Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich: Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy

By Mary Frances Berry

A timely and nonpartisan book on voter manipulation and electoral corruption—and the importance of stimulating voter turnout and participation

Though voting rights are fundamental to American democracy, felon disfranchisement, voter identification laws, and hard-to-access polling locations with limited hours are a few of the ways voter turnout is suppressed. These methods of voter suppression are pernicious, but in Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich, Dr. Mary Frances Berry focuses on forms of corruption including vote buying, vote hauling, the abuse of absentee ballots, and other illegal practices by candidates and their middlemen, often in collusion with local election officials.

Vote buying—whether it’s for a few dollars, a beer, or a pack of cigarettes—is offered to individual citizens in order to ensure votes for a particular candidate, and Dr. Berry notes it occurs across party lines, with Republicans, Democrats, and independents all participating.

Dr. Berry shares the compelling story of Greg Malveaux, former director of Louisiana’s Vote Fraud Division, and how this “everyman” tried to clean up elections in a state notorious for corruption. Malveaux discovered virtually every type of electoral fraud during his tenure and saw firsthand how abuses occurred in local communities—from city councils to coroners’ offices. In spite of Sisyphean persistence, he found it virtually impossible to challenge the status quo. Dr. Berry reveals how this type of electoral abuse is rampant across the country and includes myriad examples from other states, including Illinois, Texas, Florida, Kentucky, and Mississippi.

Voter manipulation is rarely exposed and may be perceived as relatively innocuous, however; Dr. Berry observes that in addition to undermining basic democracy, it also leads to a profound lack of accountability and a total disconnect between politicians and their constituents, and that those in poor and minority communities are the most vulnerable. While reforming campaign finance laws are undeniably important to our democracy, being attuned to issues of structural powerlessness and poverty, and to the cycles that perpetuate them, is no less crucial.

In Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich, Dr. Berry shares specific successful voting strategies that other countries have adopted and urges creativity in rewarding people for voting. She also underscores the continued importance of grassroots education, so that citizens see voting as desirable and empowering—as a tool to help create the kind of environment they deserve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Release date: Feb 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9780807076415

Book preview

FIVE DOLLARS

and a

PORK CHOP SANDWICH

Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy

Mary Frances Berry

Beacon Press

Boston

To Francis Guess, who understood

CONTENTS

Preface

CHAPTER

1  Voting Rights, Rules, and Suppression: A Brief History

CHAPTER

2  The Voter Fraud Division and Louisiana’s Culture of Corruption

CHAPTER

3  Rat Infestation, Rotten Wood, and Rusty Metal: Electoral Fraud in St. Martinville

CHAPTER

4  Making a Federal Case

CHAPTER

5  Electoral Fraud Chicago Style

CHAPTER

6  A Saturnalia of Corruption and Crime

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

PREFACE

In 1958, when my little brother was in the fifth grade, he went to Carter Lawrence School in South Nashville. One day in October, he saw signs and preparations for an afterschool White Bean Supper sponsored by Gene Little Evil Jacobs. Little Evil, a bar owner and junk furniture dealer, served as city councilman of our poor, predominantly black district, south of the courthouse along the river. He owed his election to the backing of bootlegger-turned-politician Charlie Riley. Little Evil’s duty was to deliver blocs of unquestioning voters on Election Day; whether the voters were dead or alive was a needless distinction.¹

People in the black bottom of South Nashville came to white bean suppers to eat and drink while Little Evil talked about the upcoming election. He took care of people’s needs all year, not just during election season. He also handed out Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets. He made sure he could deliver his voters to himself and the candidates he supported.

Decades later, my fellow civil rights commissioner Francis Guess, whose family has been among those African Americans who have voted Republican since Mr. Lincoln, recalled similar stories about vote gathering in Nashville. Little Evil eventually ran afoul of a reform movement in the 1960s. He was targeted by the local newspaper and jailed for election fraud. Walking-around money and other gifts are still put on the street during campaigns, but they don’t have the influence they had in the old days.²

My mother’s sister, Aunt Serriner, and her husband Uncle Will, were not formally educated people but they always voted. When the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was being debated in Congress, their son Dewitt, an aeronautical engineer, got into an argument with his co-workers in the North. They insisted that anyone who couldn’t read and write shouldn’t have the right to vote. Dewitt told them that his parents cherished the right to vote. And he said they knew as much or more than he about the issues because all of their children read the newspapers to them.

