Volunteer to protect your vote

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online.  It’s called, “Volunteer to protect your vote.”

I made a mistake with this part.

Since elections are so crucial to the very fabric of our nation, there have always been people who seek to manipulate elections for their benefit. For decades, the crooks of Tammany Hall in New York City routinely stuffed ballot boxes, twisted arms, and invented vote tallies to make sure that their fellow crooks were elected into office. During the LaGuardia administration and for several years afterwards, Tammany was so corrupt that it was none other than the “Prime Minister” of the mob, Frank Costello, who pulled the strings of New York politics.

New York was by no means unique. After the Civil War, there were widespread efforts in the former Confederacy to rig elections in favor of the existing power structure. Artificial barriers were put in place that were designed to prevent black folks from casting ballots or running for office in an attempt to keep white folks in control of the government.

I accidentally used two examples of Democrat vote suppression instead of balancing it.  Oh well…