88
THE GREEN BAG
the name 'of every voter is placed the name of the political party with which he affili ates. All ballots are attached to consecu tively numbered stubs, from which they are torn like checks in a check book, and the names of the voters are recorded on the stubs in the order in which they come in to vote. The law provides that these stub books must be preserved, and when the election paraphernalia came to be examined in the contest proceedings, it was discovered that all the first numbered stubs contained surnames beginning with A, the B-s next, the C-s next, and so on in the exact alpha betical order in which those names had been recorded on the registration book a month before. These election officers seemed to be oblivious of the fact that the chance of the voters coming to the polls in alphabetical order was about as great as the chance that the letters of the alphabet thrown into the air would fall into an epic poem. When the election thieves started to stuff the ballot boxes it is evident that they simply opened the registration books, in which the names of the voters were properly recorded in alphabetical order, and began copying those names on to the stubs and stamping the ballots. Many interesting and ingenious variations of the straight alphabetical order were introduced. Some times the stubs showed that after they had gone down the alphabet the first time they concluded that they did not have enough ballots stuffed into the box, and they would start at the back of the book and copy 'on to the stubs in reverse alphabetical order more names from Z back to A which had been omitted on the down trip. Occasion ally they voted only Republicans or Inde-, pendents when they went down the alpha bet the first time and only Democrats on the second trip.1
In another precinct in the i2th ward a police wagon full of police raided the polls before the count was completed and carried off the ballots. Although the election officers had already counted 110 straight
1 As an example of latter day ballot box stuff ing on the " get through quick" plan of " alpha betical " voting, a copy of the surnames on the first 10 1 stubs of the ballot book in the 24th Pre cinct of the 1 2th Ward is here appended: —
The names on the next 55 stubs were all registered as Democrats but one. The polling place which was used for this work was the rear room of a saloon belonging to the son-in-law of the Chief of Police.
No. i 2 3 4
Name.
No.
Arnold. Able. A nter. Ackerman.
f 55 56 57 58 59 60 I 61 62
Miles. Morris. Mvrick. Magel. Miller. Murphv. Norris. Nolting.
63 64 .$> 65
66 67 £ H 68 69 70 71 u 72 73 ^ 74 75
Newson. Payne. Pitts. Pogel. Quill. Rocke. Rice. Schaffer. Stewart. Stites. Smith. Scott. Stites.
5 Ackerman.
^2 •Ia
5 1 •»»»
8
o 2 a ^: §
§•
X,
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 •> 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54
Bovsnn. Batman. Burkhark. Bartholomew. Brown. Brady. Barilla. Baries. Bush. Brown. Bird. Bland. Braitling. Bauer. Bird. Bullock. Courtney. Cicel. Cordien. Cordien. Compton. Compton Clever. Cornell. Drer. Disher. Ureher. Evens. Elliott. Edrington. Eury. Fahey. Freeman. Fort. Fort. Gerrard. Greenaway. Grail. Grube. Herbert. Hagerman. Hicks. Hagerman. Hagerman. Hum. Jacques. Lafayette. Limeback. M alone.
Name.
| 76 Talxel. j 77 Valentine. 1 78 Valentine. 79 Wahlington.
80 Wise. 81 Young. f
Here is where the ballot box stutfers began to run the alphabet backwards. Ward. Wooltord. Vetter. Thompson. Spinner. Si ult z. Smith.
82 83 ' 84 S^ ^ 86 "g 87 8S i; g . 89 Schoenbechler. "g 90 Smith. j» g. ""
91 92 93 94 95 96 97
Smith. Ruff. Roberts. Royalty. Ruter. Rather. Miller.
98 Murphy.
99 Johantgen. 100 Haysley. |_ 101 Brickley.
