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A Symbiotic Relationship: Vote Fraud and Electoral Reform in the Gilded Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

John F. Reynolds
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Extract

In 1892 fifty-five former election officials began serving prison terms at hard labor for their actions at 16 precincts during the election of 1889 in Jersey City, New Jersey. A legislative investigation had concluded that approximately 10,000 fraudulent ballots were cast that year—more than one-third of the city’s votes (Sackett 1895: 321–55; McCormick 1953: 171–73). For many observers the episode’s most remarkable feature was not the criminal behavior but the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators. Contemporary accounts of Gilded Age politics attest to electoral chicanery in virtually every state (Davenport 1881; Harris 1929: 1–20; McCook 1892; Summers 1987: 51–67; Benson 1978: 169–85). Many present-day scholars contend that electoral corruption reached its nadir in the nineteenth century.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , Summer 1993 , pp. 227 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1993 

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