DÉjÀ Vu

Vote Early and Often

Monday, November 17, 2014

2014

A Michigan voter had trouble casting a ballot in last week’s midterm elections, but not for lack of trying—when he arrived at his polling station, Dale Hopfinger was informed that he was, in fact, already dead. Local Michigan news station WNEM reports:

“[They] said, no he's deceased, so he can’t vote,” said Hopfinger.

But even with his identification in hand proving who he was, a poll worker told him township records show that he was dead. In fact, they claimed he died on September 25.

Eventually he convinced the township clerk he was in fact alive, and they allowed him to vote.

1868

New York’s Tammany Hall, a political machine that touched every part of city government during the second part of the nineteenth century, stayed in power in large part due to high voter turnout. Some of those voters, though, were already deceased. “Vote early, vote often” was a Tammany maxim, and any name on the rolls was fair game. Here, Big Tim Sullivan, a Tammany high-up, describes the process of getting out the vote, again and again:

When you’ve voted ’em with their whiskers on, you take ’em to a berber and scrape off the chin fringe. Then you vote ’em again with the side lilacs and a mustache.

Then to a barber again, off comes the sides and you vote ’em a third time with the mustache.

If that ain’t enough and the box can stand a few more ballots, clean off the mustache and vote ’em plain face. That makes every one of ’em good for four votes.