The book Means of Ascent is a well-written, exhaustively-researched book by the celebrated journalist and author Robert Caro. It details Lyndon Johnson's 1948 Senate election, including the infamously stuffed ballot box in Precinct 13 in Jim Wells County, Texas.
Johnson was polling 9 points behind his opponent, former Governor Coke Stephenson, a week before Election Day. 1
Caro reports that Johnson aides flew into various jurisdictions in South Texas and discreetly delivered cash bribes to local election bosses or judges. 2 In the San Antonio area, corrupt deputies rounded up poor voters and took them to the polling places and made sure they voted for Johnson. 3 After the polls closed on Election Day, some poll workers were paid to leave, the doors were locked, and levers were pulled on voting machines. 4 In Jim Wells County, the ballots were hand-counted, so the election judge simply counted ballots for Johnson that had been cast for Stephenson. 5
Caro wrote that, in Duvall County, Boss George Parr was just waiting for the telephone to ring to find out how many votes Lyndon Johnson needed, noting that "since few constraints limited Parr in the number of votes he reported, he just 'counted 'em.' The effect of his turning in votes late would be that he could report almost any number of votes needed, which would mean that, to a considerable extent, the Duke of Duvall could decide the result of any close statewide election all by himself. That the the only limit would be the number of poll taxes he had paid." 6
The last late addition of 201 votes from Jim Wells County showed that those voters had appeared at the polling place and had signed in and voted in alphabetical order.7 (This is, to be sure, a most improbable occurrence.) And, finally, out of almost a million ballots cast, Johnson "won" the election by 87 votes. 8 (Of the 201 additional "votes" in Jim Wells County, 200 had gone to Johnson, 1 to Stevenson.)9
We often hear reporters--and politicians--say that "there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud." The incidents described in Caro's book demonstrate that "widespread" fraud is not necessary to change the outcome of an election. For fraud to be a decisive element in American elections there is no requirement that it be "widespread." All that is required is for an election outcome to be close. Once an election has become highly competitive, the final outcome can be affected by involvi
In the 1948 election, Jim Wells County represented only 27 hundredths of one percent of the vote (2557/988,295) 10 Fraud never has to be "widespread" in order to disrupt elections or lead to an outcome that is antithetical to our Constitutional norms, or morality itself.
Footnote 1- Caro, Robert, Means of Ascent pg. 303
Footnote 2- Id, pgs 304-305
Footnote 3, Id, pg. 305
Footnote 4, Id, pg. 306
Footnote 5, Id, pg 265
Footnote 6, Id, pg 314
Footnote 7, Id, pg 327
Footnote 8, Id., pg 317
Footnote 9, Id. pg. 328
Footnote 10, Id., pg. 317