

"Access

is

is

impor-

everything."

William Rehnquist was nominated to be Chief Jus-

witnesses testified at his Senate confirmation hearing that in the mid-

1960s, Rehnquist had harassed African-American and Latino voters at Arizona polling

sites.

demanded

to

The witnesses claimed that Rehnquist, a RepubUcan activist, know if the minority voters were "qualified" to vote, a charge

Rehnquist denied. In the Burson ruling, the Court noted that even in elections not involving local, state, or national political representation, limits

eering are recognized.

The National Labor

on polling place

election-

Relations Board, for example, Umits

electioneering activities near the polling place in union elections. p.

272

Louisiana enacted 16, April 12,

May

.

.

.

:

New

York Times, January 9 and 24, February 13 and

5 and 13, June 4, and July 2, 1977;

and Democracy, 474. Jeansonne, Leander gubernatorial campaigns of

Adam

Fairclough, Race

Perez. For vote-buying during the

Edwin Edwards,

see

John Maginnis, The Last

Hayride, 131-32, 297-98. p.

273

In 1974,

.

.

.

:

Jeansonne, Leander Perez, 74-82; Fairclough, Race and Democracy,

465-66.

When

the host

commented on

F

Perez appeared on William elections in the area

stand in one of these elections for you?" Perez retorted:

Zazu

Pitts,

Buckley's "Firing Line" in 1968,

and mentioned

to Perez, "I under-

Charlie Chaplin, and Babe Ruth voted

"No, that was not in

my parish. That was in

St.

Bernard."

The Ends of the Earth: Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, video produced by Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker, The Center for New American Media, 1982.

Tracy Campbell /Deliver THE Vote

380

p.

275

A similar pattern

.

.

Leslie County,

:

.

Kentucky was (and remains) a Republican

White House, former

stronghold. After leaving the

president Richard

Nixon

Muncy spearheaded the drive conviction, Muncy election-fraud After his county. Nixon to the bring to blamed his ties to Nixon for his political and legal problems. Muncy story was made

his first

in Leslie County.

pubUc appearance

's

the subject of the film Big Lever: Party Politics in Leslie County, Kentucky, Francis

dir.

by

Morton, Appalshop Productions, 1982.

p.

277

"Now who do you

p.

277

"basically stole the election".

p.

278

"To get 50 percent".

want".

.

.

Louisville Courier-Journal,

:

.

.

.

Louisville Courier-Journal,

:

October 11, 1987.

Louisville Courier-Journal,

:

.

October 11, 1987.

October 12 and

13, 1987.

For a recent case in which a prominent eastern Kentucky financier was con-

New York

victed of vote-buying, see Leader,

September

memo

p.

278

In a

p.

279

"by allowing corruption".

.

.

.

:

Times,

August 29, 2004, Lexington Herald-

16, 2004.

Louisville Courier-Journal, .

:

.

October

13, 1987.

"Attorney General's Task Force on Election Fraud:

Report to Fred Cowan, Attorney General, Commonwealth of Kentucky" (1988), 11. p.

279

"People not involved".

.

.

Louisville Courier-Journal,

:

October

12, 1987;

Lex-

ington Herald-Leader, June 19 and 20, 2003. p.

280

In a 1998 primary election

.

September 27 and October

.

:

.

1,

Lexington Herald-Leader, April 20, 2000, and

2003; Louisville Courier-Journal, August 16 and

September 24, 2003. p.

281

"Absentee vote fraud".

of

State's Office.

.

.

"Election

:

was John Y. Brown

III,

in 2002. See also Jewell

281

In a

May

and June 3,

2002.

2002;

The

(who

was

rejected

by the Kentucky General Assembly

and Cunningham, Kentucky Politics, 16-18, 65.

Lexington Herald-Leader, May 9, 22, 29, and 30, New York Times, June 2, 2002; LouisviUe Courier-Journal June

2002 primary

4,

Secretary of State

the former governor's son) aimed at curbing election

fraud, especially absentee fraud,

p.

Reform Agenda," 2001, Kentucky Secretary

A variety of reforms proposed by the

.

.

.

:

highest percentage of absentee balloting in the 2002 primary in

Kentucky occurred torate voted

in

Owsley County, where 9.35 percent of the

eligible elec-

For a defense of absentee-voting methods from a

absentee.

Southern perspective, see Marlin Hawkins, with Dr. C. Fred Williams,

How I

Stole Elections.

Dodge County

McCranie 169

F

3rd 723 (1999).

p.

282

In

p.

282

One

of the most remarkable aspects

New

York Times, June 26 and 29, August 2, 16, and 23, September 4 and 18,

October p.

283

In the

2,

fall

.

.

.

.•

U.S.

and November

of 1990

Democratic

...-.St.

v.

284

The

.

.

.

:

Curry

v.

Baker 802

F.

2nd 1302

(1986);

5, 1986.

officials in east St.

twentieth century

.

Louis Post-Dispatch, September

.

:

9,

1990. In 2005, five

Louis were convicted of vote-buying in the 2004

election. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p.

.

June 30, 2005.

Keyssar, The Right to

Vote,

311-15. See also Piven

Endnotes

381

and Cloward, Why Americans

Why Americans

Don't

Vote,

Still

Don t

motor voter

that helped create the

Vote.

was instrumental

Piven and Cloward's

earlier

book,

in initiating a national discussion

bill.

In 2002, the Republican National Committee conducted an investigation

and discovered that in at least

in eleven states, over

140,000 people were registered to vote

two jurisdictions. This was probably

a result of people

moving

new registrations while not alerting their new residencies. While this explanation could

residences and obtaining

of their

clerks' offices

dual registrations as innocent oversights, the

RNC

new

to

old county explain the

also discovered that

of these

people, 689 had voted twice in the differing locales in 2000. Washington Post,

June 13, 2002. For

p.

285

In Texas

.

.

.

Caltech-MIT Voting Technology

:

Could Be, also available p.

285

No

state

of the motor-voter law, see John Fund, Stealing

a critique

23-25.

Elections,

had gone

Project, Voting:

What

What

Is,

at www.vote.caltech.edu/.

as far ...

:

"Oregon Election, 2000," Report Prepared by Del

Information Services, January 2001. p.

285

In

March 2000

.

.

.

New York

:

Times, October 14, 2002; California Secretary of

State Bill Jones, California Internet Voting sibility

Task Force, "A Report on the Fea-

of Internet Voting," January 2000. For an analysis of the

Michael Alvarez and Thad E. Hall,

internet voting, see R.

There have even been questions about the

ethics

the industry that records votes. Senator

for example,

owned

machines in

home

his

company

stock in a state.

Thom

See

ruary

286

Two

6,

of

Vote.

political figures' finan-

Neb.),

and ran the voting

"If You Want To Win an Common Dreams Newscenter, Feb-

Hartmann,

2003.

bitter rivals

torical

and

Chuck Hagel (R

that installed

Election, Just Control the Voting Machines,"

p.

of some

cial stakes in

possibilities

Point, Click,

.

.

.

:

Miami

November

Herald,

examples of the reahties of Florida

politics

5 and 6, 1997. For

some

and voting methods,

see

his-

Tracy

E. Danese, Claude Pepper and Ed Ball. p.

287

When

investigators uncovered

absentee fraud in eral academics,

of absentee

Miami

who saw no

ballots.

.

.

Miami

:

.

Herald,

November

10, 1997.

The

stands in stark contrast to predictions from earlier libthreats of fraudulent elections arising

from the use

MacGregor Burns and Jack Walter

In 1960, James

Peltason

wrote: "In order to prevent fraud," they concluded, "absentee voting has been

made go

so difficult

and cumbersome that often only the most zealous

citizen

to the trouble of sending in an absentee ballot." Thirty years later,

wUl

no one

could describe the process of obtaining an absentee ballot as "cumbersome."

Burns and Peltason, Government By p.

288

"I

thought he was gathering".

12, 13, p.

288

.

my

God": Miami Herald, November

11,

and 16, 1997.

"buried under a small mountain"

1997.

the People, 343.

."Oh,

The 1984

case

was Bolden

.

v.

.

.

:

Miami Herald, November

Potter

452 So. 2d 564

14, 15,

(Fla., 1984).

and

16,

Tracy Campbell

382

who

p.

289

"thieves

p.

289

Carollo's civil suit

p.

289

steal

democracy". .

.

.

:

.

Deliver the Vote

Miami Herald, February

Miami Herald, February 11, 1998. Miami Herald, March 5, 1998.

:

Handwriting experts

Wilson

.

/

.

.

.

:

on

relied primarily

Supreme Court

a Florida

323 So. 2d. 259 (1975). In that developing a rule regarding

case,

how

3,

1998.

In his ruling, Judge

case of Boardman

v.

Esteva

Chief Justice James Adkins ruled that

far irregularities in

"in

absentee ballots will affect

the result of the election, a flindamental inquiry should be whether or not the irregularity

popular

complained of has prevented

will."

of election fraud and legal sense

mate p.

290

but in

interest

its

real victims:

realistic

and

.

.:

.

In

whom we re Protest

So. 2d. 1170, Florida 3rd District

on Bolden

Supreme Court

shown

clearly

to

do so

Miami

v.

Potter

"When

stated

"The

and

of the

free expression

real parties in interest here,

They

terms, are the voters.

they

it is

A three-judge panel relied heavily

a fiiU, fair,

Chief Justice Adkins then made a pronouncement on the nature

are possessed

not in the

of the

ulti-

must give primary consideration." ofElection Returns and Absentee Ballots 707

Court of Appeals (1998). The Appeals Court

452 So. 2d. 564

(Fla., 1984),

which the Florida

substantial fraudulent vote-buying practices are

been involved, the election must be declared void. Failure

to have

will cause the electorate to lose confidence in the electoral process."

Herald,

March

12, 1998.

Although the court recognized that Mayor

Suarez was not implicated in the fraud, that made no difference. "The evU to be avoided," the Court ruled, fraud,

"is

from whatever source,

the same, irrespective of the source. is

be ascertained with reasonable p.

291

Miami

as the

certainty, the ballots

should be invalidated."

The

absentee voters

election suit claimed that having their legal votes

thrown out vio-

"You mean I'm in the

As long

such that the true result of the election cannot

sick"

.

.

.

:

Miami Herald, March

12, 1998.

lated their Constitutional rights, especially the equal protection clause of the

Amendment. The court disagreed and concluded that the problems Miami election were merely "episodic" in nature and did not "demonstrate the entire process is flindamentally unfair." Scheer v. City of Miami 15 F

Fourteenth in the

that

Supp. 2d. 1338 (1998). p.

291

In California

.

What Could Be

.

.

:

Caltech-MIT Voting Technology

Project, Voting:

What

California history are provided on the California Secretary of State's

Web

Is,

on

also available at www.vote.caltech.edu; the absentee levels

site,

at www.ss.ca.gov.

In a University of Miami law review the journal undertook to find a

absentee ballot.

The

article

remedy

for

published in the spring of 2000,

any future abuses of the Florida

journal proposed that "Courts should explicitly determine

where, by reasonable inference, the fault for the voter

remedy

to the results

of that determination."

If,

lies

and then connect the

for example.

Candidate

A wins

the machine vote but Candidate B eventually was declared the winner due

problematic absentee ballots, absentee votes and declare

"it

would

then be proper to invalidate

all

to

the

A the winner." Not realizing how the upcoming pres-

idential contest in Florida

would

boil

down

to very similar circumstances, the

Endnotes

383

journal concluded that "Candidate

B

should be held accountable for the actions

of his or her supporters where they have sought to subvert the

political processes

so important to a healthy democracy." "Florida Absentee Voter Fraud: Fash-

Law Review

ioning an Appropriate Judicial Remedy," University of Miami

54

(April 2000): 661-62. For an assessment of a 1996 California congressional

between Democrat Loretta Sanchez and Republican Robert

election contest

Dornan,

An

Lori Mennite and David Callahan, "Securing the Vote:

see

Analysis of Election Fraud," at www.demos-usa.org, 40-43.

Chapter Twelve p.

292

The 2000

.

.

.

:

For a mainstream account, see Robert

Elections: People, Politics,

and Problems,"

Robert

in

R Watson, "The Watson,

P.

ed..

State of

Counting

Votes.

p.

293

On

primary day

Columbia

.

.

own

responsible for holding their

the state,

sites in

South Carolina, the parties

are

primaries. In responding to the court order,

the Republican party had told the Justice

1,752 polling

and 24, 2000;

Greenville (S.C.) News, February 20, 22,

:

.

(S.C.) State, February 20, 2000. In

Department

which was twice

as

it

many

could open 1,425 of

1996 primary.

as the

The 2000 primary saw a turnout surge from 276,000 voters in 1996 to 565,000 in 2000. The county Republican chair replied that "no precincts were closed," rather that they were "consolidated"

go

fiirther

and that "in no case was

a voter required to

than to an adjoining precinct." See GreenviUe News, November 23,

2000. p.

293

In

St.

Louis

.

.

.

Report by Matt Blunt, Secretary of State, "Mandate for Reform:

:

Election Turmoil in St. Louis, patch, p.

296

The

November

GOP

held

8 .

and

.

2000," 30-33;

Louis Post-Dis-

St.

2000.

9,

absentee-ballot drive centered

on Jeb Bush's

the state seal, a violation of state law.

had not used

stated that they

7,

Nation, July 15, 2001.

:

.

November

Two letter,

The Bush

civil

GOP

cases against the

which was superimposed on

administration in Tallahassee

a seal, but that the printer

had on

his

own com-

mandeered an outdated one from the Internet. Nation, July 15, 2001. p.

