Vote or Die: A History of US Election Crimes

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Electoral fraud has been known for a long time. A century and a half ago, elections were not complete without drunken fights and bribery of voters. And the violent voting for the "correct" candidate even ended in the death of famous people.

These days, elections are not complete without falsification and fraud. The situation was the same several centuries ago. So, at the Zemsky Sobor in 1598, the decision to elect Boris Godunov as tsar was nothing more than a fraud. As it turned out, the winner was determined in advance.

But if elections in Muscovy were held quite rarely, then in Western countries with a republican regime, voting was the basis of governing the country. And there were always those who wanted to "correct" the election results or actively influence them.

In 19th century America, electoral fraud was the norm. And it doesn't matter whether the president of the United States was elected or the head of the local fire department. Organized gangs acted at the polling stations, influencing voters. They kidnapped people, drank them with alcohol and forced them to walk from one precinct to another, voting for their candidate or political party. This was the main strategy for winning the elections.

The public was aware of this kind of fraud, but it was so ingrained in American politics that it was in vogue until the late 19th century.

The constant influx of immigrants from Europe annoyed local American residents (who themselves arrived just a little earlier). The newcomers formed their own groups, the locals - their own. American-born Americans viewed outsiders as a threat. They tried to keep them from voting or were forced to vote “for their own people”.

For example, a message in the Washington newspaper Weekly Globe from 1842 reports that 300 people were forcibly removed from one of the polling stations to prevent them from voting.

In those years, polling stations did not have voter lists, and the pre-registration system was very confusing. According to the victim of electoral machinations, Justus Ritsmin, during the 1859 presidential elections in Baltimore, armed bandits lured him and several other people to a warehouse, where they robbed and forced to vote for the Democratic candidate. On that day, Ritsmin "made his choice" 16 times.

Another victim, Peter Fitzpatrick, was beaten on the head and given alcohol to drink. On election day, he and 80 other men of the same kind were forced to go from station to station, changing their jackets and hats to disguise.

Historians believe that the cause of death of the famous writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe in 1849 was a case like the one described above. He was found drunk in a foreign city on election day.

In the 1850s, the tactic of "blood bath" was also in use, when a bucket of fresh pig blood was brought to the polling station and watered with it on those who came to the polls to keep them from voting.

Electoral fraud and fraud diminished with the introduction of ballots and voting booths away from prying eyes and threats. But violations continue to this day.

Remains open the mystery of the death of Edgar Allan Poe, which was accompanied by mystical circumstances and riotous life of the writer.