This post is not about whether Biden or Trump actually won the 2020 election!!!! Just get the issue out of your mind.
A few months ago, I wrote an article on a survey that gives us a glimpse at the scale of ballot fraud in recent American elections. My main point was that self-reported behavior that constitutes the legal definition of ballot fraud is larger than the margin of victory in competitive elections. This seriously calls into question the legitimacy of all competitive elections in the United States.
Based on the comments, I think most readers are unwilling to accept the implications of these survey results. I believe the biggest reason is that most Americans privately think “It cannot happen here. Not in 21st Century America. Ballot fraud is what happens in other poor or authoritarian countries, but not in the United States.”
I believe this is a fundamental misreading of American political history. Back when I was a professor, I used to teach a course on American political history, so I know something about the topic. I also know how naive many people are about the role ballot fraud has played in American political history.
Sorry, but …
Today I am going to explore a part of American political history that is almost completely ignored in the history books. Let me start by making a bold claim.
Ballot fraud has been a central component of American democracy for centuries.
I know that this statement will shock many people, particularly Americans, but it is true. To be more specific, ballot fraud and other fraudulent electoral practices, played a decisive role in which candidate won elections from the 1830s until at least the 1970s.
To be clear, we do not know how widespread ballot fraud was, but we do know that it was an accepted practice by those who ran elections in many if not most regions. We also can logically assume that the practice was far more widespread among Democrats rather than Republicans.
Note: Before you heap hate on me in the comments, read the rest of the post first!
I know that many readers will think that what I am about to say is just misleading history, but it is not. I have a Ph.D. in Political Science and Public Policy from Brown University and have taught multiple courses on American political history. I have also run for state-level office as a Democrat.
What you are about to read is not controversial among historians of American political history. It is just a part of American political history that most would prefer to gloss over or ignore. Conservatives ignore this part of American political history because it seems unpatriotic to point out such obvious deviations from a patriotic history. Liberals ignore it because it makes their favored party look very bad.
To keep the length of this post manageable, I will not include a full description of all the historical evidence. Instead, I will link to Wikipedia articles, which you can read at your leisure if you have doubts.
The Institutional foundations of the Democratic party
From the 1830s when the Democratic party was first established until the mid-1960s, the Democratic party was based upon two major constituencies:
Irish Catholics in the large metro areas of the Northeast and Midwest, particularly New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, Baltimore, and Cleveland. Non-Irish Catholics were added after 1932.
Whites in the South, particularly former Confederate states.
In 1932 the New Deal added a new core constituency in the form of the Catholic working-class voters who were organized into trade unions. This made the trade unions the third organizational basis of the Democratic party. To a certain extent, trade unions are still an influential organizational basis of the Democratic party, although their influence and numbers have seriously declined since the 1970s.
The map below clearly shows the core constituencies of the two parties before the New Deal. The South, where few blacks were allowed to vote, was overwhelmingly Democratic. The rest of the US was overwhelmingly Republican except a few Democratic big cities. Note the dark blue and dark red are districts that changed parties in the 1928 elections, so they are not relevant to this topic.
There were other demographic groups who reliably supported the Democratic party, but these two and later three demographic groups were the core of the Democratic party coalition until the 1960s.
White Supremacy in South
From the Civil War until the Civil Rights era, Southern politics was dominated by a zero-sum race struggle between whites and blacks. The term “White Supremacy” is often thrown around far too easily today, but it is a perfect description of the Democratic party in the South from the 1830s until about 1970.
Before the Civil War, White Supremacy in the South was enforced by law through the practice of slavery and Black Codes. Among the laws was an almost complete exclusion of black civil or voting rights.
After the disputed 1876 Presidential election ended Reconstruction, the Republican party essentially decided to abandon black Republicans in the South and focus their efforts on winning support in other regions. White Southerners rallied to the Democratic party and voted for the party in almost monolithic numbers. Black civil and political rights disappeared from Southern politics for the next seventy years.
After 1874 White Supremacy in Southern states was undergirded by Jim Crow laws that made it essentially illegal or at least extremely difficult for blacks to vote. Both the Black Codes and Jim Crow laws included a form of ballot fraud that kept one entire group, in this case, blacks, from voting at all.
The Democratic party established a political and economic system based on White Supremacy but without slavery. As long as the South did not attempt to reestablish slavery, Northern Republicans were willing to look the other way.
The Solid South
The “Solid South” (i.e. almost universal white support for the Democratic party) gave a small minority of white southerners a veto power over the Democratic party for one century. From 1874 to about 1970, White Southerners dominated the Democratic state parties, and they leveraged their dominance over 14 Southern states to control the Democratic party on the federal level.
This small group effectively controlled:
the state and local governments in the South
25% of the seats in the US House and Senate
A veto power over the Democratic presidential nomination process. The latter was institutionalized by the “Two-Thirds rule” from 1832 to 1936.