297

"These days"

November p.

297

p.

298

6,

.

.

.

Tallahassee Democrat,

:

November

6,

2000;

The crush of voters November 9, 2000.

.

.

.

Miami

:

Herald,

November

10, 2000;

November

Statewide,

Buchanan

November

10, 2000. Shortly after the election, researchers

test

how

.

.

.

:

Palm Beach

Post,

conflising the butterfly ballot actually was.

stituted the

Miami

Herald,

2000.

names of Canadian

officials into

Palm Beach

10, 2000;

When

Miami

went

to

Herald,

Canada

Gore-Buchanan model

tically similar to the

See

in

to

a psychologist sub-

the ballot and asked

random shop-

pers to vote with the ballot, four of 116 "voters" botched their choice in the

fashion as the

Post,

Miami-Dade County. This was

same

statis-

"mistaken" votes for Gore that actually went to Buchanan.

Miami Herald, December

1,

2000.

384

p.

299

Tracy Campbell

Perhaps the luckiest placed

Michael

p.

299

.

.

.

The

:

a ballot

structural advantage

Name Order .

.

.

Need

for Ballot

on Election Outcomes," in

and Edward J. McCaffery,

Under Florida law

of having a candidate's name

eds.,

Palm Beach

:

M.

analyzed in Jon A. Krosnick, Joanne

is

Tichy, "An Unrecognized

P.

Candidate Just,

on

first

Deliver the Vote

/

Ann N.

Rethinking the

and

Crigler,

Marion R.

51-74.

Vote,

November 9 and

Post,

Miller,

Reform: The Effects of

10, 2000; Thirty-Six

Days: The Complete Chronicle of the 2000 Presidential Election Crisis by Correspon-

New

York Times, 10-11; Martin Merzer and the Staff of the Miami Miami Herald Report, 2-71. In Duval County, Miami Herald, December 2, 2000. First-time Creole-speaking voters Miami Herald, November 9 and 10, 2000; Orlando Sentinel, November 8, 2000. Yet because of ... The inflated totals for Bush centered on a problem in the Earl Brown Park precinct in Volusia County. A computer memory card malfunctioned and erroneously deducted 16,022 votes from Gore. The error was corrected in the early hours of Wednesday morning, November 8. See Daytona Beach News-Journal, November 10, 2000. On November 8 Orlando Sentinel, November 10, 2000; Thirty-Six Days, dents of the

Herald, The

p.

300

p.

300

p.

302

p.

303

.

.

.

:

.

.

.

:

:

.

.

.

:

14-17. p.

304

Yet Bush's

official "lead"

.

.

.

:

The

Florida Secretary of State's

Web site's

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/. The official results are interesting,

address

compared

liminary results released by Harris's office in the days after the election.

is

to pre-

The week

following the election, for example, Harris stated that Bush held a lead of 300 votes statewide.

On November

19, Bush's lead ballooned to

absentee ballots were added. Palm Beach Post, p.

304

There were problems

.

.

.

:

930 when 630 overseas

November 15 and

19, 2000.

New York Times,]xi\y 15, 2001; Kosuke Imai and Gary

King, "Did Illegal Overseas Ballots Decide the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election?," Perspectives on Politics 2 (Sept. 2004). p.

305

Considering that Bush

.

.

.

In her book, published in 2002, Harris claimed that

:

contrary to liberal prognosticators, "Al

Gore never

[italics

in original]

led

Florida on election night! Despite his loss of thousands of votes in the heavily

Republican precincts of the western panhandle, George

W. Bush

continued to

lead the entire evening." Harris's evidence concerning "thousands" of lost

Republican votes comes from the anecdotal estimate of a Democratic sonaht}'. p.

305

Katherine Harris, Center of the Storm,

The

GOP had also mailed

Post,

November

.

.

.

:

Miami Herald November

17, 2000; Nation, July 15, 2001.

some time p.

305

Palm Beach

even

was necessary was the intent

if

law, mil-

they had never

to live in the state at

in the future.

On November tinel,

17, 2000;

According to Florida

itary personnel could claim Florida as their residence,

lived in the state. All that

TV per-

3, 17.

18, ...

November

:

Miami Herald November

18 and 19, 2000; Orlando Sen-

11 and 19, 2000; Jeffrey Toobin, Too Close to Call, 130.

Endnotes

p.

306

385

"We're getting kicked around". Beach rats

Post,

November

.

.

:

Orlando Sentinel, November 20, 2000; Palm

20, 2000; Toobin, Too Close to Call, 131. Just as

found themselves dealing with sometimes contradictory

did as

yvtW.

concerning the postmarks on the absentee

Democ-

statutes, the

ballots.

While

GOP law

state

required postmarks, a federal law stated that ballots sent by overseas military

personnel "shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage." p.

307

On November

21, ...

The

:

PoUtical Staff of the

113-14; Thirty-Six Days, 125-28; Orlando

Herald November 27, 2000; p.

308

Jason Unger

.

.

.

New York

:

New York

Sentinel,

Washington

November

Post, Deadlock,

18, 2000;

Miami

Times, July 15, 2001.

Times, July 15, 2001;

Miami Herald, November

28,

2000. p.

309

"The OOP's

legal"

.

.

.

:

Miami Herald, November 28 and

30, 2000.

The number

of absentee votes Bush picked up when the overseas absentee votes were reconsidered

was

actually 124.

p.

309

Since the votes

p.

310

Political

.

.

.

:

Palm Beach

New York

commentators weighed

a valuable

amending

lesson its

on the

Post,

November

in ...

:

Miami Herald, November

the "Miner" law changed the

it.

after

Although the law survived various RepubHcans regained power

power over the

electoral system used

it

ruthlessly to

promote

without regard to the rights of their opponents, their the claims of democracy." Argersinger, "Electoral glery," Political Science Quarterly

311

One

in the

Argersinger correctly notes "Then, as now, those with effective political

state.

p.

that a case

vote to congressional districts

state's electoral

was quickly repealed

it

H. Argersinger warns

Democrats favored the plan while RepubUcans, led

by President Benjamin Harrison, opposed legal challenges,

For

12, 2000.

encountered in

state

Hmits of electoral reform. In Michigan,

alert us to the

rather than winner-take-all.

one

substantial roadblocks

electoral vote, the historian Peter

from the 1890s should

27, 2000.

Times, July 15, 2001.

study found

17, 2001;

.

.

.

:

119

(Fall 2004):

Miami Herald, December

Caltech-MIT Voting Technology

own

election,

Department

and three of the

suits

own

interests

Reform and Partisan Jug-

499-520. 1,

New

2000;

Project, Voting:

filed five lawsuits

involved Florida counties.

York Times, July

What Is, What Could

May

Be, July 2001, also available at www.vote.caltech.edu. In

administration's Justice

their

expressed ideology, or

2002, the Bush

concerning the 2000

The

suits

centered on

discriminatory treatment of minority voters as well as the purging of the voter roUs in an attempt to correct problems before the 2002 election. Skeptical

Democratic senators, alarmed civil rights,

at the paucity

questioned the timing of the

of administration

suits,

efforts regarding

and the N.A.A.C.P. asked why

the suits were aimed at the county level, rather than the state, where tural

changes could occur.

As Dennis to the

F.

New York

Thompson

Times,

struc-

points out, the very definition of voting, according

1965 Voting Rights Act, means more than simply casting

essential

more

May 22, 2002.

component of the Act

states that

a ballot.

An

an equally important device

is

Tracy Campbell

386

Deliver the Vote

/

"having such ballot counted properly and included in the appropriate totals of

Y.Thompson, Just Elections,

votes cast." See Dennis p.

311

While approximately eleven percent

.

.

.

U.S.

:

53.

Commission on

Civil Rights,

"Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election," June 2001. p.

312

Gadsden County

is

one of Florida's most Democratic counties.

voters in the county, 22,

016 were Democrats, compared

Of registered

to 2,593 Republicans.

African-Americans comprised 12,803 of the registered Democrats. Gadsden

was the only Florida county state in 1984. It

is

to vote

Democratic when Ronald Reagan

one of the poorest counties

also

312

African- American voters

.

.

.

:

won

the

with 25.9 per-

Miami Herald, December

cent of its population living in poverty. See p.

in the state,

2000.

3,

Orlando Sentinel, November 10, 2000;

Ron

Formisano, "State Won't Escape Racist Voting Antics," Gainesville Sun, February 3, 2001; U.S.

Commission on

Miami Herald examined

election. In partial returns

had been

illegally cast

giving Republicans

Civil Rights, "Voting Irregularities."

by

from twelve counties, the Herald found that 445 votes

felons.

ammunition

Nearly 75 percent of the ballots were for Gore, that fraud

had played a

role in Gore's totals.

these votes, 45 were cast by convicted murderers, sixteen rapists, and at least

people listed on the

state's

Clarence E. Williams,

who

still

had Alzheimer's

One of these was Some on this Hst saw

Game:

How

deacon

a 42-year-old

in stolen property in 1977. "They're

holding that over me?" McDaniel asked.

counties revealed that 764 felons had voted.

2000. Greg Palast, "Ex-Con

disease.

Theron McDaniel,

had been convicted of deaUng

Itself Felonious," Harper's

Of

two

registry of sexual offenders.

also

the issue in terms of disfranchisement. in his church,

The

the extent that convicted felons had voted in the 2000

A later examination of twenty- two

Miami Herald, December

1

and 10,

Florida's Telon' Voter-Purge

(March 2002): 48-49.

Palast writes that 2,873

Was

names

were removed from the voter roUs in Florida on constitutionally dubious grounds. Since 35 states allow felons to vote, removing those in

one of these

revoking the Florida

states violated the Constitution's

civil rights

"flill

someone would have

that

Supreme Court had

faith

who had

once lived

and credit" clause

received in another state.

actually stated this just

weeks before the

in

The

election,

but the directive from Governor Jeb Bush's clemency office authorized the purge. See also

Greg

Palast,

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, 11-71.

In Florida, some counties employed the felon

Guy

list

while others ignored

it.

Stuart has concluded that if the entire state had used the felon purge.

Republicans would have benefited. But since only two counties conducted a

complete purge, the felon

list

"may have ended up favoring the Democrats

because in counties that did not use the

Ust,

voted, and those ineligible voters were bases, Felons,

the

2000

it is

more

likely that

likely to

some

ineligible voters

be Democrats." "Data-

and Voting: Bias and Partisanship of the Florida Felons List in

Elections," Political Science Quarterly 119 (Fall 2004): 473.

Endnotes

p.

313

387

the Commission's report

.

.

.

Commission on

U.S.

:

Civil Rights, "Voter Irregu-

larities." p.

314

Although rumors were rampant

Miami Herald, November p.

315

While one can make

p.

315

In Seminole County,

.

.

:

.

.

.

:

Tallahassee Democrat,

Petersburg Times,

.: St.

.

.

.

November

Dershowitz, Supreme p.

316

On

election night

reported lower figures from the original

.

Seminole County Canalso

Alan

M.

Thirty-Six Days, 173-74. In the recount, only ten coun-

:

.

v.

38-39.

Injustice,

ties

.

2000;

19, 2000.

Martin County Canvassing Board. See

v.

8,

Orlando Sentinel, November 13 and 29, 2000; Thirty-

Six Days, 98-99, 162. Thirty-Six Days, 30S-09; Jacobs vassing Board; Taylor

November

2000.

8,

tallies,

and these were usually one

or two votes, not 218 as in Nassau. p.

317

Hordes of interested

November

Herald, p.

318

partisans

.

.

.

:

Orlando Sentinel, November 13, 2000;

Miami

13, 2000.

On November 22,

.

.

.

Thirty- Six Days, 134—35; Dershowitz, Supreme Injustice,

:

36-37. p.

318

Supervisor David Leahy

.

.

.

:

Orlando Sentinel, November 14, 2000;

Miami

Herald,

November 23 and

to Call,

154—57. In the Wall Street Journal, columnist Paul Gigot wrote glowingly

26, 2000; Thirty-Six Days, 134—35; Toobin, Too Close

of the "semi-spontaneous combustion" in Miami-Dade County that produced a "bourgeois riot" that "could end up saving the presidency for George

Quoted p.

319

in Dershowitz,

On November 26, that

.

.

.

:

Supreme

Thirty-Six Days, 164-65. In her "official"

Palm Beach's recount was not complete and

"manually recount

W.

Bush."

Injustice, 37.

all ballots" [italics

state

tally,

Harris ruled

law required that counties

mine] Democratic lawyers contended that .

Harris was cherry-picking, since she had counted the results in three counties

where there had been sample manual recounts.

Harris's tally also did not include

an additional 157 votes for Gore produced by the partial recount

County

that

was halted by the

been included, Bush's

The

official

mob on November 22. If those

in

Miami-Dade

partial counts

had

majority would have stood at 188 votes.

foUovvdng year, several organizations published their

own

findings con-

cerning the recount. Assuming that the Supreme Court had not intervened and the recount could have proceeded, a study conducted

Research Center

at the

by the National Opinion

University of Chicago found that the answer depends on

the standard used to measure voter intent. Ironically, if the count had proceeded

along the lines demanded by the Gore team, Bush would have

won by a margin

ranging from 225 to 493 votes. These recounts of "undervotes" in four predominantly Democratic counties

would have not been enough

to overtake Bush.

On

the other hand, had a statewide recount of both "undervotes" and "overvotes"

taken place. Gore would have

how

restrictive the definition

Courier-Journal,

November

won by margins

of 42 to 171 votes, depending on

of a legal vote could be established. Louisville

12, 2001.

