A Tale of Two Democracies: What It Is Like to Vote in the United States Compared to France?

 

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything . Joseph Stalin

 

For as long as American history has been written, voting corruption is a staple topic and is benignly accepted as part and parcel of the process, especially at the local and state level. Tammany Hall, the Chicago Machine, Texas heavyweights, good ol' boy politicians in the South and many other big city and state party operations have filled books about how elections are rigged and stolen. Americans love to engage in prideful one-upmanship with their neighboring states' citizens about how much "mo' better" one state is than the other for political corruption and rigged elections. Get a New Yorker, a Texan and an Illinoisan in a room together over a few beers and they'll be arm wrestling and breast beating in no time that their state is the most corrupt!

 

Stolen elections and local and state corruption are as much a part of America's political DNA as apple pie and Budweiser! And like torture is spun as "harsh interrogation techniques," and thousands of dead and maimed children, women and elderly as "collateral damage," political corruption in America's most hallowed of democracy's inalienable rights is simply called "irregularities." How quaint"

 

Who can forget the 50,000 ballots that magically turned up in Chicago precincts, to assure that John F. Kennedy took Illinois, its electoral votes and the presidential election from Richard Nixon? Or Robert Caro's majestic account in ''Means of Ascent,'' about how Lyndon Johnson used every dirty trick in the books to beat "Mr. Texas", Coke Stevenson, in his bid for a U.S. Senate seat (Coke was stealing votes too, he just go out stolen by LBJ!). These two crooked elections help change the course of American history and depending on your point of view, for better or for worse.

 

The Corruption Bar Is Raised for the 21^st Century

 

One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. John Paul Stevens

 

 

Then more recently, as power shifted from Democrats to Republicans at the state and national level, these classic American ballot stuffing practices, along with increasing technological opportunities, are being taken to frightening bold national levels. The two elections of George W. Bush have filled books, newspapers, magazines and websites with volumes of brazen theft in Florida and Ohio, as well as numerous issues in other states. With America's undemocratic electoral college, you only have to steal the election in a couple of key states in order to steal the whole country. Herewith is a stream of consciousness litany of America's recent election realities:

 

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