Voting Fraud, a thing of the past?

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Cartoon by Daniel Fitzpatrick
Cartoon by Daniel Fitzpatrick

 

Is voting fraud (and political corruption) a thing of the past or is it simply wearing a new mask? Here’s to hoping we (have) learn(ed) from the mistakes of yore.

 

On voting fraud during the Pendergast Machine:

“The feared and powerfully connected Frank Nash, bank robber and contact man with all the important freelance gangs in the Midwest, was James “Blackie” Audett’s cellmate. Nash escaped and then influenced Johnny Lazia, strong-arm man for Tom Pendergast of Kansas City, Missouri, to use his influence to free Audett who had aided Nash in his flight from Leavenworth. Boss Pendergast’s connections and lawyers had Audett free in 1930 and he immediately went to work for the powerful Pendergast political-underworld machine in Kansas City, rigging elections, destroying ballot boxes, voting as a repeater, organizing prostitutes to vote while using names of deceased persons, and distributing slot machines.”

-excerpt from The Dillinger Dossier, by Jay Robert Nash

In Blackie’s own words:

“My first job in Kansas City was to look up vacant lots…we would give addresses to them vacant lots. Then we would take the address and assign them to people we could depend on – prostitutes, thieves, floaters, anybody we could get on the voting registration books. On election days we just hauled these people to the right places and they went in and voted…”

 

Anything is possible?