Tracy Campbell

388

p.

320

Senator John Sherman

.

.

.

Deliver the Vote

/

Richard H. Pildes, "Disputing Elections," in Arthur

:

Night, 81-82. J. Jacobson and Michel Rosenfeld, The Longest p.

321

"This

p.

321

On

terrible"

is

.

.

.

Dershowitz, Supreme

:

separate occasions

.

.

2000," in Jack N. Rakove,

772 So 2d. 1243 Herald,

156-57, 164.

The Unfinished Election of2000, 77; Gore

ed..

November

2000); Orlando Sentinel,

(Fla.,

December

Injustice,

Alexander Keyssar, "The Right to Vote and Election

:

.

Michel Rosenfeld,

12, 2000;

""Bush v.

the Constitution, the Court, and Democracy, but There in p.

321

p.

Three

Harris

Miami

Strikes for

Always Next Season,"

Jacobson and Rosenfeld, The Longest Night, 111.

The high Bush

322

Gor^-.-

is

v.

23, 2000;

V.

court interceded

.

.

.

:

Boardman

Gore 531 U.S. 98 (2000); Bush

v.

Esteva 323 So 2d. 259 (Fla. 1975);

Gore 121

v.

The manner

in

which

and Pamela

S.

Karlan, "Equal Protection: Bush

.

.

.

S. Ct.,

512.

Larry D. Kramer, "The Supreme Court in PoUtics,"

:

v.

Gore and the

Making of

a

Precedent," in Rakove, The Unfinished Election of 2000; Dershowitz, Supreme Injustice, p.

322

55-57.

Yet to Repubhcans

.

.

.

Adherents of the

:

"tie"

theory conveniently ignore Gore's

half-million popular-vote majority, or the latent problems in Florida's voting

procedures. See, for example, Steven G. Calabresi, "A PoHtical Question," in

Bruce Ackerman,

ed..

Bush

v.

Gore, 129-44.

An

adviser to

campaign, Calabresi nonetheless concluded that ''Bush

George

v.

W.

Bush's

Gore improperly

resolved a political question" (141). p.

322

"Our

p.

323

On January 20,

p.

323

The

consideration" .

.

.

.

.

Bush

:

New York

:

.

one, commissioned

.

.

been

:

.

Mebane, Jr., has concluded

v.

Gore 531 U.S. 98 (2000).

Times, January 21, 2001.

Miami

throughout Florida

available

Herald, April 4 and 8, 2001. Walter R.

that if "precinct-tabulated optical scan ballots"

—the

had

best available voting machines that

could have detected thousands of overvotes in time for the voter to correct

them

—Gore would have won by over 30,000 2000

President! Overvotes in the in Politics

"The Wrong

Man

is

2 (Sept. 2004): 525-35.

p.

324

A year after the election

p.

324

"the counters"

.

.

.

:

.

.

.

:

New York

The

Times,

November

12, 2001.

In addition to Boss Tweed, another noteworthy political boss

has also been attributed with saying nothing.

votes. See

Presidential Election in Florida," Perspectives

who

people

"The people who

cast the votes decide

count the votes decide everything"

—Joseph

Stalin.

Conclusion p.

326

For added measure

.

.

.

:

Los Angeles Times, March 15, 2004;

New

law,

York Times,

HAVA became

October 30, 2002, and March 16, 2004. The same month that

Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the Voting Access and

Integrity Initiative,

which targeted

election fraud

by assigning

tors to

monitor alleged election crimes. Critics of the

Justice

Department seemed more

federal prosecu-

initiative

noted that the

interested in protecting the "integrity" of the

Endnotes

389

More

ballot rather than ensuring "access."

having prosecutors on

whom

minority voters, most of

to the point

vote for the party that opposed Ashcroft. See

Jeffrey Toobin, "Poll Position," the

New Yorker,

September 20, 2004.

Another form of violence threatened American threat of possible terrorist attacks worried

summer of 2004, and some proposed

HAVA

established under

the assertion that

is

of fraud would more likely intimidate

alert for stories

elections after 9/11.

American

The

election officials in the

a rather draconian solution.

A commission

suggested to congressional leaders that a process

should be estabUshed to reschedule a presidential election in case of a terrorist

DeForest B. Soaries, chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission,

attack.

had earUer alerted Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge that some plan altering or even canceling a presidential election should be considered.

for

Such

a

plan presented numerous constitutional challenges, and posed the possibihty of terrorist threats if the possibility

of postponing or canceling an election loomed.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice dismissed the suggestion, noting:

"We've had elections in at civil war." p.

326

New York

"You know why"

.

.

.

country

this

when we were

at war,

even

when we were

Times, July 12, 2004.

Quoted

:

in Keyssar,

"The Right

to Vote

and Election

2000," 90. p.

326

Similar to the ways

.

.

.

:

Los Angeles Times,

March

15, 2004;

October 30, 2002, and March 16, 2004. In national elections

New

York Times,

in India in 2004,

party officials used various tactics to intimidate opponents, including detonating small

bombs

outside polling places, and a device called "booth capturing," where

thugs would steal ballot boxes and brazenly stuff them with ballots. standpoint of the ized so

many

New York

Times, this

From

the

was "the same old fraud" that character-

new electronic machines, party how little democracy millions of

other Indian elections. Despite

officials still practiced tricks that

Indians enjoyed.

When

displayed

similar cases in

collective response refuses to apply the

American history

are uncovered, our

same terminology. New York Times, April

27, 2004. p.

327

The new

Florida

.

.

.

:

Christopher Hitchens, "Ohio's

Odd

Numbers," Vanity

Fair (March 2005). Hitchens notes that in examining the myriad of complaints

emerging from Ohio, "in

practically every case

machines too few the foul-up was in practically every case

a

it

who were

lines

were too long or in

where machines produced impossible or improbable out-

was the challenger who suffered and the

comes voters

where

Democratic county or precinct, and

actual or potential

Democratic

shortchanged, discouraged, or held up to ridicule as chronic

undervoters or as sudden converts to fringe-party losers." In addition to areas where long lines caused some voters to wait seven hours,

most of the major problems areas. In

in

Ohio were

Cuyahoga County, 93,000 more

located in the major metropoUtan

ballots

were cast than registered voters.

In Fairview Park, there were 18,472 votes cast where only 13,342 voters were reg-

Tracy Campbell

390

Deliver the Vote

/

istered. Election officials speculated that absentee ballots

count for particular

in the

areas,

than were registered. In the rected. Salon.com,

making

it

appear

as

were mistakenly placed

though more votes were

November

10, 2004. See the

Cuyahoga

cast

problem was cor-

final tally, the officials claimed, the

results at boe.cuya-

hogacounty.us/boe/. In Columbus, a computer error mistakenly added nearly

3,900 votes for Bush, an indication that some electronic malfunctions could

November

occur. Nation,

One

29, 2004.

Warren County, Ohio, where county commissioners ordered "a complete lockdown" in vote counting, citing FBI warnings of a possible

The FBI denied

issuing anv such warning. In

Warren

Count)',

percent of the vote, not far from his performance four years Enquirer,

November 5 and

12, 2004.

Clinton, suggested that "foul play"

Dick Morris,

may

still

of the strangest moments occurred in security

terrorist threat.

Bush

received 72

earlier.

Cincinnati

a former adviser to President

explain the exit-polling discrepancy,

adding that "exit polls are almost never wrong." Therefore, the possibility loomed that

Democrats had

the

Bush turnout." See "Those

November

The

4,

"deliberately manipulated" the exit Fault)' Exit Polls

in order to "chill

Sabotage," thehill.com,

2004; Neiu York Times, December 29, 2004.

Election Incident Reporting System, as compiled by veriftedvoting.org,

received over 34,000 claims in the

2004

election,

and over 1,200

in

Cuyahoga

The Web site, established by David Dili of Stanford, concluded mid-November that the evidence did not indicate that the election was

County in

poUing

Were

stolen.

alone.

"We do

this election

not believe that there

is

any more reason to look for problems in

than in previous elections." Statement,

verifiedvoting.org.

Making

November

yet another appearance in the

2004

15, 2004, at

election were

"undervotes," where no vote was recorded for president. In Ohio, predominandy

African -American precincts that stUl relied on punchcards saw "lost,"

while that rate was

December

1 in

75 in predominantly white areas.

77w«, January

were suppressed

in the effort to vote."

announced

it

had

after the election,

an

identified an error in

Illinois

company, Danaher Con-

one laptop computer that mistak-

enly attributed thousands of extra votes to President suburb. In the

when

it

fu-st

Bush

in a

Columbus

count, Bush received 4,258 votes, according to the laptop,

was noted the precinct had only 638

Bush actuaUv received only 365

cast votes, an audit

votes, a difference of 3,893 votes.

noted "the laptop was busv completing another task just precinct were being fed into

how many

New York

17, 2005.

Nearlv four months

but

31 votes

24, 2004. Shortly before President Bush's inauguration, Senator

Kerr)' said "thousands of people

trols,

1 in

New York Times,

it."

as

concluded

The company

numbers from that

Such benign conclusions beg the question of

other computers encountered such problems in a rather simple

counting procedure. Akron Beacon Journal, Februar)' 12, 2005. p.

328

Some of the skeptics

.

.

.

:

Greg Palast, for example, wrote that "Kerr)' Won" two days

after the election at tompaine.com.

See also Kathy Dopp's vvidely cited

statistical

blog

Endnotes

391

at residentbush.com/Aftermath-2004_Florida-remlts.htm (Nov. 3, 2004), as well as

Thorn Hartmanns

December

writings at www.commondreams.org. See also Washington Post,

15, 2004.

Dopp

Utah mathematician who noted that some counties

a

is

with high proportions of Democratic registrants had voted heavily for Bush. electronic voting machines, the theory goes, reversed votes. Six

bers of Congress, in their request to the ings as evidence that something

Democratic

The

mem-

GAO for an investigation, used Dopp's find-

was amiss. Considering the changing nature of

Southern voters, such charges were quickly dismissed by

political scientists as

another example of conservatives leaving the Democratic party. These counties had seen strong Republican support in other elections.

2004. See also Steven

F.

New York

November

Times,

12,

Freeman, of the University of Pennsylvania, "The Unex-

plained Exit Poll Discrepancy," at www.truthout.org/does_04/111404A.shtml.

team of Berkeley sociologists

also suggested that President

between 130,000 and 260,000 "excess votes" regression analysis. Michael Hout, et

Bush may have

in Florida based

on

A

received

their multiple-

"Working Paper: The Effect of Electronic

al.,

Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections,"

November 2004, tion04_WP.pdf gist

Sam Wang at http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/pollcalc.html; as ofJuly 2005,

it's still

p.

328

www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/BerkeleyElec-

at

A popular pre-election site was that of Princeton molecular biolo-

there and

still

interesting.

The most striking contest

.

.

.

and February 22 and June 2004, and

November

May

24, 2005;

29, 2004.

1,100 felons had

Seattle Times,

:

2, 3,

and

December

2005;

New

17, 22, 23,

State Republicans later claimed that over

2004

officials in

had found 111 uncounted absentee

that they

Washington

writes that reform efforts in

the

24,

Street Journal,

voted in the governor's race, and 884 of them were in

Democratic-leaning King County. What's more, by April 2005,

County admitted

and 30, 2004,

December

York Times,

John Fund, "Florida Northwest," Wall

Washington

illegally

7,

ballots.

King

Fund

State to correct the problems within

election actually introduce fiirther problems, such as expanding mail-

in voting. Wall Street Journal, April 11, 2005. p.

329

One element

of the danger

2003. In

December 2003,

late

.

.

.

:

New York Times, November 9

officials

with VoteHere

Inc., a

and December

2,

company manu-

facturing security technology for electronic voting machines, disclosed that a

computer hacker had broken

in to

its

computer network and may have copied

various sensitive materials. VoteHere 's chief executive stated that the hacker

probably trying to prove a point:

"We

think this

is

political.

was

There have been

break-ins around election companies over the last several months," but added that the break-in did not affect the integrity of electronic voting

nology.

one insider noted, "He was gone. They there

machine tech-

When one Diebold technician complained of the faulty quality controls,

was

quiet.'" In

'I

don't care

how

November 2003,

fired

him.

The

attitude

screwed up these things

a suit

was

filed against

are,

among the

others

I'm going to keep

Diebold under

a California

Tracy Campbell

392

/

Deliver the Vote

"whistle-blower" statute, claiming that the company's poorly designed equip-

ment exposed

California elections to hackers. San Francisco Chronicle, July 11,

2004. In the 2004 Super Tuesday primary in California, more than

Diebold machines froze or faUed, with

County and 40 percent

in

failure rates

they did nothing to change their systems. stated:

hundred

San Diego County. For months, Diebold had been

serious problems in their software

warned of

six

of 24 percent in Alameda

from

One

state election officials,

CaUfornia elections

"Diebold may suffer from gross incompetence, gross negligence.

know whether

but

official

don't

I

any malevolence involved." California's Secretary of State

there's

Kevin Shelley was so troubled by the assortment of problems Diebold for a criminal investigation, claiming

machines produced that he called

Diebold's "conduct was absolutely reprehensible." Oakland Tribune,

2004;

New

Some

informative websites for the voter-verified paper audit

330

Another danger

29, 2003; Los Angeles Times, trails

AprU

May

1,

20,

2004.

(VYPAT)

are

and wheresthepaper.org.

veriftedvoting.org p.

December

York Times,

.

.

.

New York

:

December

Times,

election fraud. Wall Street Journal columnist

2,

2003. In his book on recent

John Fund dismissed

criticisms

of

the Diebold systems as part of a general fear by liberals of a conspiracy to steal elections.