My mother, the youngest and best-educated of twelve children, having finished the eighth grade, always voted too. She was most proud of casting her first ballot for Senator Albert Gore Sr., first elected to the Congress in 1938 and to the US Senate in 1952. He, of course, was the father of Vice President Albert Gore Jr., who also got her vote.

My mother and my aunts and uncles saw nothing wrong with the attention Little Evil and other ward-heelers paid to them throughout the year. They appreciated the benefits they provided, unlike any public agency. They were pleased that people turned out to vote and understood the importance of the ballot. And they taught their children, by example, to value the franchise. They might have been shocked at some of the voter suppression and manipulation that is discussed in this book. But I am sure they would have liked the ideas for increasing voter turnout and accountability.

FIVE DOLLARS AND A PORK CHOP SANDWICH

CHAPTER 1

Voting Rights, Rules, and Suppression

A Brief History

This is the way it’s s’posed to be. . . .

Besides, we poor people need the money.

—Anonymous voter

In 2000, a few weeks into his work as head of Louisiana’s new Voter Fraud Division, Greg Malveaux knew he had the most challenging job in his life. After twelve years as a deputy sheriff in Orleans Parish and five years detailed to the city council, he had learned quite a lot about scandals and shenanigans, and had observed firsthand Louisiana’s corrupt politicians. However, what people were telling him about the manipulation of the electoral process was more outrageous than he had ever imagined.

All of this came home one day when he was investigating a complaint in Cajun country. He talked to an elderly black woman about a recent local election. When he approached her, she saw a thirty-eight-year-old African American man in a suit and tie who politely explained he was a voter-fraud investigator for the state. Suspicious, she demanded what he wanted with her. He asked, Did you vote? Did you notice anything unusual?

Malveaux’s respectful manner erased her doubts. She was pleased to see a black man in such a big government job. She told him she voted and began casually explaining how politicians bought votes on Election Day. She would be driven to the polls with instructions on whom to vote for. When she cast her ballot, the driver gave her five dollars. She didn’t know this was illegal. This is the way it’s s’posed to be, she said. That was the way it was always done, and besides, we poor people need the money.

All over Louisiana, Malveaux found evidence of election corruption by both Democrats and Republicans. Vote buyers in rural areas, acting as middlemen, generally received ten dollars per voter from a candidate who had no personal contact with the voters in the process. Half of the money, five dollars, went to the voter, as the elderly woman had told him. Sometimes the payment was lagniappe: a pork chop sandwich and a cold drink. In urban areas, the process and payoffs were handled by organizations with benign names like the Alliance for Government and Citizens for Responsible Government. Politicians paid these groups surreptitiously for their endorsement. Vote buying gives retail politics an entirely different meaning.

But this was not the only corrupt practice Malveaux confronted. Local prosecutors, because they too were elected, refused to abolish the system by prosecuting the people they themselves sometimes hired to win office. Malveaux was disgusted by the way politicians took advantage of poor people by buying their votes and then ignoring their needs. Under his leadership, Louisiana’s Voter Fraud Division became an agency that sought to empower voters and end election corruption.

