WASHINGTON-One of the lasting admonitions in politics, often spoken around major elections, is to vote early and often. Meant to be a jocular rejoinder to get one's people to the polls, it is also a reminder that not all elections are as pure as we make them out to be. Indeed, it's a hint that a little chicanery here or there might be acceptable.
From the early days, when the city machines like Tammany Hall passed out pints of whiskey and $5 bills while moving voters from precinct to precinct, and parties waited to see how many votes were needed from rural or urban areas before turning in their tally sheets, and ballot boxes suddenly disappeared when necessary, the American voting process has never been as truly democratic as we would have the rest of the world believe. After all, for decades following the Emancipation Proclamation, an entire race of American citizens remained disenfranchised by hook or crook in a broad section of the nation.
But on the other hand, in the gathering of millions upon millions of votes in our local and national elections, the process-while it may have been flawed on any number of occasions-remains the strength of our republican system. That is, of course, despite the fact that one can win the popular vote, as did Vice President Albert Gore in 2000, and still lose the election because of a built-in security element called the Electoral College, which is meant to protect us from ourselves.
Can the entire affair be "rigged," as the (nominally) Republican Donald Trump has charged while struggling to overcome the failure of his own rhetoric and announcing he isn't sure if he'll accept the results? (Under the circumstances, one wonders what the heck he thinks he can do about it despite historic references by his campaign to the 2000 presidential election results that were delayed over the Florida recount.)
A repeat of that episode seems a stretch given the fact it involved one state, not an entire nation, as Trump has described. Forgotten historically is that Florida would have been irrelevant had Gore not lost Tennessee, his home state, an almost unequaled phenomenon. Richard Nixon lost his home state of California, but he hadn't lived there for years. Gore had his national headquarters in Nashville.
The most modern parallel to Trump's claims may be the Nixon-Kennedy election of 1960. There has been ample evidence presented suggesting Kennedy's game-saving victory in Illinois was brought about by shenanigans perpetrated by the Chicago mob, which managed to vote whole blocks of empty housing. An interesting footnote was that when the New York Herald Tribune's Earl Moses, in a masterful piece of investigative reporting, was about to blow the lid off this scandal, the loser, Nixon, called the paper's publisher, then Jock Whitney, and asked him not to do so for the good of the country.
Was this the same Richard Nixon history loves to hate?
There have been other incidents of crucial state vote manipulation in presidential elections, but the point here is that Trump's habit of crying foul in the wake of his own failures is dangerous. There are those out there who, if some of his early rallies are any indication, think violence is an answer to the disaffection that has drawn them to him in the first place. They are "mad as hell" and ready to believe the hated "Washington establishment" is capable of such an outsized conspiracy.
The experts are telling us that there is little or no evidence of fraud or manipulation at local precinct levels in America. This may or may not be totally accurate. But it certainly would be a difficult achievement. Besides, Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, noted that he likes to apply the rigged allegation every time things don't go his way. For instance, he made the charge even when he failed to win an Emmy for his reality television show.
Alleging one's opponent will do anything to manipulate the election is without a doubt an act of desperation. In so many words, it's says "I'm not going to win this and the reason is that you are a liar who somehow has stolen the election." Words he has used to punctuate his rhetoric throughout the election. Equally harmful to his own chances, I think, he denigrates not only the system but also his own belief in it by refusing to say he will accept the outcome.