Fund, Stealing

grammer attempting

Elections,

111-17. To this date, no case of a pro-

to fix an election has

been prosecuted. In 2002, in another

arena in which close contests can decide considerable fortunes, a programmer

pleaded guilty conspiring to

fix

the S3 miUion "pick six" wager at the Breeders'

Cup. In what was called the "Pick Six

Fix," a

computer programmer

complex wagering system rigged the

that oversaw the

co-conspirators could share in the prize.

2002; Washington

Post,

December

for the firm

results so that

New York Times, November

some of his 17 and 21,

12, 2002.

In June 2005, the Houston-based Election Center, comprised of former

from

election officials

fifteen states, issued a report claiming election practices

should adjust to the "way America

lives."

The

report called for precincts to be

replaced by "vote centers" where citizens could vote over a period of weeks.

These centers would allow counties better-equipped centers.

The

absentee ballots. Washington Post, June p.

331

At

first

glance

.

.

.

:

New

to concentrate

Hmited resources into

report also called for broadening the use of

York Times,

7,

2005.

December 2 and

15, 2003,

and March

2,

2004.

One of the

entist

Rebecca Mercuri. See Harvard University Gazette, October 28, 2004. In

leading proponents of the paper receipt model

addition to the paper receipt model, computer scientists at

is

MIT

computer

sci-

and Cal Tech

have proposed a system utilizing "frogs" to protect the security of the

ballot.

This

system would provide each voter with a small card called a "frog" that contains a small

amount of memory and

altered.

The

frog

would

to an election official

in

which the contents cannot be changed or

act as a punchcard,

and proven

of sorts. Once a voter had signed in

his or her identity, they

to take to a "vote-generation" station.

Here

the voter

would be given

would

a frog

actually cast votes

Endnotes

393

which would be stored on the

for candidates,

frog.

Then, the frog would be

taken to another "vote-casting" station where the frog would be read and the vote recorded.

backup

The

frog

would be dropped

Modular Voting Architecture

"A

Rivest,

into a bin

where

it

would

serve as a

Shuki Bruck, David Jefferson, and Ronald L.

in case of a recount. See

August 2001

("Frogs"),

at

http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/puHcations.html.

At some

May

a

2004 meeting of the

federal Election Assistance

Commission,

California elections officials voiced reservations about paper receipts.

37-inch paper ballot with tiny

among

confusion

print,

Even

voters.

one

official

Women

the League of

electronic machines produce paper receipts.

Voters opposed having

The League thought

some

that

who

groups that have been previously excluded from voting, such as those

cannot read, would be driven away by the entist

from Johns Hopkins claimed that machines

prit to sabotage the electronic

come out however they like

the election

sci-

would be the most hkely

cul-

—"The vendor and

it

May 6, 2004; New York Times, June

ington Post,

Meanwhile,

computer

receipts.

insiders

it

A

claimed, would only guarantee

is

a

in a position to

make

would be undetectable." Wash-

11, 2004.

Another suggestion

is

an audio version of the paper receipt called the Voter Verifiable Audio Audit Transcript Trail," or

phones on while voter and voter

the voter for

tell

would push

tronically

WAATT. This

system would involve voters placing head-

in the voting booth.

A tape would play the choices before

a button

marked "Vote." The vote would be recorded

both electronically and on tape, and no paper

In case of a recount, the tape would allow the individual voters. See

332

In a purge

.

Ted

Selkor,

.

New York

:

.

trails

would be

officials to actually

"The Voter

Caltech-MIT Voting Technology

script Trail," p.

the

whom they were prepared to vote. Once satisfied, the

Verifiable

Project,

elec-

present.

hear the votes of

Audio Audit Tran-

September 29, 2004.

Times, February 6, April 18, and

August

16, 20,

and

23, 2004. p.

333

Another form

.

.

.

:

Detroit Free Press, February 8, 2004;

New York Times, January

10, 2004. p.

333

Supporters of absentee voting Voting:

What

Is,

What Could

Thovtvpson, Just Elections, 34. to the

United

States. In

.

.

.

:

Be, July

Caltech-MIT Voting Technology 2001;

New

The problems with

mail-in votes are not limited

Great Britain, "postal voting" presented some alarming

problems preceding an election in 2005. In Birmingham, cials

were denied their

seats in a local election

said

would

banana republic." In addition

"disgrace a

legal voters, party activists

went door

to

Labour party

fluid.

Economist, April 9, 2005.

Support for extending the secret ballot

is

offi-

to illegally impersonating

door offering to complete

enterprising cheaters opened ballots and changed

political scientists.

six

due to mail-in fraud that a judge

some

modern

Project,

York Times, August 22, 2004;

not universal, even

See Geoffrey Brennan and Philip

the Vote," British Journal of Political Science 20

(May

a ballot, while

them with correcting

among some

Pettit,

"Unveiling

1997): 311-33. Brennan

Tracy Campbell

394

and are

They

at the local level.

find that without secrecy, voters

would be

and vnH be encouraged

to vote in

"publicly answerable for their electoral choices

manner"

a discursively defensible p.

334

A series of municipal elections 30, 2001; National

Deliver the Vote

remarkably lacking in any understanding of how elections

Pettit's article is

conducted

/

.

.

(311).

Dallas Observer, June 14, July 26 and August

:

.

Pubhc Radio,

Things Considered," July 25, 2002. The

"All

Dallas elections were uncovered by Dallas Observer reporter Jim Schutze,

who

wrote "This kind of ballot chicanery takes place in Dallas elections on a wholesale basis,

wdth complete impunity and

been

total arrogance. It has

get away with in the past that the people doing

it

[so] easy to

don't even bother to hide."

Schutze understood that the absentee ballot fraud was about more than partisan

oneupsmanship. "This system the big

is

dominated by and operated

money interests downtown." The brokering system

which poor people can never win." For some other recent involved absentee-ballot fraud, see

334

In 2004, the Pentagon

.

.

.

:

New York

was "one

in

local elections that

Louis Post-Dispatch, September 28, 2002;

St.

March

Connecticut Post, October 18, 2002; Chicago Sun-Times, p.

for the benefit of

in Dallas

20, 2003.

A national com-

Times, January 21, 2004.

mission formed after the 2000 election (headed by former presidents Gerald

Ford and Jimmy Carter) recommended that each

should appoint an indi-

state

vidual responsible for supervising the practice of overseas absentee voting.

Nothing was mentioned concerning other types of absentee

ballots.

Pride and Confidence in the Electoral Process, Report of the National

To Assure

Commission

on Federal Election Reform, 7-8, 42-43. Carter later criticized Katherine Harris and her

successor,

that the

way in which

Glenda Hood,

for holding "strong political biases,"

the Florida vote was counted in

tionable to "us Americans,

2000 was

and

said

especially objec-

who have prided ourselves on setting a global example

for pure democracy." Washington Post,

September 26, 2004. Along with former

Secretary of State James Baker, Carter led another federal election reform effort

For the

in 2005.

the p.

336

2004

first

some of the better-known problems

public hearings into

in

presidential race, see Washington Post, April 19, 2005.

Internet voting discriminates

Rep. Jesse Jackson, voting, and

Jr.

.

.

.

:

A

constitutional

would ensure

that precincts

machines that would decrease the long

would not go

amendment proposed by

(D-IU.) in 2004 seeks to address systemic problems in

vet)' far at all in

would get equal numbers of voting

lines at the polls.

ensuring the

integrit}'

Yet the

of elections.

amendment The amend-

ment, for example, actually enhances the Electoral College yet supports same-

day

registration.

The amendment

also reads:

"Each

elections in the State in accordance with election

lished

by the Congress. The Congress

state shall administer public

performance standards estab-

shall reconsider

such election perform-

ance standards at least once every four years to determine

should be established to

reflect

improvements

regarding the administration of elections."

in

if

higher standards

methods and

practices

Endnotes

p.

337

It

395

would diminish

.

.

.

See Robert A. Dahl,

:

How

Democratic

the

is

American

Constitution^, 86-87. For a defense of the Electoral College, see Judith Best,

"Weighing the Alternatives: Reform or Deform?"

and Rosenfeld,

in Jacobson

The Longest Night, 350. Professor Keith E. Whittington has argued that the Electoral College actually

to

reduces the likehhood of election fraud by containing any disputed counts

one

state.

"Rather than encourage candidates and their supporters to search

or invent, election irregularities across the nation, the Electoral College con-

for,

centrates the dispute likely,"

he

and makes an appropriate and timely resolution more

"Vote fraud must be organized across several closely contested

w^rites.

states in order to

be effective in altering the results of the election under the

Electoral College." This

argument seems

events of 2000, but Whittington

made

on thin

to fall

Keith E. Whittington, "The Electoral College:

tion.

in Jacobson

ice

considering the

these remarks in reaction to that elec-

A Modest Contribution,"

and Rosenfeld, The Longest Night, 389.

There have been numerous suggestions about how to reform the current system in electing a president.

toral

whereby

a candidate

would

Among

number of electoral

receive a proportional

correspond to their popular-vote margin in a given

winner of the national popular vote would receive electoral votes, as well as

the wishes of their

Nebraska

in

state; a

Another

plan,

votes to

system in which the

number of automatic

a certain

one that would guarantee that a

state's voters.

elec-

these are a proportional system,

state's electors

honored

implemented by Maine and

2000, provided that their electoral votes would be divvied up by pro-

viding one vote for winning a congressional district and two for winning the plurality

of the

to ensure a

state.

All of these attempt to end the current "winner takes

more accurate

portrait of how their state voted.

system

all"

Of course, a plan that

would be consistent with virtually every other election in the United

States

would

simply end the Electoral College with a direct election of the president. Even this plan has several alternatives, including ones that provides for a runoff if a certain plurality

The

was not achieved. See

also Steven

HiU, Fixing Elections,

ix-xi,

20-25.

Electoral College gave Russian president Vladimir Putin leverage

against concerns that Russian elections for regional governors were

undemocratic. "In United States you

first elect

the electors," Putin

becoming

commented,

"and then the electors vote for the presidential candidates." To Putin, the ican system

"is

exactly

what we

are

in the Russian Federation to power."

represented to Putin

how "the

The

U.S. presidential election of 2000 also

electoral system

was not

efficient,

In a not-so-subde response to President Bush, Putin added, to

poke our nose into your democratic system because

people to say what lace

is

good or what

on CBS's 60 Minutes,

notes: "Direct election

May

would

Amer-

doing with regards to bringing of governors

is

8,

not." Putin

it's

"We

up

not effective." are not

to the

going

American

was interviewed by Mike Wal-

2005. George C. Edwards III correctly

create a disincentive for fraud, because altering

Tracy Campbell

396

/

Deliver the Vote

an election outcome through fraud would require an organized effort of proportions never wdtnessed in the U.S." See his excellent work, PVby the Electoral is Badfor America, 123-25. Miami Herald, May 27, 2004; New York Times, September new proposals defended the new law, investigations were proceeding in Bush Gov. 2004. As 13,

College

p.

336

Yet

a

.

2004 Orlando

.

.

cit^'

:

election

where absentee fraud was

ability to verify witness signatures,

unchallenged.

many more

The new law concluded

alleged.

Without

suspicious elections

that "Absentee ballots

make

the

would go easier for

it

senior citizens and military personnel to exercise their right to vote." In an East

Chicago, Indiana, mayoral race in 2003, the U.S. Justice Department investigated charges of absentee-ballot fraud. In 2004, the Indiana State Supreme Court

One example of who testified that she

voided the election due to "zealotry to promote absentee voting." the "zealotry" from East Chicago concerned Sheila Pierce,

was facing eviction from her apartment and allowed mayor's office to

fill

claimed that she was threatened

if she testified.

In February' 2005, the proposed

Count

Ever)' Vote Act, co-sponsored

Rodham CUnton (D-NY) and

Senators Hillary

from the

a part}' operative

out her absentee ballot in return for $100.00. Pierce also

included a provision allowing blanket "no-excuse" absentee balloting in eral p.

336

and

by

Barbara Boxer (D-CA), all

fed-

state elections.

For over two hundred ... In 1969, a proposal to amend the Constitution and

aboHsh the Electoral College had considerable support from the U.S. House of Representatives, winning

338-70. President Richard Nixon endorsed the

amendment, perhaps remembering the 1960

race.

In the Senate, a fiHbuster led

by North CaroHna's Sam Ervin and South Carolina's Strom Thurmond ended the amendment's chances of going to the states. Alexander Keyssar has written persuasively that the reason that this attempt failed

of opposition from the smaU in the

Southern

states

Cixil Rights Bill,

states; rather, the

and maintained by

what Keyssar terms the

was not

problem was

necessarily because in the

power placed

racial discrimination.

Alter the 1965

was

in place in the

"five-fifths rule"

South. Since the Southern states included African-Americans in their populations for electoral purposes yet disfranchised them, "the ally cast in the

number of votes

South between 1900 and 1960 was tiny in comparison

actu-

to the size

of its electoral vote." Boston Globe, October 17, 2004. p.

338

"Why bother?" of corruption

.

is

.

.

:

See Charleston {W.V.) Gazette,

May

11, 2004.

comparable to Amitai Etzioni's concept of

The

"social

culture

norms."

According to Etzioni, emironmental concerns can impact one's value systems, so that "If people follow their community's do's social

norms

as costs or constraints, they

benefits of abiding

bv them

waU tend

don'ts because they see the

to violate the

norms when the

are lower than are the gains of \dolating

the risks of detection are low." "Social History,"

and

Law and Society Review 34

Norms:

them and

Internalization, Persuasion, and

(2000): 161.

