A Brief History of Election Fraud in the United States
Elections in America used to be a very public event, often with a carnival-like atmosphere where people in a community would gather at their local courthouse to celebrate their right to vote. There was little-to-no secrecy when voting, with votes generally declared orally before a judge giving every American present the privilege of knowing which candidates were being voted for and by whom. This was known as viva voce voting (“living voice”), or public voting, and was the way elections were handled from the founding of the United States until a corrupt system of secrecy was introduced in 1892 that persists to this day. Variations of this system existed, where some would write the candidates they wanted to vote for on a piece of paper. Under this variation, some would try to conceal their vote, but many didn’t care if others knew how they were going to vote.
Under the viva voce system, candidates rarely campaigned before election day, mostly because technology hadn’t evolved to the point where information could be relayed across the world in a fraction of a second. Instead, they campaigned at the courthouse when everyone came to vote, creating a drunken carnival atmosphere and engaging with Americans on their way to the courthouse to try to win their vote. This system saw a surprising 85% turnout but was extremely chaotic, with nefarious actors on occasion using lies, manipulations of truth, bribery, threats, and even physical violence to gain votes.
One particular nefarious tactic became somewhat popular in the early 1800s, called cooping, where operatives would kidnap people days before an election and lock them in a basement for a day or two while stuffing them with so much food and alcohol that they would wobble in a nearly-unconscious state to the courthouse and vote how the kidnappers demanded. Others would setup huge kegs of booze at the courthouse and offer unlimited free alcohol in an attempt to intoxicate voters to the point that they would vote a certain way. In some urban areas, political gangs surfaced and used violence to intimidate communities to vote how they wanted. Similar tactics have been used throughout history and continue to be used to this day. Groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter are echoes of groups that terrorized communities in the years leading up to the French Revolution to sway the minds of men, and again terrorized communities in the years leading up to both World Wars.
A few notable examples.
Isaiah Rynders, a wealthy Democrat CEO that founded the Empire Club, notoriously led a militarily-armed team of rioters through New York in the 1840s and 1850s, destroying places where opposing political gatherings would take place and even placing armed guards outside polling stations to intimidate voters intending to vote for the opposition and keep them from entering the polling booths.
In 1853, “Honest John” Kelly (“Honest John” being an ironic nickname because every word that came out of his lips was a lie), a Democrat candidate for Congress, raised up a militia of dock workers and volunteer firemen, then marched down and destroyed polling stations, tearing up any opposing ballots they found.
As the 1850s progressed, increased immigration brought new fears and new strategies to rig elections. Democrats targeted mostly new Irish immigrant, offering them jobs to start their new lives in America in exchange for their vote. This angered some naturally-born Americans, claiming Democrats were stealing elections by bribing and manipulating the less fortunate.
In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act brought a different kind of voter fraud to Kansas in what has infamously become known as Bleeding Kansas. The Act, proposed by Democrat Stephen A. Douglas (who only wanted the Act passed as part of his plan to become filthy rich with the Transcontinental Railroad), turned Kansas into a bloody battleground. It effectively abolished the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (which asserted that Missouri would be the only state above the 36th parallel to allow slavery in exchange for California entering the Union as a free state) and instead established the doctrine of popular sovereignty (a vote by the people) to determine whether Kansas (another state above the 36th parallel) would be a slave or free state. Both sides seized this opportunity and flooded Kansas with non-residents to fraudulently vote and try to force Kansas to become their desired state. Some came armed, called border ruffians, and sparked small skirmishes across the borders that led to at least 55 deaths. To this day, there is still no definitive estimate as to how much of this election was fraudulent.
Reconstruction.
After the American Civil War, in the 1860s and 1870s, a new panic arose among Democrats as freed black men began showing up at voting booths. To Southern Democrats, black men “were incapable of exercising the judgment required to vote in a republic,” and began declaring that the only reason a black man would show up at a voting booth was if “Northern Yankee carpetbaggers” were somehow manipulating freed black men to vote against Democrats. A carpetbagger was a derogatory term used by Southern Democrats to identify Northern Republicans who had come South after the Civil War to fill vacant political seats and help the Reconstruction efforts.
To combat this paranoia, Southern Democrats passed a series of laws designed to prevent specific groups from voting, often referred to as direct disenfranchisement laws. For example, in some places in the South laws were drafted by Democrats that required every voter to be registered days or weeks before an election. Assessors were supposed to go to every door to ensure everyone was registered, but in reality they passed by poor and black neighborhoods to prevent those individuals from voting on election day, fearing those voters would vote in favor of Republican ideals. In other places, poll taxes were implemented requiring a fee to vote, but white voters were fortunate enough to be grandfathered in and weren’t required to pay the tax. A similar strategy was implemented called literacy tests, which required voters to perfectly read sophisticated old-English documents to perfection to be able to vote — unless, of course, you were a white man grandfathered in. In some places, more violent tactics were used, giving rise to the infamous Ku Klux Klan that terrorized mostly the South for a century (though remnants resurface on occasion even to this day).
The Australian ballot.
In 1892, a new ballot system was introduced into elections, called the Australian ballot, named after a practice of secrecy that was introduced into the British Colony of Victoria in 1856 (a colony established on the southeastern tip of Australia). Ironically, documented cases of voter fraud nearly vanished with the introduction of the Australian ballot. But did it really vanish, or did the secrecy of the ballot make it virtually impossible to prove fraud to exist? Under the Australian ballot system, not even the voter can verify how his vote was tallied. All that can be verified is that a vote was in fact counted. It is a system ripe for corruption.
Secret ballots have historically marked the beginning of the end of many great nations,
Forms of fraud.
Voter fraud can be achieved through:
Impersonation another at the polls, including voting for somebody who has died, moved away, or lost their right to vote but remains on the voter registration rolls.
False registrations, using fake names or addresses to claim residence in a jurisdiction other than the voter’s genuine jurisdiction.
Duplicate voting, where people vote in multiple jurisdictions or states.
Fraudulent use of absentee ballots.
Buying votes, either with money or tangible things.
Illegal assistance at the polls, with malicious actors manipulating or gaslighting people at the polls, especially the elderly, disabled, or illiterate.
Ineligible voting, done by somebody who has no legal right to vote, including illegal aliens or convicted felons.
Directly altering the vote count.
Ballot petition fraud, which is forging signatures to have candidates added to the ballots that aren’t real people or are solely meant to steal votes from other candidates.
Ballot harvesting, where an actor collects ballots from others and then either doesn’t turn the ballots in (if they know they’re for the opposition) or alters them before submitting them.
Other methods certainly exist, and documentaries such as 2,000 Mules demonstrate how sophisticated some of these voter fraud networks can be.
Since 1982, the Heritage Foundation lists 1,365 proven instances of voter fraud with 1,173 criminal convictions (as of July 2022).
References.
A Sampling of Recent Election Fraud Cases from Across the United States
How Americans Have Voted Through History: From Voices to Screens
The 200-Year History of Using Voter Fraud Fears to Block Access to the Ballot
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