Commentary: The Fraud Machine?
Crooked elections are not new in America, but this election has the
potential to be the most crooked election in our history.
By William Marvel
When I slid my ballots into the voting machines at our recent town
meeting, I did so with the confidence that my various votes would be
tabulated with something exceeding 99-percent accuracy. Not that I
trust voting machines especially--because I don’t--but ours collect
the actual ballots for future reference: it is the resolution of any
questions by a hand count that offers the comfort. I have taken part
in enough municipal ballot counts to recognize that in a town as small
as ours ballot fraud would be difficult to hide, even if a portion of
the counters chose to violate the public trust.
Most American voters no longer enjoy the right to such confidence. The
concept of electronic voting is sweeping the country, with no apparent
concern that each vote disappears the instant it is cast, leaving no
physical trace to confirm the reliability of the machine. Voting
machines were introduced for the convenience of vote counters, rather
than voters, and it was the introduction of such technology that began
the trouble in the first place, for hand-marked ballots never caused
as much consternation as machines have. The fraud and confusion that
characterized Florida’s 2000 presidential election inaugurated a
widespread demand for protection against the technological subversion
of voters’ wishes. As though determined to worsen the problem, most
officials have met that demand with the same old answer of more
technology, and this time they have selected one that is prone to both
undetectable errors and deliberate manipulation.
As in most other realms, Americans like to think that their electoral
system is the purest and most admirable in the world, but stolen
elections are as frequent in our history as they are in the banana
republics that we ridicule. Contemporary accounts from the state of
Maryland, for instance, describe the absolute subversion of the
democratic process during the Civil War. When Abraham Lincoln disliked
the flavor of that state’s legislature, he simply imprisoned all the
critical members under an assortment of inventive charges. To prevent
Maryland voters from electing similar replacements, he posted federal
troops at the polls during the next election to “maintain order.”
Before approaching the ballot box, each voter had to pick up a ballot
that identified his party affiliation by its color, and “loyal”
volunteers stood with the soldiers to identify “disloyal” voters
(usually by the color of their ballots). The soldiers would then
arrest that man for attempting to “pollute the ballot box” before he
could cast his vote. The result, of course, was a resounding
Republican victory.
Better known than Lincoln’s crimes against democracy is the successful
conspiracy to steal the presidential election of 1876. Democrat Samuel
Tilden held a large lead over Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in both
popular and electoral votes, but he needed one more electoral vote to
win. The electoral delegates of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina
remained in doubt, thanks to the Republican “carpetbag” governments
that still controlled those traditionally Democratic states, so the
question was thrown to a commission composed of five senators, five
representatives, and five justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. The
commission consisted of eight Republicans and seven Democrats, and
after pretending to deliberate over ballot questions the commission
gave the election to the clear loser, Hayes, on a party-line vote of
eight to seven.
Essentially the same thing happened in 2000, when five Republican
ideologues on the Supreme Court found an excuse to stop counting the
Florida ballots at a point when the Republican, Bush, held a slim
lead. It was a classic banana-republic coup: the son of the man who
once headed the country’s secret police won the presidential election
because of a questionable electoral process in a state governed by his
brother, and those questions were settled by judges appointed by the
candidate’s own father and the father’s boss. It was, of course,
unknown at the time that one of those judges was also a duck-hunting
buddy of the candidate-son’s running mate.
Historical perspective is so subjective that most of the people of
voting age probably think the election fiasco of 2000 was only an
aberration in an otherwise admirable record. In fact, it was just
another example of the partisan corruption that forever lies waiting
for an opportunity. The illegitimacy of the last presidential election
will probably pale against the questions that arise from the
“black-box” vote this November, when we may wonder whether the
ultimate decision was pre-programmed into the machines. But in a
society where election has come to decide nothing more than which
candidate was able to spend the most money, what does it matter?
William Marvel is a freelance writer in New Hampshire and served in
the U.S. Army from 1968-1971. His many books include the award-winning
Andersonville: The Last Depot and Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to
Appomattox. You can send your comments to
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