Endnotes

p.

339

_„_

Just days after 2, 3, 4,

p.

339

.

.

.

:

New York Times, November 22, 23, 2S, and 27 and December New Yorker, December 13, 2004.

and 28, 2004;

There was and

is

.

.

.

during the Florida recount, some protestors in Delray

Beach attended a raUy on Nov. 10 for a revote in Palm Beach County. This was backed by the Miami Heralds Carl Hiaasen, who noted that "misspent baUots

in

Palm Beach could

and thus the U.S. presidency to a candidate who wasn't the intended choice of a majority of the states voters." Miami Herald,

November

deliver Florida,

11, 12, 2000.

Selected Bibliography

Arciiivai.

Collrctions

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Columbia The

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Daytona Beach News-Journal Detroit Free Press

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Deliver the Vote

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Bolden

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Procarione 805

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430

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Bowman

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McGuire

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Orr

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190 U.S. 127 (1903).

State of Tennessee 7

v.

Humph. 54

Poer 121 S.W.2d 28.

Kevil, et.

al.,

100 S.W. 314.

Harris 29 Cal. 678

V.

Reynolds

v.

Sims 377 U.S. 533 (1964)

Scheerv. City of Miami 15 FSupp.2d. 1338 (1998)

Smith

V.

Allwright 321 U.S. 649 (1944)

Taylor

v.

Martin County Canvassing Board 773 So. 2d 517 (2000)

U.S.

V.

Classic 313 U.S.299 (1941)

U.S.

V.

McCranie 169 F3rd 723 (1999)

U.S.

V.

Moseley 238 U.S. 383 (1915)

U.S.

V.

Reese 92 U.S. 214 (1876)

U.S.

V.

Saylor 322 U.S. 385 (1944)

Williams

V.

Mississippi 170 U.S. 213 (1898)

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McClellan, Jimmie Rex. "Two Party Monopoly to Third Party Participation in American Politics,"

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McConville, Sister

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Schneider,

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T

"Louisville Politics, 1891-1897."

M.A.

Thesis, University of Louisville,

Acluiowledgments

In

research that has spanned nearly a decade,

to a host of scholars, librarians, friends,

grown lowing

exponentially. libraries

I

am

my accumulated debts

and family members has

especially grateful to the staffs at the fol-

and archival

collections:

the William T.

Young

Library, University of Kentucky; the St. Louis Public Library; the Jef-

ferson National Expansion

Memorial Archives; the Missouri Histor-

the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection at the

ical Society;

University of Missouri; the National Archives in

Laguna Niguel, Cal-

ifornia; the

National Archives, Southeast Region, East Point, Georgia;

the Harry

S.

Truman

Presidential Library; the

Presidential Library; Hill

Memorial

Library,

Lyndon

LSU;

B. Johnson

the Kansas City

Public Library; and the special collections staff at the College of

Wooster

in

Ohio.

Policy History

My

thanks as well to the editors of the Journal of

and the Chronicle of Higher Education

for permission to

reprint material originally published in those journals.

Tracy Campbell

434

The

Deliver the Vote

was very

staff at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville

and

helpflil,

time

/

I

profited to

no end from

at the Filson exploring the

election.

Thanks

director

Mark

department

a grant that allowed

hidden

interiors

The

spend

of the 1905 Louisville

Harmon, Jim Holmberg, and

especially to Shirley

Wetherington.

me to

Loan

staff at the InterLibrary

of Kentucky processed an untold number

at the University

of requests with their usual diligence. As always, Terry Birdwhistell

and Jeff Suchanek

in Special Collections at

UK were exceptional. The

chapter on Louisville simply could not have been written without their

my co-director

help. Terry, at

UK,

at the

Ford Public Policy Research Center

provided the kind of encouragement, good humor, and wise

counsel that was indispensable and I

am

fortunate to

work with

knowledgeable and supportive

much

appreciated.

colleagues and friends

as those in the

are as

History Department

Ron Formisano,

the University of Kentucky.

who

Bill Freehling,

at

David

Hamilton, Phil Harling, Joanne Melish, Karen Petrone, and Jeremy

Popkin

cerning the

St.

Louis election of 1935.

Kathi Kern kindly tolerated

departmental meetings so

I

my

my work

an easier

Dan

Smith,

Ron

EUer, and

occasional absences from inter-

could finish the manuscript. Tina Hagee

and Carol O'Reilly each performed

making

on some early research con-

offered helpful suggestions

all

task. I

dozen miracles on

a

my

behalf,

have also benefited from numerous

conversations and seminars with graduate and undergraduate students at

UK. I

learned

tional colleague

much from them. George Herring has been an and

friend.

Vietnam War, and he

quagmires.

moments along

organization with It is

my

We

its

singular

also shared a

own

the premier historian of the

me better understand the

university poHtics in

way watching

the

is

certainly helped

macy of departmental and

my own

George

to

ways so

I

diplo-

could avoid

few beers and many enjoyable

the Kentucky basketball team, an

culture of corruption,

good fortune

excep-

some might

say.

work with Mark Wahlgren Sum-

mers. Throughout the years of researching and writing this book.

Acknowledgments

Mark was more managed

streets, all I

When

had

never

I

than generous with his time and knowledge, and he

me

to convince

as I thought.

Mark.

435

to

left

I

was not

faced certain research challenges or dead end

I

do was walk to the other end of the

He

disappointed.

reading as anyone, and

I

many of the

hall to find

gave the manuscript as careful a

hope he did not

much from

suffer too

chronic bout of "Crook Fatigue" brought on by Lastly,

attempt this book

as foolhardy to

my

a

labored prose.

book came from Mark's

cartoons featured in this

extensive collection. His professional advice has been crucial, but pales in

comparison to what I

a

am

his friendship has

also fortunate to

champion of

this

have John

book and

its

meant

W. Wright

me.

to

my agent, who

as

was

author through thick and thin. His

and patience helped guide the manuscript through the

tenacity

labyrinth of the publishing process. Through

when

in times

I

am

not sure

I did. I

am

it all,

John believed

in

me

also glad that John's literary

talents

surpass his considerable prognostication capacities in the

equine

arts.

My

gave this book the care and

most writers only dream about. From the

attention

grasped what to refine

editor, Philip Turner,

I

wanted

my arguments

to do,

and

and bring

outset,

his democratic instincts life

to the prose. Keith

he quickly

pushed

me

Wallman did

wonders getting the book into production, and Phil Gaskill was

a

mar-

velous copy editor.

Richard Scher of the University of Florida

first

pointed

me

toward

the Florida Secretary of State's website about the 2000 election. friends

Chuck Bolton and Jim

suggestions as well as

Goodwyn and

some

Old

Bissett provided thoughtfiil editorial

fascinating leads in stolen elections. Nell

her significant other supplied lodging, hospitality, good

food and drink, and much-needed support and advice. They came to

my personal and professional rescue extra mile helping

of people

who

me

on

several occasions

and went the

cut and retool a bloated manuscript.

A number

asked to be, or should remain, anonymous, provided

plenty of memorable stories and, at times, confessions of what they

Tracy Campbell

436

had witnessed, or done themselves,

to

win an

/

Deliver the Vote

election.

Although

did

I

me a deeper

not include these accounts in this book, each of them gave

understanding of how elections work. I

always benefited from the sound counsel and encouragement of

Thomas D. away

weeks before

just

and

birthday. Dr. Clark

I

book went

this

had

several

history of election fraud, and

I

life

Participating

on

especially enjoyed seeing the passion his

own

future writing projects.

later read the

to emulate.

a panel in

Unger helped change the

2002 with Alex Keyssar and Nancy

structure of this project in

numerous ways.

manuscript and offered excellent suggestions, while

Nancy's infectious support meant so

Don

101st

weU-lived, and a career that remains the standard for aU

committed writers of the past

Alex

to press. After his

passed

memorable discussions about the

and intensity he displayed describing His was a

who

Clark, a singular historian and public scholar

much when

I

badly needed

it.

Ritchie also read the manuscript with his usual careful eye and

with amazing speed.

some penetrating

He

is

truly "the machine."

critiques early

Susan Ferber offered

on and helped me conceive how

approach the research. Thanks also to Tim Tyson, whose

work convinced me gestions

The

to quit hiding

own brilliant

behind the footnotes, and

his sug-

on cutting the manuscript was much needed and appreciated.

University of Kentucky was very helpful in giving

resources to finish the book.

Wendy Baldwin and summer

to

I

want

to especially

me

thank Vice President

the Office of Research and Support at

research grant, as well as

time and

Dean Steven Hoch and

UK for a

the College

of Arts and Sciences for much-needed travel and sabbatical research funds.

My thanks

as well to

Dean Carol

Pitts Diedrichs for her sup-

port of the Ford Center and helping carve out a role for

me

to play in

the public policy arena.

Many

politicians have provided

real poUtics

Edward

T

me

a unique education about

how

works, but none more so than the late Kentucky Governor

"Ned"

Breathitt.

Although

I

suspected he never told

me

Acknowledgments

437

quite everything he

my best

knew about the

art

of delivering votes, he gave

He

primer about power poHtics.

also

me

opened countless doors

me that made so many things possible. At every occasion I saw him over the years, he asked me about my progress and how much he looked forward to reading it. I am saddened he did not live to see it in for

and

print,

My

I

dearly miss his stories and heartfelt kindness.

son, Alex,

grew into an impressive young man during the

writing of this book, and he often allowed playing his guitar as

softly,

and

me

to think

expertly, as possible.

and write while

His pointed ques-

tions about the structure of democratic societies have

book

in significant ways.

My youngest

son.

informed

this

Drew, was born midway

through, and he certainly had some interesting questions of his own,

even

if

they had

little

to

often a lonely process, and

As they grow

older, I

do with

elections.

Research and writing

is

my beloved sons made it a much easier task.

hope on every Election Day they

will vote early,

and just once.

Of course, no one did more to see this book come to fruition than my wife and best friend, Leslie. Not only did she take the kids on at least five hundred trips in order to give me time to write, she also read the entire manuscript and proved a

did not

me

let

me get by with even one

to dig even deeper into the

demanding and

critical editor.

She

sloppy word or phrase, and pushed

meaning of voting and democracy.

hate to disagree with Faulkner, but

when he

because; you love despite," he did not

know

I

wrote, "You don't love

Leslie. I love her because.

Index

in

2000

abolitionists, 32,

33-34, 35, 38

fighting, 235,

absentee ballots, 138, 273-274, 281-282.

legal

see

also internet voting; mail-in voting; sol-

list

266

means, 102-105, 215-216, 269

purging, 312-313, 332

intimidation, 58-60, 68, 70, 101-102,

dier voting

2000

presidential election,

293-294,311-315

Aberdeen Examiner, 67

117-118,216-217

presidential election, 304-305,

307-310, 315-316

2004

presidential election,

332-333

by African Americans, 118

and fraud, 286-291, 333, 334-335,

335-336

as politicians,

sought, by Bush, 296-297

and

Adamowski, Benjamin, 246-247, 253, 258,

St.

84-85, 101-102

Louis bond

suffrage,

issue,

168

58-62, 62, 68, 70, 93-94

Alabama, 84, 100-101, 158-159, 236

261

Adams County, Ohio, 143-147

1960 presidential

Adams, Henry, Democracy, 51-52

African American voters, 269, 270

Adams,John,

6, 9,

Alarm, The

Albany

161

Democratic

party, 118, 119,

104

Mississippi plan, 102-103, 104

African Americans

in the

247

constitutional convention, 102-103,

12

Adams, John Quincy, 13

as colonizers,

election,

196

disenfranchisement, 83-84, 86-87, 89, 93, 95, 121-122, 125, 153, 215, 221

(socialist weekly),

New York,

90

56

alcohol, provided to voters, 5-6, 9, 27, alien voting, 3-4,

14-15, 19, 22, 23

Kansas Territory, 33-37, 39-40

209

Tracy Campbell

440

Men,

Balmaseda, Liz, 289

O. K., 202

Baltimore, 46

Allwright case, 216, 225 alphabetical voting, 199, 209, 219-220,

229

American Communist

Party,

235

Know-Nothings

party, see

Bankhead, John, 158-159 Barstow, William A., 43-45

American Indians, 332

Barth,Paul, 119-120, 127 Bashford, Coles, 43-45

90-91

anarchists, 89-90,

Baltimore Sun, 48

Bank War, 13

Altanta Journal, 238

American

Deliver the Vote

/

Appalachia, 206-209, 275-280

Beckham, J. C. W., 107, 131-132, 207

Argersinger, Peter H., 97

Bell,

Argus (African American newspaper), 168

Bernard.W.C, 163-164

Arizona, 285-286

Bernstein, Leonard, 172-173

Government

Better

Arkansas, 65-66, 87, 332 Arnall, Ellis, 215-216,

John, 49

219

betting,

on

Association, 263

elections,

139-140, 141

Theodore, 216

Ashcroft, John, 294-295

Bilbo,

Associated Press, 303

Bingham, Robert W., 132

Atchison, David R., 35

Birmingham, Robert W., 120 Bishop, Fred R., 123-124

217

Atlanta, Georgia,

Atlanta Journal, 219-220, 221-222

black suffrage. See African Americans, suffrage

Australian baUot, 97-101, 115, 135

Blackmun, Harry, 272

Aycock, Charles, 104-105

Blackwell's Island Penitentiary, 19 Blaine,

B

Blair,

James G., 91

Albion Z., 143-147

Baker, James, 307

Bleeding Kansas, 39

236

blocks of five, 95-96

Baker

V.

ballot

box 13, 229-230, 232

Carr,

Bloody Harian, 206-209 Blue Lodge, 34

ballot boxes

Boggs, Corrine "Lindy", 204

found, 218-219 steel boilers as,

stolen, 125,

Boles,

45

stuffing, 20, 89, 126,

176

ballots, absentee, see absentee ballots; soldier

denied inclusion, 199

ballots, confiising,

298-300, 304

ballots, internet,

ballots, paper, secret, 4, 8, 9,

chain ballot,

16-18, 96-101

137-138, 209

and fraud, 100-101, 182, 309 as receipts,

tampering, 17-18, 18, 162, 239-240

C,

49, 50

legalized,

123-124, xii-xiv

243-244

outlawed, 5 tradition of,

136-137

brokering, vote, 286-291, 337

Brown

family,

Rhode

Island, 7

Brown, John, 37

249-250 17

spoUed, 249-250, 302, 304,

309-310

Breckinridge, John

Broussard, Edwin, 199-200

331-332

ballots, paper, unsealed,

75-76

Bradley William, 106

bribery, 5-7, 18, 75-76,

285-286

baUots, mailed, 21, 285, 304-305

ballots,

Bourbon County, Kentucky, 234-235 Bowery, New York City, 149-151 Bradley, Joseph,

voting ballots, candidates

Texas,

Thomas, 65

border ruffians, 35

141

Brown, John Carter, 33

Brown,JohnY., 106-109 Brown, John

Y,.Jr.,

276-277

Index

441

Brown

v.

