The Dog That Voted and Other Election Fraud Yarns | Mother Jones

The Dog That Voted and Other Election Fraud Yarns | Mother Jones:



click link  note:  this is old article, but one to be retold, retold and retold



snip

ON ELECTION DAY 2000, AS officials in Florida wrestled with butterfly ballots and hanging chads, Thor Hearne—then the Missouri counsel for the Bush-Cheney campaign—faced a crisis. It had been a frantic day marked by long lines, improperpurging of names from voter lists, and hundreds of voters turned away from the polls. As the problems in the overwhelmingly Democratic city mounted, the Gore campaign went to court to ask that the polls stay open three more hours. A judge granted the request, but Hearne appealed, and in short order, the decision wasoverturned.

Republicans were apoplectic over the Democrats' maneuver. At stake were not only Missouri's Electoral College votes, but also the fate of GOP Sen. John Ashcroft, who was locked in a tough reelection battle against a popular longtime rival, Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan. Carnahan had died in a plane crash a few weeks before the election, but his widow, Jean, was set to serve in his stead. In the end, even as Bush carried the state, Ashcroft lost to a dead man.

Ritzy Meckler, a springer spaniel whom some jokester had registered to vote, never cast a ballot—but she did become a cause célèbre for Republicans.

Missouri's senior senator, Kit Bond, fumed that Democrats had conducted "a criminal enterprise" designed to fraudulently register voters during the campaign and then create chaos on Election Day to cover it up. Republican losses, Bond told reporters, were due in part to dogs and dead people voting. Ritzy Meckler, a springer spaniel whom some jokester had registered to vote by mail, became a cause célèbre. A few months later, Missouri's Republican secretary of state, Matt Blunt, released a report concluding that St. Louis Democrats had mounted "an organized and