Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy

In "Stealing Elections," John Fund takes the reader on a national tour of voter fraud scandals ranging from rural states like Texas and Mississippi to big cities such as Philadelphia and Milwaukee. He explores dark episodes such as the way "vote brokers" stole a mayoral election in Miami in 1998 by tampering with 4700 absentee ballots. He shows how, in the aftermath of the Motor Voter Law of 1993, Californians used mail-in forms to get absentee ballots for fictitious people and pets, while in St. Louis it was discovered that voter rolls included 13,000 more names than the U.S. Census listed as the total number of adults in the city.

Election officials are trying to reassure voters by turning to computerized voting machines. But Fund shows that with the new technology come even greater concerns. Early in 2004, for instance, the state of Maryland, which has 16,000 new Diebold machines, commissioned a security expert to try to rig a practice election. He and his team broke into the computer at the State Board of Elections, completely changed the outcome of the election, left, and erased their electronic trail—all in under five minutes.

"Stealing Elections" gives us a chilling portrait of our electoral vulnerability--in the 2004 presidential election and on into the future. Writing with urgency and authority, John Fund shows how a lethal combination of bureaucratic bungling and ballot rigging have put our democracy at risk.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Total Pack of Lies, 2008-10-16
Blatant attempt by this partisan republican to attack the democratic party and blame them for voter fraud, to cover up the fact that the 2000 and 2004 elections were outright stolen via intimidation, disenfranchisement and electronic voting machines, all designed to prevent minorities, poor people and young people from voting. Disgusting and nasty politics, not journalism.


8 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

Biased, unsupported attack on Democratic party, 2008-09-04

This book is another example of the Republican Party attack strategy. Say anything to discredit the Democrats, regardless of the truth. The book's examples are mainly about Democrats and totally devoid of any serious analysis of credible evidence. Readers be forewarned ... the book is biased and unfounded.


1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Lots of useful information, 2006-11-09
I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would. I found it to be even-handed, but more importantly, it presented a great deal of very specfic information, including recommendations to fix the system.


2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

Thought-provoking call to action, 2006-06-22
John Fund insightfully explores the world of stolen elections - a problem no longer limited to corrupt governments on the other side of the world. It is hard to believe what is happening under our noses, so often orchestrated by those who claim to be proponents of honesty in government.


29 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

In a democracy, John Fund says Blame the People, 2005-10-24
This book properly recognizes that election shenanigans are virtually an American tradition, but slinks into pure propaganda with its implicit and explicit contention that Democrats are solely to blame. But, if there's an equivalent book out there for Democrats that focuses solely on the misdeeds of Republicans, then perhaps we all can agree that elections need protocols to determine fraud by officials, by parties, by voting equipment vendors, and by voters. And that we especially need officials with an attitude capable of protecting the integrity of elections, and not one that pooh-poohs every conceivable threat.

Fund grossly undervalues two things, greatly damaging the value of his work. First, he grossly underappreciates insider fraud. In fact, with secret vote counting now the order of the with electronic voting, economics argues that elections can and will be up for sale to the highest bidder, and we'll never know any better. Second, he grossly underappreciates the fact that ALL voting systems will be vulnerable and subject to attack, because elections have always been highly competitive events with a unhealthy dollop of dirty tricks. Because all systems can be compromised, a good voting system is inexpensive and creates witnesses and EVIDENCE when cheating happens and also has a low payoff per election crime, while a bad voting system leaves little or no evidence, and a relatively small number of people can throw the election, getting a high payoff for their election crime.

Guess what? Electronic voting leaves no evidence of hacking or rigging if it's done properly, insiders are the most likely culprits, and the payoff for a single crime can easily be the whole election. Paper ballots, while subject to felon voting, double voting and the ills Funds describes in this book, leave EIVDENCE. In fact, this is the very reason Fund is able to write a book about them! They were caught, in most cases!

In a democracy we should not be quick to blame the people as pretty soon the people may be considered untrustworthy and then we don't have a democracy any more. Instead, since voting is a right, let people freely exercise the right, and then punish AFTERWARD the abuse of that right, being careful to create systems where it's hard for an abuse to yield more than one vote. Paper ballots are easy on the tax dollar, and meet this bill. Despite the thousands of people trying to cheat the election system, it's a good system, and the rats are getting a might small piece of cheese with paper ballots. In contrast, you can see Howard Dean on the web hecking an election in less than 60 seconds. I kid you not. The only solution is total openness and observation by all parties, watching each other like hawks.

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