Bruce,

Helm, 128, 129

Board of Education, 222-223

Chicago Sun-Times, 245

Bryand, William Cullen, 33

Chicago Tribune, 245, 256, 262-263,

Buchanan, James, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 Buchanan,

Pat, 298,

264-267, 266-267

300

Chicago Urban League, 266

Buckingham Theater, 116

ChoicePoint (DataBase Technologies), 312

Buddell, Frank, 134 Bullitt,

Cincinnati Enquirer, 106-107

WiUiam M., 130-131

Burr, Aaron,

Civil Rights Act, of 1957,

11-12

civil rights

Bush, George W., 321, 324. lican party,

2000

see also

Repub-

election

inauguration, 323

Bush/ Gore

election, 2000. see

2000

presi-

V.

Butler,

Gore,

320-323

butterfly ballot,

Civil Rights

Commission, 2000 election

Civil

313-314

War, 50, 51-57 election,

soldier voting, 53,

Clark,

Benjamin R, 56

54—57

57

Tom C, 231-232

Clay, Henry, 13,

299

269-270

Commission, 269

1864 presidential

Bush, Jeb, 296-297, 325, 336

269

advocates, 235, 241,

Civil Rights

report,

dential election

Bush

Chicago Daily News, 245

24-25

Cleveland, Grover, 91, 94-95, 97

Byrd, Harry, 247

Cochran, John, 194-195

Coffey KendaU, 289

Cohen, Adam, 257

Caddo

Cohen, Lizabeth, 271

Parish, Louisiana, 61

Cal Tech/MIT study 2000 presidential election,

291

Colbert, Richard

J.,

colonial America,

California, 205-206,

286

209-212

3-16

party system, 8-9

Callahan, David, 87-88

colonizers, 19, 95, 161

candidates

Columbia Terminal Company, 165

denied ballot inclusion, 199

Committee of One Hundred, 127-128

dummy, 200-201

Commonwealth

Club, 115

Compromise of 1820, 32

Cantrell, Greg, 102

Caputo, PhilUp, 263-267

Compton, James W., 266

Carmichael, George

Congressional elections, disputed, 154

Carmichael, James

V.,

V.,

217

218

Conkling, Roscoe, 73

Carnahan, Mel, 294-295 Carollo, Joe, 286-287, Carter,

Connecticut

288-291

Jimmy 237-241, 284

Catt, Carrie

colonial,

4

post-colonial, 11, 13,

Chapman, 152

soldier voting,

17-18

54

chads, hanging, 297, 302

Constitution, United States, 10-11, 72

chain baUot, 137-138, 209

Constitutional Unionists, 49-50

Chandler, A. B. "Happy", 209-212

constitutions, state, 9-10,

Cheney Dick, 301

Coolidge, Calvin, 157

Chicago, 89-90

Cooper, Peter, 21

1960 presidential

election,

245-247,

247, 249, 252-254, 256-259

1972

elections,

Model

102-104

261-267

Cities program,

265

corporate support, of candidates, 330

Corzine,Jon, 330 county-unit system, 217, 236

Crow, Carl, 239-240, 241

Tracy Campbell

442

culture of corruption, 15, 22-23, xv-xvi

acceptance

of,

209, 232, 235, 238, 280,

/

Deliver the Vote

Dickmann, Bernard, 164-169, 170-171, 180, 189-190, 194

Diebold, Incorporated, 330

329 backlash,

Dietzler, George, 35

27-30

changing, 335-340

DiU, David, 330-331

federal complicity, 43

disenfiranchisement. see also African cans; poor whites;

GUded Age, 87-88

in

Kansas City, Missouri, 196

2000

presidential election,

Dixiecrats,

New York City,

Dorsey, G. Volney, 16

rural vs. urban, St.

311-315

Douglas, Stephen, 32-33, 42, 49, 50

Nixon's "dirty tricks" unit, 260 opposition, popular,

Ameri-

suffrage

84-85

modern, 292, 303, 329 151

woman

Douglas, William O., 236

266

Dred

143-147

Scott decision, 50

drugs, exchanged for votes, 282

Louis, Missouri, 176-180

Dugger, Ronnie, 232

and violence, 208

Duke of Duvall, 223-224

and vote wagering, 139-140

dummy candidates, 200-201

Cummings, Homer, 179

Duval County, Texas, 223-224, 228, 229,

D

231,252

Daggett, Illinois

C,

265

Daley, Richard, 245-246, 247, 253-254,

259, 261-267, 263-264, 266, 267

Easdand, James, 268

Dallas, Texas, 334

Edwards, John, 65-66

DaUek, Robert, 243-244

election judges, 196, 204-205,

D'Arcy, William, 171

elections,

DataBase Technologies (ChoicePoint), 312

elections, privatization of,

Davis, David, 75

elections, settling disputed, 72,

deaths, 46, 48, 70, 108, 153, 195, 196, 208,

modifying process

1960 presidential

African American, 61

Georgia gubernatorial

party, 14, 43,

188-189.

see also

presidential election, 333

2004 Washington election,

State gubernatorial

328-329

African American members, 118, 119 flinds,

122-123

post- Reconstruction, 84-85, 100,

Electoral College, 10, 13, 94-95, 236, 247,

and 2000 presidential calls for

Society, 33, 35

Ends of the Earth, The (documentary), 274 Enforcement Acts, 65-66

EPIC (End

Poverty in CaHfornia), 205-206

Ernst, Richard,

207-208

St.

49-50

era,

192

Louis, 160-191

302

336-337 Emigrant Aid

Reconstruction period, 58, 60, 73-74 splintered,

election,

reform, 78-79, 261, 310,

Essen, Fred, 161-162

101-102

Depression

257-258

election, 1942,

255

Hall

presidential election, 306, 307,

308, 309-310, 313, 316, 324

2004

election,

Goebel Election Law, 106-110

Democracy (Adams), 51-52

2000

75-76, 101,

218-219

Delaware, 12, 13

Tammany

285

329-330

129-132, 141-143, 153-154, 156-158

281-282

Democratic

266

of,

fagot voting, 6

Farr.JohnR., 154

443

Index

Farrel,

Dick, 317-318

fraud

FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation),

absentee ballots, 286-291

county-unit system, 217

234-235,251,265 federal complicity, in fraud, 37-38, 39,

40-43, 46, 47-48

definition, xv

divisiveness of,

federal intervention, in fraud, 56-57, 71, 96,

114-115, 144-147, 156-158

147-149,210-211

FBI

234-235

2000

FBI

laws enacted, 65-66, 147-148, 211, 270 for,

107, 108, 181-182,

11-12

Louisiana, 1932, 201-205

Amendment, 58

St.

floaters, 19,

Louis bond issue election, 171-180

Telfair County, Georgia,

Amendment, 271-272

Fisher, John,

265

by Senate Committee, 156-159

invalidated, 93 First

313-314

(Federal Bureau of Investiga-

tion), 251,

Fernandez, "Bathtub Joe", 198-199 Fifteenth

258-259

Harlan County, Kentucky, 210-211

230-231, 244 Federalists, 8,

election,

presidential election,

1960 presidential

(Federal Bureau of Investigation),

refused requests

77-82

investigation of, 79-81, 86-87, 89-90,

155-158

219-220

51-52, 87-88, 338

justification of,

measuring, 26

and partisanship, 78-82

95-96, 149

pervasiveness of, 25-26

Florida

1876 presidential

election, 68, 69,

prevented, through discriminatory legis-

70-71, 73-74, 77, 79-80

1920 general

2000

election,

lation,

246-247, 252, 296-340.

see also

presidential election

129, 144-147, 148,

for,

149,203,211

presidential election, 70, 142,

2000

102-105

punishment

153

rural,

and

143-147, 217, 236, 273-280

size

of election, 24

confusing ballots, 298-301

tradition of, 104, xv-xvi

disenfranchisement, 293-294,

Ukraine, 339

and wealth-building, 184-186, 274-275

311-315

Palm Beach County, 298-300 public demonstratons, results

317-319

announced, 301—302

vote counting, 302-303, 305-309,

36-37, 37-38, 42

free-staters, 32, 33,

Freer Enterprise (newspaper), 228 Fusionist party, 89, 119-121, 122, 124-125,

127-128, 130-131, 196

315-318, 318, 323-324 voting

2004

list,

purging, 312-313

presidential election,

332-333

Gallegos, Padre,

26-27

absentee ballot laws, 336

gambling, on elections, 139-140, 141

Miami, 1997 mayoral

Garvin, Lucius

F.

Gateway Arch,

St.

election,

286-291

C, 136-137 Louis, 160-171

post-Reconstruction, 86-87

Geary,JohnW., 38-39

residency requirements, 305

Georgia, 236

Florida Central Railroad

Company, 68

force

Ford,

bill,

Abe, 230

Fourteenth

Amendment,

election,

presidential election,

215-222

311

2000s, 282-283

92-93, 270

H. Church, 210-211

Fortas,

1942 gubernatorial

2000

Florida Times-Union, 77

post-colonial, 17

Reconstruction, 58-59, 62

236, 322

Telfair County,

218-219, 219-222

Tracy Campbell

444

Deliver the Vote

Hitchens, Christopher, 328

immigrants, 3-4, 90

German

/

Edward, 149

Giancana, Sam, 260

Holler,

Gilded Age, 87-88, 106-135

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 147

Giuliano, Tony, 126-127

Honest Election League, 118-119,

Go Get 'Em

201-202, 204-205

Boys, 135

Goebel Election Law, 106-110

Hoover, J. Edgar, 231-232, 234-235

Goldberg, Myer, 220

Houston Chronicle, 251

Goldwater, Barry, 244

Hume, O. R, 210

Goodhue County, Minnesota, 48-49 Gore, Al, 325-326.

2000

see

Democratic

party,

Gore/ Bush election, 2000.

see

2000

presiI

dential election

Gray

S.,

Sanders,

v.

Hunter, R.M.T., 36 Hurst,Joe, 237, 238-239

election

Grant, Ulysses

Humphrey, Hubert, 243-244

60, 64, 66, 71

Ickes, Harold, 180,

186-187

Igoe, William, 172

236

Greenbackers, 88-89

Illinois,

Greenville, South Carolina,

293-294

Gregoire, Christine, 328-329

23

1960 presidential

2000

Chicago,

Grimes, Pat, 118

election,

260-261

presidential election, 311 see

Chicago 16-17, 18, 103

Grinstead, James R, 132

iUiterate voters,

H

immigrant voting, 3-4,

disenfranchisement, 98, 99, 152

Hamby, Alonzo, 194

also

hanging chads, 297, 302

18, 24, 62-63. see

ahen voting

prevented, 28, 99

90

Harlan County, Kentucky, 206-212, 278

immigrants, German,

Harlan Daily Enterprise, 209

immigrants,

Harmon, Judson, 145

Independence, Missouri, 194

Harper's Weekly, 108

Indiana

Harris, Katherine, 296, 305, 312, 317,

319-320, 325

Irish,

3,

46,47

1876 presidential

election, 67,

1888 presidential

election,

57

Harrison, Benjamin, 94—95

soldier voting, 53,

Hatch Act, 265

Terre Haute, 147-149 Industrial Revolution,

Hawaii, 254-255 voter protective zones, 272

Hayes, Rutherford

B., 66, 68, 69, 71, 73,

riot,

Hearst, William Randolph, 138-143

Heflin,

J.

87-88 People's Association,

90-91

336, 338

90

Head,WimamO.,133, 134 F.

