Politics of Alabama

by Joseph C. Manning

CHAPTER VII.

ELECTION METHODS OF THE DEMOCRATS.

“Bourbon” campaign intolerance, ballot-box stuffing and other similar crimes against human liberty have become a common practice in the political contests in Alabama. It is said frequently by the opposition in this state that one’s skill in fraudulent election manipulation wins promotion in the councils of the Democratic party. It is also not untrue that voters who have been accomplices in perpetrating election frauds have been rewarded with official positions “on account of efficient services rendered the party.”

The election law in Alabama was framed for facilitating fraud as an alleged necessity for protection from negro supremacy. But, once having secured the “machine,” the “bosses” have taken advantage of this “original purpose,” and have carried the practice of stealing ballots so far as to feloniously take white men’s votes in order to preserve the “machine” intact. This practice has been carried out to such an outrageous extent that an overwhelming majority of “white” ballots have frequently been reversed by the “machine bosses” in order to continue the evolution of the office-holding hierarchy. The original ballot-box stuffing law has been recently displaced by another equally as iniquitous. This new law was enacted at the last session of the Legislature and is known as the “Sayre Election Bill.” As fair and able criticism that has been made of this bill appeared in the Alliance Herald, Montgomery, Ala., edited by Frank Baltzell, one of the ablest and most forcible writers in the South. The Alliance Herald says of this measure:

“The law should be captioned, ‘A Bill to be entitled an Act to Perpetuate the Frauds which have heretofore been practiced in Alabama.’ It is very ingenious in its draft, very adroit in its omissions and very mischievous in its operations. The principal idea in the bill is that it absolutely puts the control of elections in this state into the control of the inspectors of elections, by making everything about voting so hedged about by secrecy that it is impossible to ever get the evidence of any fraud that may be committed, and by making them the absolute directors and controllers of those who may not be able to read and write. The principal omission of the bill is that it does not provide for the appointment of inspectors from each party or faction, or rather fails to make provision for the enforcement of the existing section in the code which provides for it, effective and certain to be enforced. All the frauds in the elections are due to that defect. The probate judge, clerk and sheriff do not pretend to enforce the law fairly. Appeal to the courts to secure enforcement is a farce, as appeal from the decision of the court delays the application of the remedy, if the supreme court should order it, until after the election shall be past. Each party or faction should be guaranteed, under a heavy penalty upon these officers, fair and just representation in the management, by having at least one inspector and one clerk—those, too, whose names shall be suggested; for to appoint one ignorant, careless or indifferent inspector, to watch two inspectors and two clerks, is folly. The average ballot-box stuffer can count out every time, when that is done. One man is needed to watch the one who reads the ballot, and another to watch the clerks. Without these two, the ‘slick’ artist can count out every time. This omission in the bill makes it safer than the present law, for a voter can now keep a list, and those of his party can give their names and voluntarily tell him for whom they voted, and thereby afford evidence available in a contest. This bill purposely does away with this right by putting all the power in the hands of the inspectors and keeping everybody fifty feet away from any evidence whatever. The law is almost wholly devoted to how voting shall be done. Nobody is concerned about that. Everybody wants to know how the counting will be done, or how the stuffing will be prevented. That power is kept securely in the hands of the inspectors, and the inspectors’ appointment is equally as firmly kept in the hands of the judge of probate, clerk and sheriff. That may seem a very adroit way of perpetuating fraud, but it is neither smart, shrewd nor fair.

“The law provides for booths or stalls—one for each fifty voters as shown by the preceding election. One voter at a time gets a ticket from an inspector, goes into the booth and is allowed five minutes to prepare his ticket. If he cannot read or use his hands to make a cross mark opposite each name of the candidate for whom he desires to vote, the inspector appoints one of the partisans of his party—not the voter’s—to fix the ticket. He will fix it, too. Nobody can see or hear what transpires between the voter and this appointed manipulator. No penalty is provided for deceiving or wrongly marking the ticket. All the frauds about that feature are protected. When it is marked, the voter casts it. Why not number it, so that it can be identified in case of contest or dispute? That would prevent fraud, and is not wanted. No one is allowed within fifty feet of the voting place nor the booths. There is great particularity about the way the ticket shall be prepared, and none shall be voted unless they shall have the initials of the inspector who hands them out, on the ticket. Any other ticket, if voted, shall not be counted. There is another chance for fraud. Suppose the inspector refuses to mark his initials on the tickets, there is no penalty and each one can refuse and defeat the election.

“The law requires the registration of voters to be completed the first twelve days in June, before the August and November elections. Before registering for each election, the voter must present his poll-tax receipt. When he registers he gets a registration certificate. When he votes he must present this registration certificate and leave it with the inspector. The way is not plain how it will get back to him, when he delivers it in August and desires to vote in November, but it is supposed that he will have a slim or good chance at that, as he shall be in accord or opposition to the officer who ought to return it. If the registrar fails to act after he shall be appointed, there is no way for the voters of the beat to register that year; the probate judge and registrar can manage that little trick so as to disfranchise all the opposition beats with heavy majorities. The probate judge can appoint another, but there is no penalty for not serving nor for the appointment of an incompetent registrar. That feature is well fixed. The bill provides penalties for everything to protect secrecy, but nothing to protect the honesty of the count. It seems to proceed on the assumption that the principal thing about an election is secrecy, and that the honest expression of the will of the voters is not to be protected. The inspectors will fix that for the party to which they belong and the probate judge will see that no other party or faction has any chance or prospect. As a remedy for the troubles now complained of in the state, the bill is wholly at variance from everything needed. It simply puts in the power of the probate judge, clerk and sheriff of a county the power to control every election.”

The foregoing review of the “Sayre Election Law,” is no more than a just exposure of a legislative document devised and enacted for the subversion of the will of the people. In other language, this law is nothing more nor nothing less than a legalized plot to commit treason against a republican form of government.

With the registration of voters and the management of elections in their own hands, the “machine bosses” of the “black belt” never fail to return any majority “that is needed.” As an instance of this corruption, let us refer to the vote of last August, and of last November, in some of the polling places in the “black belt” counties. In the city of Montgomery, when in fact less than 1,000 votes were cast in August, 3,561 votes were returned. Some weeks after the state election, one of the managers of election in Beat 5 in Montgomery county, stated to Captain Kolb that there were about 200 votes actually cast in this beat in the August election and that the Kolb ticket received over one hundred and fifty of them, and Jones the balance, but the returns gave Jones over four hundred majority! This statement was made to Captain Kolb unsolicited, and by a man who said he had voted for Jones, but was suffering from a punctured conscience on account of the wrong he had done the people of Alabama and himself, by assisting in ballot-box stuffing. Hundreds of similar cases that occurred in the August election may be given, where the ballot-boxes were not only stuffed, but the count reversed.