Sunday, August 23, 2009
 
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Investigates Election Fraud
What, polls kept open extra hours to pour in extra Democratic votes? ACORN-backed fake voter registrations? Problems purging voter rolls of duplicates? No, silly. Election fraud in the 1876 election that split the city from the county:
    Prominent promoters cried foul and rushed to court. Hearings found such likely fraud as a rural precinct that recorded 132 votes against and two in favor, with 128 ballots showing eraser marks. A Butler minion, pressed in court about irregularities, blurted: "I deny the facts."

    The Missouri Court of Appeals, including the vigorously pro-city Judge Thomas Gantt, eventually affirmed the tossing of 5,068 ballots, most of them "no" votes, for an overall victory margin of 1,253. The city declared itself independent in March 1877, and the courthouse crowd conceded.
No doubt, back in the old days, the St. Louis Post and the St. Louis Dispatch both favored the plan, but now that it's a hundred and thirty years later, the city and its cheerleading section (the Post-Dispatch) want to cast a pall over an election to delegitimize it.

Don't worry, the city tells the county. For all the bad things the county has done, the city will take it and its tax base back.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:58 AM
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