Working

internet voting, 285-286, 333, 334-335,

76,80

Haymarket

Hebert,

International

69

95-96

Edward, 273, 274

Thomas, 158-159

of African American voters, 58-60, 68, 70, 101-102,

by anti-Lincoln

Helms, Jesse, 332 to Vote

20-21, 22

117-118

by African Americans, 118

Helm,JamesP., 128

Help America

intimidation, 7-8, 11, 17, 18, 18-19, 20,

Act (HAVA), 326

Herbert, Bob, 332-333

Hewitt, Abram, 76 Historic Sites Act, 179

forces,

56-57

of election workers, 197, 211-212, 226

by employers, 68, 165-166, 168-169,

211-212 by Know-Nothings, 29, 46-48

Index

445

of non-voters, 245

Kennon, Robert, 232-233

271-272

prevention,

Kentucky, 14, 113-135.

pro-slavery forces, 35-36 threats,

237-238

1864

of women, 204, 205

1980s,

Iowa, soldier voting, 54

Ivins,

presidential election,

1899 gubernatorial

Iowa, 15

Iraq, invasion of,

see also Louisville,

Kentucky 57

election,

106-110

276-280

2000s, 281-282

326

Bourbon County, 234—235

William, 139, 140

Harlan County, 206-212, 278 introduction of secret ballot, 97

Know-Nothing Jackson, Andrew, 13

James, Ollie, 148

164, 187, 188-189, 190

Thomas,

Jim Crow

laws,

5,

Kentucky Irish-American, 133 Kerry, John,

11-12, 164

327-328

Keyssar, Alexander, 152,

237

Kirby,

Johnson, Lyndon

KirkendaU, Richard

224-227, 244, 250,

B.,

269, 270 J.,

36

B.,

129 S.,

195

Know-Nothings, 27-30, 38, 46-48 240-241, 245-246,

262-263, 264-267, 266-267

judicial system, role of,

44-45, 153-154

presidential election,

320-323

Department, Civil Rights

Knox, John, 103 Kolb, Reuben, 100-101

judges, election, 196, 204-205, 266

Justice

Samuel

Kleindeinst, Richard, 265

journalists, role of,

2000

270

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 241

Jim Wells County, Texas, 223, 228, 229-230

Jones, S.

27-30

voter protective zones, 272

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial,

Jefferson,

party,

viva voce (voice votes), 17

division,

269, 270

Krock, Arthur, 116

Ku Klux

Klan, 58-59, 59-60, 62, 153, 216,

217 prosecuted, 93-94

Ku Klux Klan

Act, 65

K Kallina,

Edmund, 260-261

Kansas City, Missouri, 192-212 general election, of 1936, 196-197

Kansas City

195-196, 197-198

Star,

labor unions, 90-91

Lambertson, William, 183-184 land holding, as qualification, 6 Lassing,

John

B.,

131

Kansas-Nebraska Act, 33

Leachman, Roman, 120-121, 127, 129, 134

Kansas Territory

Leahy, David, 297, 318-319

federal compUcity, in fraud, 37-38, 39,

Lecompton

40-43 free-staters, 32, 33,

36-37, 39, 41, 42 36-37, 37-38

government

splinters,

Lecompton

constitution, 41

pro-slavery forces, 33-37, 39-40, 41

Shawnee Mission, 37-38 Kennedy, John

constitution, Kansas Territory,

41-42

F. see

presidential election,

1960

Levey, Edgar, xiii-xiv

Liberty Pole, 9

Lieberman, Joseph, 306 Lincoln,

Abraham,

23, 50, 56

liquor, provided to voters, 5-6, 9, 27,

literacy tests, 103, 152, 215, 221,

Kennedy, Joseph, 260 Kennedy, Robert

LePore, Theresa, 298-299

P.,

247

outlawed, 270 Literary Digest, 146-147

269

209

Tracy Campbell

446

Livingston, Peter, 20

Lodge

force

bill,

mafia,

92-93, 270

Long,

Earl, 198,

260

Magruder,J.

B.,

46

mail-in voting, 21, 285, 304-305, 334, 335,

Lodge, Henry Cabot, 92

Logan County, West

Deliver the Vote

/

Virginia,

243-244

336, 338.

Long, Huey, 198-201, 202, 203-204

male

Long, Julius, 200-201

Marcy, William, 18

Long,

Russell,

election,

24-25

1868 presidential

election,

60

1876 presidential

election, 69,

1948 senate

election,

232-233

New Orleans, 29.

see

198-199, 233, 273-274

272

commemoration,

117-118,127,133,208,212

Evening

107, 119, 124,

media, role

1887 muncipal

of,

Press,

B.,

141-142 80

240-241, 241, 317-318, 318

306

Merriam, Frank, 205-206 Mexicans, 223-224

113-135

elections,

114—115

1905 mayoral

election,

122-130

1909 mayoral

election,

133-134

1923 mayoral

election,

134-135

election,

286-291

Miami Herald,

128-129, 131, 132 Louisville, Kentucky,

L.,

Miami, Florida, 1997 mayoral

40

Post,

154

Patrick,

McLaurin, John

Memphis Daily Avalanche, 98

29

Louisville Courier-Journal, 106, 107, 115,

Louisville

McKinley, William, 139

Meet the

162-163

Louisville Democrat,

139-143

Medalie, George, 205-206

Louisiana Purchase, 32

Louisville Anzieger,

54,

McCranie, Don, 282-283

McLin, Samuel

purge, 332

as

McCleUan, George,

McLane,

104

voter protective zones,

Gateway Arch,

9—10

T, 195

McCain, John, 293-294

New Orleans

Plaquemines Parish, 22, 23, 24-25,

state constitution,

17-18

97

secret ballot,

state constitution,

103

list

9-10

post-colonial, 12, 13, 17,

Mattingly, Barak

Mississippi plan, 104

voting

Massachusetts, 17-18 colonial,

74-75

273

elections, in,

12

Maryland, 12, 15, 53

1844 presidential

fraud

suflBrage, urxiversal,

Marines, 47-48

232-233

Louisiana, 13

1972

absentee ballots; sol-

see also

dier voting

205

288, 290, 297, 306, 309,

310-311,323 Michigan, 15, 53, 333 military intervention,

47^8,

106, 108, 202,

207-208, 208-209 Miller, Shackleford,

129

GUded Age, 106-135

Milligan, Maurice, 194, 195, 197

Goebel Election Law, 106

Mirmesota, 48-49

introduction of secret ballot, 97

Mississippi

Know-Nothing

part)-,

27-30

post- Reconstruction economy, 113 lynchings, 86-87, 235

1876 presidential

election,

67-68, 70

1960 presidential

election,

247

African American voters, 269, 270 post-Reconstruction, 88-89

M

Reconstruction period, 59-60

Mace,J.N., 35-36 machines, voting,

see

Madison, James, 5-6

Mississippi

voting machines

Freedom Democratic Party

(MFDP), 270 Mississippi plan,

102-104

447

Index

Mississippi Valley Suffrage Conference, 148

Missouri, 22

2000

294-295

senatorial election,

citizens,

and Kansas

Depression

era,

Territory,

New Orleans Bulletin, 22-23 New Orleans Times-Democrat, New York, 4, 8

34—37

160-191

103

1844

presidential election,

24

1864

presidential election,

55-56

Missouri Supreme Court, 182

1876 presidential

MIT/Cal Tech

post-colonial, 12, 13, 17, 18

election,

Model

2000

study,

presidential

291

election, 66,

54

soldier voting, 53,

Cities program, Chicago,

woman

265

152

suffrage,

New York City,

Morgan, George W., 140

67

8-9, 23, 149-151

Morrison, Samuel Eliot, 9-10

1844 presidential

election,

24

Morton, Thruston, 248, 249, 252-253

1860 presidential

election,

50

Morton, Thurston, 259

1862

Moses, Robert, 269-270

1864 presidential

election,

55-56

1868 presidential

election,

62-65

Motor-Voter

Bill,

284-285

elections,

52-53

MuUis, Doyce, 282-283

1905 mayoral

Muncy, C. Allen, 276

Bowery, 149-151

Mundt,

Karl,

immigrant voting,

261

Tammany

Municipal Ownership League, 139 murders,

see

election,

Hall,

138-143

18, 19,

24

18-22

New York Evening World, 135 New York Times, 56, 67, 70, 79,

deaths

Myers Automatic Booth, 99

83, 139,

141, 149-150, 281-282, 307, 309, 319,

N

324, 332

Nation, The, 97, 104, 115

Niebuhr, Reinhold,

National Economist, 96

Nixon, Richard

National Guard, 202, 207-208, 208-209

1960

National Park Service, 181, 183

Six Crises,

nativist party, see

Know-Nothings

Negro Democratic Clubs, 118

New Deal, 162-163, New Hampshire 2000

4, 104,

104-105, 332

North Dakota, 152 nullification, 13

O 293

Gates,

WiUiam, 100-101, 104

O'Brien, James, 63-64

colonial, 9

53-54

O'Connor, James, 198-199

voter protective zones, 272

O'Connor, Sandra Day, 321

New Jersey, 8

O'Daniel,

1860 presidential

election,

50

1876 presidential

post-colonial, 17

New Mexico, 26-27, 86 New Orleans, 22, 23, 201-205

2004

24-25

election,

1868 presidential

election, 60, 61

party,

29

yellow fever epidemic, 23-24 Orleans Bee, 22, 23

election,

presidential election,

67

327-328

Adams County, 143-147

1844 presidential

Know-Nothing

W. Lee "Pappy", 224-225

O'Dell, Walden, 330

Ohio, 13, 16

colonial, 6

New

242-261

260

164

presidential election,

soldier voting,

election,

North CaroUna,

Native Americans, 332

xvii

M.

Oklahoma, 1960

presidential election,

O'Mara, William, 121 O'Neal, Joseph

T, 119-120, 127

0'NeiU,Tip,261 Oregon, 285, 334

247

Tracy Campbell

448

Deliver the Vote

/

37

Orlando League of Voters, 332

Pierce, Franklin, 33,

Orlando Sentinel, 303, 319, 336

Pinchot, Gifford, 155-158

Otero, Miguel, 26-27

pipe-laying, 23

Outlook, 108,

Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, 22, 23,

132

24-25, 198-199, 233, 273-275

Overton, John, 199-200, 201

plaquemining, 22-23

OxyContin, 282

plug-ugUes, 46, 47 police,

Palm Beach County,

Florida,

298-300

paper receipts, 331-332 Park,

Guy

B., 175, 178,

political

Parr,

and the

115-121

police,

21-22, 116, 120-121,

123, 124, 125-126, 127, 172, 196,

208-209

8-9, 13

parties,

repercussions, for officers, 134

100

and precinct captains, 263-266

88-89, 89-90,

South Texas, 223-224

100-102, 139-143 Passure, Bertha K., 167

St.

patronage, 80, 165-166, 168-169, 172-173,

Polk,

poU

192 Chicago, 263-264

Louis, Missouri, 164-180

James

K.,

24-25

taxes, 103, 152, 215,

legislation against,

269

235

outlawed, 270

Kansas City, Missouri, 194 system,

machines, 21

New York City, see Tammany Hall

77-82, 88-89

straight ticket voting,

and third

see political

Kansas City, Missouri, 192-212

party system divisiveness of,

machines,

Louisville, Kentucky,

225

George, 223-224, 226, 228

rise of,

political

Chicago, 245-247, 261-267

195

Parker, Alton B., 142 Parr, Archie, 223,

and

machines, and the police

poor whites, 103, 104, 152, 217

263-264

Pendergast, "Alderman Jim", 193

popular sovereignty, 32-33, 38, 41, 43

Pendergast,Tom, 192-198

Populist party, 100-102, 104, 104-105 Porterie, Gaston,

201-202

Pennington, John, 238, 240-241

Potter, Clarkson,

79

Pennsylvania

Potter Committee, 79-81

imprisoned, 197

1860 presidential

election,

1918 congressional 1926 Senate

50

election,

election,

Potter,

David M., 36

Powell, Clayton, 65—66

154

Powell, Lazarus, 55

155-158

colonial, 3-4, 4

Power (Chicago group), 266

post-colonial, 17, 18

Powers, Caleb, 108

voter protective zones, 272

precinct captains, Prentice,

Pennsylvania constitution, 9 People's party, 100-101,

presidential elections,

104

1824, 13

Perez family, 274-275

Perez, Leander,

Jr.,

Peters, Paul O.,

phantom

voters,

274

273-274

166-167, 171, 178, 181

283

Philadelphia, 3-4, 156-158 post-colonial, 18

64

1800,11-12

Perez, Chalin, 273-274, 275

Perez, Leander, 199, 200, 233, 273,

263-266

George D., 28

1844, 24-25 1860, 49-50 1864, 54-57 1868, 60-65 1876, 66-78, 79-81 1884, 91-92

449

Index

1888, 94-96

Reconstruction period, 60, 61, 67, 68,

69-70, 73-74

1960, 242-261

2000.

see

2000

presidential election

2004, 327-328

Revolutionary War, 8

306

prisoners, as voters, 18, 19, 238,

Pritchard,

Edward R, Jr., 234-235

privatization, of elections,

329-330

provisional votes,

Public

Rhode

327

election,

50

Islandization, 7

28-29, 207-208

riots, election day,

161

riots, race,

Robert E., 176-177 list,

136-138

Richards, Leonard, 12

Pulitzer, Joseph, 71

Puis,

236

Rich, Robert E, 184

Works Administration (PWA), 163

purges, voting

Sims,

colonial, 6

12-13

of,

v.

