Reply #1: New book: DELIVER THE VOTE. Terrific book. [View All]

This is one outstanding book. I cannot recommend it too highly. {link: www.amazon.com/gp/product/078671591X/104-6392133-1527111?v=glance&n=283155 | Worth the time and money. You will see variations of every type of fraud you’ve heard discussed in 2000 and 2004. This book makes it clear that the presumption of a clean election is a naïve one indeed. I am autorank and I endorse this book.


http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/entertainment/books/13513320.htm
Posted on Sun, Jan. 01, 2006
BOOK REVIEW

Vote fraud is a serious problem, despite jokes

By Reviewed By Al Smith
SPECIAL TO THE HERALD-LEADER

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Although this is a national story, from George (Washington) to George (W. Bush), Kentucky's contributions to what Campbell calls "the long sordid tradition" of thwarting majority wishes are numerous: a 19th-century constitutional ban against ministers holding political office (because so many were opposed to slavery); elections by stand-up "voice" vote until the Civil War; the 1900 assassination of a Democratic nominee for governor, William Goebel, because Republicans feared his challenge to their nominee's apparent victory would prevail (they were right: Goebel was sworn into office on his deathbed); and the 1905 theft of a mayor's race in Louisville that was so blatant the courts overturned it, only to see the Louisville bosses, the Whalen brothers, return to power in the next election.

So what to do about buying votes, stuffing or destroying ballots, moving poll locations, transposing results, importing illegal voters, and suppressing and sometimes killing voters? Campbell, an associate professor of history at the University of Kentucky, offers these suggestions:
• Make absentee ballots "the rare exception." Our civic life is nourished by voting in public places, rather than by Internet or mail.
• Abolish the Electoral College and its "winner-take-all" opportunity for fraud at the presidential level.
• Expand campaign-free zones around precincts to discourage buying or intimidation.
• Insist that the courts energetically dismiss illegal votes and understand that fairly counting votes is as much a civil right as casting them.
• Finally, beware of any claims that technology offers a foolproof shield against fraud. As Doc Beauchamp hopefully suggested when voting machines were introduced in Kentucky: "What we need now is fewer precinct workers and more mechanics."