Readers may be surprised to learn that vote buying and vote selling even exists. Some may think this form of election corruption ended a long time ago, or that its effects are negligible. Other issues about voting and elections seem to be more pressing: the influence of corporations and corporate donations on candidates and issues, the ever-declining turnout of voters in elections, and the disfranchisement that may result from requiring voters to present identification. The contemporary focus on voter suppression and the declining political power of ordinary citizens to make their voices heard motivates Tea Party sippers and Coffee Collective drinkers alike.¹

Paying people to vote for a specific candidate may not seem to fit the definition of voter suppression, but it is one of several ways that campaign operators manipulate the outcome of elections. Vote buying, misuse of absentee ballots, and other stratagems tend to defraud the very citizens who need government services the most: the poor, the elderly, and minority voters. These are also the people who may not have proper government-issued identification to vote. Whether their vote is bought, or not cast at all, their political power is suppressed. Buying votes is another form of suppression: paying eligible citizens to vote for candidates whom they might not otherwise support. And since a single ballot lists candidates for other offices at the local, state, and even federal level, the entire election can be corrupted.²

Who Can Vote?, a study funded by the Carnegie and Knight foundations, compiled data on electoral fraud, documenting 2,068 instances of criminal prosecution between 2000 and 2012. These cases were collected from state officials, though not everyone responded to requests. Forty-six percent of resolved cases resulted in acquittals, dropped charges, or a decision not to bring charges. A search of cases that were appealed in the states’ highest courts before 2000 produced about four hundred cases of electoral fraud. This number is not definitive. Most criminal complaints are not prosecuted, and those that go to trial are often unreported. Earlier cases are even more difficult to find because people convicted of criminal offenses before the 1960s had to pay for their own lawyers if they wanted to appeal.

Vote buying in Louisiana is not an anomaly, though many in the state hope the television reality show Duck Dynasty is. Across the country, Kentucky, Illinois, and other states have long histories of electoral fraud, primarily in state and local elections. In order to explore the extent of voter fraud beyond Louisiana and efforts to combat it, I researched vote buying and abuse of the ballot laws elsewhere in the country. I discovered that most states don’t have dedicated voting fraud units, so investigations and criminal prosecutions are haphazard if they occur at all.³ However, newspaper accounts, oral histories, and other source materials reveal numerous violations and prosecutions.

In this book, I have included places with a long and well-documented history of fraud and powerful political machines. Chicago is an obvious example. In some of Kentucky’s counties, vote buying has been going on since at least the early 1900s, when coal, timber, and railroad barons used it to destroy unions and local party organizations. In Texas, the widespread use of the buying, hauling, and abuse of absentee ballots in rural areas among Latino politiqueras has become entrenched. I also found some states that resorted to rather novel ways to curb vote buying without resorting to threats of prison. There were also examples of incentives given legally to voters to increase election turnout.

The criminal cases of vote buying and selling that were appealed include misbehavior by election officials as well as prosecution of voters and officials. Candidates themselves filed suit to contest elections, and charged their opponents with fraud. These civil cases provide important evidence of the extent of vote buying and selling. Further, in civil cases the court could discard election results, bar a candidate from holding office, or order participants to stay out of political campaigns for a period of time.⁴ It appears that judges in civil cases were more likely to find parties guilty of election fraud because perpetrators did not face prison.

Malveaux approached election fraud as a criminal offense; he investigated hundreds of complaints and sent detailed accounts to local prosecutors who could have prosecuted wrongdoers by using the evidence compiled by the Fraud Division. As we will see in the next chapters, these cases almost never went to court. To Malveaux, this was a gross miscarriage of justice, a civil rights violation of the worst order. He didn’t think this way just because he was a lawman by training and profession who thought he should put vote buyers in jail. He thought this because he wanted voters to get power. To him, vote buying debased government of the people and by the people.

Candidates are expected to make promises to voters, which most people interpret as a perfectly legal form of vote buying. A senator in Alaska can pledge to build a bridge to nowhere. Another candidate says she will obtain highway construction funds, or federal money to build a hospital, or other jobs and infrastructure projects, offering an economic reward to voters while paying a particular community with public funds. Other rewards may come in the form of patronage for those who support the winner, and these benefits are perfectly routine and permissible according to Supreme Court decisions.⁵

Sometimes vote buying turns into extortion. In Fond du Lac, Wisconsin in 1964, city officials offered voters free rent for a year in public housing in exchange for their signatures on an annexation petition. Those who refused the offer of free rent were threatened with eviction. The state supreme court decided that the officials’ actions were clearly corrupt; there was nothing for the public good in such behavior. The use of economic pressure . . . to obtain favorable signatures was a shocking disregard of the political process of government.⁶ In fact, The city’s action was the equivalent of buying votes and improper.

