Wanna Buy a Vote?

Eschewing the practice of nice political appointments for big campaign contributors or the over-capitalized candidate vying for office – like eBay billionaire Meg Whitman’s California gubernatorial campaign that has absorbed the highest candidate-financed contribution in U.S. history ($119 million by mid-September) – direct, cash-on-cash (or the economic equivalent) vote-buying has stuck to elections like the proverbial “white on rice.” It’s a practice that began as democracy was born and continues like wildfire to the present day.

The Afghan election on the 18^th – a light turnout with threats and violence from the local Taliban making every vote count – pitted 2,500 candidates for 249 parliamentary seats. Voter fraud is so rampant in this pseudo-democracy that there appears almost a rate card for votes. The September 18^th New York Times explains: “In northern Kunduz Province, Afghan votes cost $15 each; in eastern Ghazni Province, a vote can be bought for $18. In Kandahar, they sell their rights for as little as $1 a ballot. More commonly, the price seems to hover in the $5 to $6 range, as quoted to New York Times reporters in places like Helmand and Khost Provinces.” $5 is chump change to a mega-corrupt incumbent (as most are) and a fortune to someone living at the edge of survival. Some of the small districts place candidates with as few as 2,500 votes, and once in office, the opportunities to “milk the corruption cow” are the stuff of legends.

Lest we hold our noses in disdain over this Central Asian political machine (that we actually put in place when we invaded), American history is rife with paid voters, all the way back to the time the U.S. was born and even before. Slate.com (10/21/08) cites Tracy Campbell’s book, Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition—1742-2004: “ ’Election fraud is a crime that usually pays,’ Campbell writes.

“Rampant voter fraud existed in the Colonial era, when voting was generally limited to white, property-owning men. To swing local elections, Campbell writes, corrupt campaigns would arrange for the landless to gain title to property in return for their vote, after which the land would be returned. The purchasing of votes was so popular in Rhode Island that the practice became known as ‘Rhode Islandism.’ Potential voters were also paid in Rhode Island not to cast a ballot. During Colonial times, sheriffs were known to ‘manipulate poll locations, voting times, and voter qualification,’ as well as to ‘simply change election results unilaterally and intimidate various voters.’ … George Washington won his seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758 by spending 40 pounds on booze for his neighbors.”

Cash(or equivalent)-for-votes was as much of an American tradition as Chicago ward politics and New York’s Tammany Hall in the nineteenth century, but Slate.com notes that cash and other forms of election fraud continue into our contemporary era: “Campbell essays at length on voter fraud in Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, California, Georgia, Texas (where Lyndon Baines Johnson stole a Senate election), Illinois, and other states throughout the 20^th century.” As recently as 1987, reports of $200/vote in major elections in Kentucky were common.

Is it human nature? Can election fraud ever be stopped? And is there always a link between buying elections and the officials so elected using their offices to general a significant illicit economic lifestyle? I recall on one of my trips to northern Kenya back in the 1980s one particular Borana tribe having a particularly candid talk with the local chief. He was tall, spoke reasonably good English (he lived in Nairobi for a few years), but wore a tattered cotton tunic, no shoes and his smile flashed the status-reflection of a gold tooth. Cattle and an occasional camel were tended in this village of round grass huts, dust, dirt and baron vistas as far as the eye could see, broken up by a few straggly trees.

I asked him how he became chief, and what follows is the best paraphrase my mind can conjure: “Tradition in this village is for a chief to stand for election by having the villagers in support line up behind the individual seeking office. The chap with the longest line wins.” I pressed for campaign insights, and the tooth flashed in the sun. “Oh,” he went on, “tradition here is for candidates to promise cattle to those willing to cast a favorable vote; there was no other way, but that was too expensive for me. I had an American friend from New York who bought a dozen cheap watches that I used instead of cattle, and let’s just say, it worked.” I looked around, and it was clear that no one in the village was likely to be late for… er… whatever they could be late for.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you don’t point out the defects, democracy can never work.