Island, 27,

1860 presidential

property qualifications, 6 elimination

Reynolds

Rhode

250

Prohibition party,

residency requirements, 6, 14-16, 152

riverfront development, see St. Louis,

312-313, 332

souri, riverfront

Putin, Vladimir, 326-327, 339

Roberts,

Donn M.,

Roberts,

Owen, 211

Mis-

development 147, 148-149

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 161, 179

Quitman County, Georgia, 237-241

Roosevelt, Theodore, 147 Rossi, Dino,

R

329-329

Rourke, Barney, 150

R. C.

Tway Coal Company, 207-208,

Rove, Karl, 298 rowdies, 19, 20-21

211-212 race, as issue, 241. see also

Rudv«ck,

African

Americans

Elliot,

rural politics,

race-baiting, 133,

161

and

fraud, 143-147, 217,

236

134

race riots, 161

Ranney, Rufiis

P.,

Saarien, Eero, 188

16

Reconstruction period, 58-62, 66. presidential election,

see also

1876

Saginaw

City,

Michigan, 15

Salas, Luis, 224, 226, 229,

Reeder, Andrew, 34-35, 37

San Francisco, 45-46

registration, voter

Scali,

fraud and misuse, 15, 171-175 increasing convenience of, registry laws,

14-16

election,

September

presidential election, 304-306,

protests,

317-319

presidential election, 330,

2004 Washington eleciton,

325-326

76th Pennsylvania

Company

E, 54

Seward, William, 18

Seymour, Horatio, 53, 61, 64

332-333

State gubernatorial

328-329

11, 2001,

Seventeenth Amendment, 154—155

50

307-309, 313, 315-317, 324

2004

77

Selma Times, 84 Senate elections, 154—158

120, 135, 149

Republican party, 11-12, 50

2000

121-122

secret ballot, 96-99. see ballots, paper, secret

Seelye, Julius,

repeaters, 18, 19, 23, 57, 63-64, 86, 119,

1860 presidential

Antonin, 320-321, 321

Schufif, Charles,

284—285

232

Shawnee Mission, Kansas, 37-38 sheriffs, role in elections,

7-8, 63-64, 208-209

Sherman, John, 79

and fraud, 48-49

SherriU, Robert,

genesis of, 38

Short Boys, 20

218-219

Tracy Campbell

450

shoulder hitters, 18-19

St.

Louis Post Dispatch, 171-172, 173, 174, 177, 179, 182, 283

Upton, 205-206

Six Crises (Nixon),

wins Pulitzer Prize, 189

260

60th Massachusetts Raiment, 57

St.

Louis Real Estate Exchange, 164-165,

183-184, 184-186

slaven; 32-43

Up

Law. 11

Compromise of 1820, 32 divides the States, 49-50

Stand

Stanle>-,

\. O., 148

Kansas Territon.; 32-43

Stanlo,-,

Eugene, 201-202, 203

Slidell,John,24

Steams, Marcellus, 68

Smalls, Robert, 84-85

SteflFens,

Smith, Luther Eh; 162-163. 164-165, 181, 188

Steinback, Robert, 310-311

V.

Darwinism, 87—88

Alhsrigbt, 216,

Socialist

Labor

socialists,

2000

Stevenson, Coke, 225-232

89-90

Stiles,

soldier voting, 57,

138

presidential election,

304-306,

307-309

114-115

strikes, labor,

90-91

Ja\-ier,

286-287, 288-291

suffirage

Afiican .American, 58-62, 62, 68

Sons of the South, 34

universal male,

South Carolina 1876 presidential

election,

presidential election,

69 311

293-294

primar>-,

woman,

12-13

12, 148,

151-153

Sulli\"an,

Big Tim, 86

Sulli\-an,

James '^ ankee', 46

Sumner, Charles, 37

6

colonial, 4,

Ezra, 7

Stoll,.-Mbert,

Suarez,

during Ci^il War, 53-54

2000

Thaddeus, 154

Ste\-ens,

90

Part);

Lincoln, 136-137

Stephens, Hubert D., 157-158

225

Smith social

146

Mississippi plan, 104

Sunday,

post-colonial, 17

Supreme Court,

post-Reconstruction, 84-86

Supreme Court, Georgia, 221

271

Florida,

307

Supreme Court, Wisconsin,

Supreme Court, United

Spencer, W^illiam A-, 15 spoils s)-stem,

Billy,

Supreme Court, Missouri, 182

South Dakota, 332 special interest groups,

St.

177-180 186-188

property; razed,

ri\'erfix)nt

Simmons, Fumitold, 93 Sinclair,

Deliver the Vote

reaction, to election firaud,

Dan, 21

Sickles,

/

2000

233, 273

Brrnvn

presidential election, v.

Louis, Missouri, 22

St.

Louis, Missouri, ri\'erfront development,

Taft,

161-170, 178

Talmadge, Eugene, 215—218

beneficiaries of,

bond

184-186, 190

164—172

William Howard, 108

Talmadge, Herman, 218-223, 268

You and Segregation (pamphlet), 223

1966, 188-189

Tammany Hall,

attempts to o%-ertum, 180-183

and 1860

171-191

displaced businesses, 169-170, 190 federal fimding,

320-323

160-191

issue election,

firaud,

5

Board ofEducation, 222—223

St.

era,

1

147-148,

182, 216, 236, 272

13

Bernard Parish, Louisiana, 198-199,

Depression

M—

States,

163-164, 179, 180-181,

183-184, 186-187

18-22, 62-65, 66

presidential election,

and 1876 presidential and 1905 mayoral

election,

voters, 18, 19,

67

138-143

Election Fund, 21

immigrant

50

election, 66,

24

451

Index

intimidation tactics, 18-19

Bush

and the

Democratic

tariffs,

21

police,

certified winner,

319-320

party, 298,

301-302

disenfranchisement, 293-294, 311-315

13

Supreme Court, 307

Taxpayers Defense Association, 166

Florida

taxpaying requirement, 12

frontrunner status, 303-304

Taylor, Elizabeth,

Taylor,

WiUiam

257

international perceptions,

218-219, 219-222

Telfair County, Georgia,

Republican party, 293, 294, 296-297,

303-304

Temperance movement, 27

United States Supreme Court, 320-323

Tennessee, 17, 58

2004 gubernatorial

285

early voting program,

99

State,

voter protective zones,

woman

271-272

2004

Terre Haute, Indiana, 147-149 terrorist attacks, 9/11,

election,

2004

Dallas,

suffrage,

Thompson, Melvin three-fifths

332-333

Owen, 132

Tyler, Pamela,

205

334

early voting program,

woman

332

332-333

Republican party, 333 Tyler,

presidential election,

327-328

333

Ohio, 327-328

223-249,

255-256, 257

Washington

Michigan, 332-333

225-232

election,

party,

intimidation,

Texas, 101-102, 223-232, 249-252

1960 presidential

presidential election,

Florida,

325-326

election,

328-329

Democratic

153

suffrage,

1948 senate

293-294

primaries,

bombing, 221-222

secret ballot,

326-327

MIT/Cal Tech study 291

106-109

S.,

285

152-153 E.,

217-218, 219, 221

compromise, 11-12

Thurmond, Strom,

84,

268

Tilden, Samuel, 66-67, 69, 71, 73, 76, 77

U Ukraine, 339 unions, labor, 90-91

United

for California,

205-206

93

U.S. V. Reese,

USA Today, 323

Tillman, George D., 84-85

Tillman, James, 84 Tillman, "Pitchfork" Ben, 84-86, 93

van Orsdale, Josiah A., 181-182

Tocqueville, Alexis de, 31

Vare,WilliamS., 155-158

Toland,

Edmund, 180

Varley,

Tonry, Rick, 273, 274

William "Reddy the Blacksmith", 64

Vermont, post-colonial, 17 Viglucci, Andres,

Tories, 8 treating, 5-6, 9,

282

Truman, Harry

S.,

189, 194-195, 197

Tway Coal Company, 207-208, 211-212 Tweed, WiUiam

M.

309

violence, 4, 18-19, 19-20, 20, 22, 124

"Boss", 18, 20, 62-63,

2000 recount, 318-319 by abohtionists, 37 against African Americans, 86-87, 153

bombing, 221-222

64,66 Twenty-Fourth Amendment, 270

Kansas City, Missouri, 195-196

2000

Kentucky, 2000s, 281-282

presidential election, xiv-xv, 70, 142,

246-247, 252, 289, 292-294, 292-327. see also Florida,

2000

presidential election

absentee ballots, 296-297, 304-309 defective,

315-316

postmarks, 308

Know-Nothing

party, 27, 28,

28-29,

46-48

Ku Klux

Klan, 58-59, 59-60, 153

military intervention, 47-48, 106, 108

prevention,

271-272

1

Tracy Campbell

452

pro-slavery forces, 35-36, 37 riots,

St.

28-29

Louis bond election, 170-171

Deliver the Vote

/

Washington

Post,

Washington

State,

tion,

178

2004 gubernatorial

Watergate, 260

toward Republicans, 69-70

Watterson, Henry, 106, 115

Virginia colonial, 6

wealth, and fraud, 184-186, 274-275

post-colonial, 11-12, 17

Weed, Thurlow, 14

viva voce (voice votes), 17

West

and immigrant

Up

Stand

voters,

Law,

243-244

WhaUen,Jim, 135

28

WhaUen,John, 115-119, 126-127,

1

132-134, 135

vote brokering, 286-291, 337

vote buying, 5-7, 91, 118-119, 226-227,

243-244,

Virginia,

Wexler.J. Morris, 258-259

viva voce (voice votes), 4, 17

Whigs,

8,

14

and Know-Nothing

xiii-xiv

and culture of corruption, 136-137,

party,

white primaries, 216

143-147

White, Theodore, 247

and the poor, 277-278

whites, poor, 103, 104, 152,

rural,

secret ballots,

Williams, Harry

137-138

T, 203 289, 290-291

vote-hauling, 276, 337

Wilson,

Thomas

S.,

vote wagering, 139-140, 141

Wilson,

WiUiam

B.,

voter registration, 14—16, 114

Wilson, Woodrow, 153

soldier voting, 53

voter turnout, 268, 284-285, 333-334,

presidenrial election,

297-298

voters, illiterate, 16-17, 18

woman

purging, 312-313, 332

voting machines, 83, 99, 137

suffrage,

152

Wodward, C. Vann, 103

woman

327

votes, provisional, list,

Supreme Court, 44-45 voter protective zones, 272

337-338

voting

155-158

Wisconsin, 43-45

120

tampering, 121-122

2000

217

Whitfield,JohnM.,34

143-147, 282-283

illegal,

27

White League, 61

outlawed, 5

and

elec-

328-329

suffrage, 12, 148,

women, and 204-205

voting place, portable, 118, 119

Wood, James, 5 Woodward, C. Vann, 77

Voting Rights Act, of 1965, 270

World Trade Center

electronic, 328,

330-332

151-153

the Honest Election League,

attacks,

325-326

WPA (Works Progress Administration),

W

163, 164

wagering, vote, 139-140

Wright, George

C,

118

Walker, Robert, 39, 40

Wall Street Journal, 319

WaUace, Arthur, 115, 119, 135 Wallace Election

Bill,

115

Yale University, 7 Yarbrough, ex parte,

93-94

Wallace, George, 241

yellow fever epidemic, 23-24

Warren, Earl, 236

You and Segregation (pamphlet), 223 Young Men's Colored Republican Club,

Washington, D.C., 46-48 Washington, George, 5 inaugural address, 10-11

133

About the Author

TRACY CAMPBELL is and Resistance

the author of The Politics of Despair:

in the Tobacco Wars,

Redemption of Edward liant politician's

was nominated

and

F. Prichard, Jr.,

S)hort

which

demise due to ballot-box

for a

of the Glory: tells

is

The Fall and

the story of a bril-

stuffing. S>hort

PuHtzer Prize. Campbell

Power

of the Glory

Associate Professor of

History and Co-Director of the Wendell H. Ford Public Policy

Research Center

at the University

of Kentucky in Lexington.

(continuedJrom

Our

up

elections are often held

Ukraine or

But after two of the

Iraq, to emulate.

bitterly contested presidential elections in

American

history, this

house has

cratic

book shows how our demonever been in proper order.

really

Using a candid appraisal of our history Deliver the Vote offers

some

in

order for

its

democratic birthright.

a

demoralized electorate to reclaim

and Short of the

Edward

F.

Prichardjr.

Campbell

which

tells

was nominated

of

in the Tobacco

and Redemption of

Glory: The Fall

the story of a brilliant

demise due to ballot-box

Glory

of the

,

author

the

is

The Pohtics of Despair: Power and Resistance

politician's

as a guide,

surprising suggestions

Tracy Campbell Wars,

model

as the

world's budding democracies, such as

for the

most

fr^

for

a

stuffing.

Pulitzer

Short Prize.

Associate Professor of History and Co-

is

Director of the Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research

Center

University of Kentucky in Lexington.

at the

Jacket design by

Howard Grossman/Studio

Cover illustration

i

2E

© CORBIS

By Thomas Nast, November

11, 1871

ORIGINAL CAPTION: "Boss: 'You have the Liberty of Voting for

ANY ONE YOU ANY ONE WE

PLEASE; BUT

WE

HAVE THE LIBERTY OF COUNTING IN

PLEASE.

ARROLL & GRAF A.N

(V/HINT OF AVALON PUBLISHING GROUP '

'•

.TRIBUTFD BY PtIBI ISHFRS GROlIpWtST

Deliver the Vote reveals •

How election fraud played a role in the coming of the Civil War.

• That reform efforts, such as the secret ballot and voting machines, have only changed the w^ay the dirty

How an

•

is

played.

one American city Kentucky was stolen.

election in

Louisville,

•

game

—

How a stolen bond issue election St.

in

Louis ultimately resulted in the

building of the Gateway Arch.

•

How anger at the 2000 Florida recount

has raised deep-seated suspicions about the electoral process that threatens the

integrity of American civic

life.

• That contested presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 are not the anomalies they appear. • to

How persistent fraud has contributed

low turnouts and the demoralization of the American electorate.

ISBN 0-7867-1591-X

52600>

9

780786"715916