When a candidate or a campaign operator buys a vote outright, the balance of power is disrupted. Once elected, the official has no political motivation to address the economic and social problems citizens face in their daily lives. The city councilman has no reason to ensure that people in their districts have good schools, paved roads, health care, responsive police, or public services, because at reelection time, however poorly he has served his constituents, they won’t vote him out of office. It creates the impression that a vote is an individual choice, a civic responsibility, rather than a demonstration of a community’s collective power. And in Louisiana, where the money to buy votes appears to come from big money campaign donations made by oil and petrochemical interests, lawmakers are even less responsive to their constituents’ interests.⁷

Authentic democracies are based on citizen participation and the delivery of government benefits to constituents by elected officials. Voters may invest their hopes in a candidate who promises to change their situation, believing that this time around, elections actually do matter. But when good jobs at decent wages remain stubbornly difficult to obtain, and other reminders of growing inequality are revealed, pessimism is the mood in barbershops and beauty salons. It leads a cynic to suggest that a pork chop sandwich and a few dollars would at least be some kind of reward in return for supporting President Obama or Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Cynicism and disbelief in the power of collective political action deeply affects local elections too. The impact of nonparticipation in municipal elections and lack of influence became apparent in Ferguson, Missouri, and in other communities where whites control local government. African Americans make up two-thirds of Ferguson’s population, yet the mayor, school board, and city council are all majority white; only two members of a fifty-three-member police force are people of color. White voter turnout in Ferguson was three times that of blacks in the April 2013 municipal election.⁸ These disparities and inequalities came to national attention after Michael Brown was killed by police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014.

The primarily white police force of Ferguson raised most of the city’s operating funds through traffic fines. US Attorney General Eric Holder called this practice revenue generation through policing. Driving while black means that police targeted African American drivers for mostly minor infractions in numbers that far exceeded their population, according to a report done by Missouri’s attorney general. In 2013, African Americans were 86 percent of police stops, 92 percent of vehicle searches, and 93 percent of arrests. Yet police found contraband more often on white drivers (34 percent) than on black drivers (22 percent). The US Department of Justice made a series of recommendations for reforming the police department, announcing that if Ferguson did not act voluntarily to implement their recommendations quickly, there would be a federal lawsuit forcing compliance.⁹

Political disfranchisement in Ferguson won’t be overcome simply by increasing black voter turnout or electing African Americans to political offices. Local citizens who are organizing on the ground know that, even though the outside political commentators who weighed in after the shooting tried to affix blame on low political participation. The township’s off-cycle municipal elections—a Progressive-era reform designed to focus voters on local issues—may have contributed to reduced turnout and fewer black officeholders, but it was not the only factor. Local political organizers recognize that Ferguson and adjoining suburban towns are essentially fiefdoms: municipal managers appointed by white elected officials distribute government jobs, award city contracts, and distribute patronage without being held accountable to voters.¹⁰

Grassroots activists spent the better part of early 2015 organizing and educating Ferguson’s voters to use their collective power by voting in the April elections. In order to be motivated to vote, people have to have something to vote for, said Reginald Rounds of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE). That’s why we’re so glad to be supporting candidates who really want to fix Ferguson and make our justice system work for all of us.¹¹ Turnout went up two-and-a-half times from the previous election, to 30 percent of eligible voters, even though only 128 new people registered to vote. Two new black council members, both solid members of the professional middle class, were elected; the candidates supported by the activists did not win. The city council now has three black members and three white members including Mayor James Knowles, who has a vote. Political accountability remains the priority of Ferguson activists, who want not just reform of the police department but also revisions in municipal financing.¹² In other communities where protests against police killings of African American men and women have occurred since Michael Brown’s death, similar organizing campaigns by local activists have begun to confront entrenched political and police

Reviews for Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich

[eudoh-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mary Frances Berry's unfiltered assessment of the history of corruption and voter-tampering that have been rampant in the United States is astonishing. She details the combination of audacity, economic desperation, and willful inattention that allow "public servants" to intimidate, coerce, and bribe voters. Though the text is sometimes stilted or too dense, Berry has done an admirable job compiling anecdotes and legal cases that document entrenched voter mismanagement, particularly in areas that have never quite recovered from Jim Crow policies.