In 1964 and 1965 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, white southerners began to leave the Democratic party. Both were bipartisan in the sense that majorities of both parties voted in favor of sweeping changes, but:
A larger percentage of Republicans voted in favor than Democrats
Southern Democrats led the opposition and voted almost monolithically against the legislation
Without the systematic fraud of Jim Crow laws, white elected officials now had a strong incentive to campaign for black votes. White southerners began to leave the Democratic party, partly because they were still opposed to the end of Jim Crow and partly because the Democratic party was rapidly drifting towards the Left on most issues.
White southerners were always one of the most conservative voters in American politics, but as long as the Democrats represented White Supremacy, they were very happy to support the party. Once the Democrats dropped their support for White Supremacy, white southerners naturally gravitated toward the more conservative party. By 1994, the hold of the Democratic party over the South had collapsed. The region is now dominated by the Republican party, except in major metro areas.
Democratic Urban Machines
Just as important as the Solid South were the urban machines of the Democratic party. These machines dominated city politics in the Northeast and Midwest at least through the 1970s.
The most famous was Tammany Hall, which essentially ran New York City politics for over a century. Tammany Hall served as a template for urban Democratic machines throughout the nation.
To be fair, Republicans also had their urban machines, but they were rarely as large or as effective as Democratic urban machines. Republican parties essentially copied Democratic urban machines as a means of political survival. In general, Republicans relied on Protestant rural and small-town voters who are much harder to organize into machines because of their dispersed populations.
The power of Democratic urban machines was based on the following:
Federalism, which gave a significant amount of power to local and state governments.
Single-member districts, which made it possible for one party to dominate a specific geographical area for decades.
Party nomination by closed caucuses. Essentially, the local party leaders chose their party nominees in “smoke-filled rooms.”
The extraordinary talent of Irish politicians. No ethnic minority has played anywhere near as important a role in politics as the Irish Catholics. They particularly excelled at personal charisma and local political organization.
The apogee of Irish political power was reached in 1960 with the election of John F. Kennedy, who relied heavily on support from Democratic urban machines. The Kennedy family political legacy is a still surviving element of this once-powerful Irish legacy.
And, yes, in 2024 we have another Kennedy is running for President. This is a full 140 years after the first Kennedy won elected office!A very limited American welfare state until 1932, which gave an opportunity to machine politicians to provide tangible benefits to potential voters, particularly new immigrants from Catholics.
Virtually no professional civil service and a patronage system (often called the “spoils system”) that enabled elected officials to disperse tax revenue, jobs, and political favors to their supporters.
Systematic ballot fraud (which kept the entire process functioning smoothly and ensured a steady flow of money)
Massive waves of immigrants from the 1840s to 1914, which gave “fresh meat” for the political machines. Many immigrants did not speak English and were desperately poor even by the standards of the day. They were grateful to accept assistance from any institution, regardless of the legality of that assistance.
All of the factors listed above were important to the dominance of Democratic urban machines, but the spoils system and ballot fraud were how they functioned. It is impossible to fully understand the power of Democratic urban machines without acknowledging the existence of systematic ballot fraud.
Decline of the Urban Machines
Since about the 1970s, traditional Democratic urban machines have declined from their once dominant role because of the following factors:
The increasing dominance of college-educated voters within the leadership of the Democratic party. This has pushed the party to the Left on a series of cultural issues where traditional working-class voters are moderate or conservative: foreign policy, military spending, war, environment, religion, immigration, climate change, abortion, race, gender, sexuality, family structure, etc.
The above list of issues makes many working-class voters perceive themselves as not being represented by the Democratic party.
Civil service reform that undermined the patronage system.
Party caucuses being replaced by primaries open to all Democratic voters. This meant that urban political machines could no longer choose candidates for their party.
The resulting rise of individual politicians who no longer feel tied to the party.
Irish Catholics and other working-class voters integrating into American society and experiencing upward mobility.
Post-World War II suburbanization, which moved voters beyond the reach of political machines in the central city.
The Immigration Act of 1924 almost completely cut off immigration until the 1970s.
The advent of new communication and political organizing technologies that undercut the power of urban machines (many of which were pioneered by Republicans who were fighting back against Democratic urban machines):
Television, particularly free television news and campaign ads
Direct mail, which enabled target outreach to individual voters regardless of their location.
Financial donations that bypass party leaders
Internet
Social media
The massive increase in spending for political campaigns.
Rise of Independent and ticket-splitting voters who are more loyal to individual candidates or policy preferences rather than partisan loyalty.
From the 1980s until about 2010, Americans lived with a “candidate-centered” political system where urban machines could simply not compete. Indeed, by 2010 it looked as if urban machines were as extinct as dinosaurs.
In a future post, I will explore the apparent rebirth of Democratic urban machines after 2010.
As usual, the rules for commenting are as follows:
Read the entire post first
Keep the comment on the same topic as my post. This post is not about whether Biden or Trump actually won the 2020 election!!!!
Be respectful.
If you break the rules, I may block you or delete your comments.
It sounds like rigorous voting identification laws and regular trimming of the rolls could actually be supportable on some grounds besides covert racism. This is interesting. I'm looking forward to your next post, about modern political party machines.
As long as humans have had things to do, they have found ways to cheat at it.