http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122550597058490345.htmlNOVEMBER 1, 2008
"...Election fraud in the U.S. traces back to the beginning of elections. There's a danger now that eligible voters will be disenfranchised by the thousands, because of efforts to prevent a few unlawful votes. Although the GOP's barrage of charges is unique, the apprehension of "unlawful votes" is hardly new, recalling fears as old as the republic -- or, indeed, even older.
The worry that the undeserving may cast votes recalls the major argument that, in the 18th century, was used to justify strict property requirements for all voters in America. As historian Alexander Keyssar points out in his magisterial "The Right to Vote," those without property were deemed incapable of voting soundly, since their dependency would cause them to defer to those above them. And yet, as Mr. Keyssar notes, those arguing against enfranchising the poor were just as likely to believe not that the poor have no will of their own, but that the poor have too much will. Give such have-nots the vote, believed John Adams, and "an immediate revolution would ensue."
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While both sides always used such tactics, in this century it is the GOP that's done most to rig the vote (with little outcry from the Democrats). In 2000, thousands of Floridians were purged illegally from the voter rolls before Election Day, according to the sworn testimony of George Bruder, a vice president of Database Technologies, before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. The vote count in Miami-Dade County was shut down by a disturbance variously referred to as a "Brooks Brothers riot" or "bourgeois riot," where several people were pushed and shoved by staffers working for congressional Republicans.
Four years later, in Ohio, ballots were altered or destroyed on a massive scale, making Mr. Bush's win there questionable, says researcher Richard Hayes Phillips. (Officially, Bush won the state by some 118,000 votes.) The damage came to light through a three-year audit led by Mr. Phillips of ballots from selected precincts in 18 Ohio counties (the research is available in his book, "Witness to a Crime")..."
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