[jwpell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A rough and frightening book to read. Berry focuses on locations in the South -- far from where I live -- and describes a myriad of methods of buying votes for cheap. The presence of real corruption of the voting process, in a world where one party makes a flag of 'voter fraud' and uses it as a stick to keep legitimate --usually minority-- voters from the polls, is highly disturbing and makes you wonder who to trust. Particuarly striking was the repeated theme that absentee ballots were a path to getting bought votes to the ballot box.

[lriley_43 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not that there isn't compelling subject matter here and description of all kinds of nefarious activities by both political parties but it's mainly localized stuff and more than half of it is set in the state of Louisiana at the county/parish level and more about how county officials stay in power and not so much about anything on the national scale. For people wanting to know more about why Gore lost in 2000 or Kerry in 2004 for instance you're not going to find it here.

[lebleucheese · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dr. Berry presents a fascinating array of stories in this book. Many would be nearly comical if they weren't examples of terribly corrupt elections. Having worked as a precinct official in elections both local and general, it was interesting to find some parallels between my experiences and those chronicled by Dr. Berry.

The book is well documented and researched, and thoroughly compelling, with a call to action at the end which is (forgive the cliché) more important now than ever.

[lanewillson_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

If you are looking for a reasoned, objective history of electoral disenfranchisement in America, then sadly you've come to the wrong place. Creative, principled solutions offering fairness and an equal opportunity to participate in the democratic process? Nope. However, if you're wanted to binge on tried and true dogma, seasoned with irrelevant patronizing cheap shots, then Dr. Mary Frances Berry's "Five and a Pork Chop Sandwich: Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy" is going to make you happier than a bag of Bar-B-Q pork rines. I hate the TV show Duck Dynasty, but for the life of me, I can't see even the remotest connection between the show and Dr. Berry's subject. However, since she includes her disdain in the book, and it's one of the very few things she and I agree on, I appreciate her providing the platform to add my own dislike for Louisianna's latest contribution to Amercian culture.

[chgstrom · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book has a lot of detailed information and facts. All of it is disturbing. With so much information in so few pages, it's not an easy read, but this is a topic that deserves attention.

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich Mary Frances Berry examines the more prevalent but less addressed issue of vote buying and manipulation rather than the rare but more rhetorically used idea of individual voter fraud. Make no mistake, this is a big part of the problem we in America find ourselves in with this current puppet government.

As opposed to the periodic case of voter fraud where an individual attempts to vote twice or votes under the name of a deceased person still on the rolls, Berry addresses the systemic problem of organized and organizational influencing of election outcomes through systemic voter suppression or voter manipulation. These are not, as one reviewer tried to imply, mostly in small towns and counties. These are statewide and thus nationwide and are driven by party politics in our current climate, not simply powerful families in backroad towns.

The history of the practice makes particularly compelling reading as much for the realization that this was both considered "business as usual" and perfectly okay as for the fact that, while it is more broadly frowned upon openly, it is still a large part of party politics today. Instead of giving some people a short-term benefit (a few dollars or a meal) in exchange for a "freely" given vote many of these voters are given no benefit, short term or long, because of gerrymandering and/or disenfranchisement through laws and rules that are next to impossible for many of them to meet. In other words, it is still a systemic problem, still affects those at the margins of the socioeconomic scale disproportionately and is still, in a more hushed tone, considered "business as usual."

The extended example in the book that best illustrates this is the story of Greg Malveaux and his attempt to clean up at least the voter fraud aspect of Louisiana's corrupt political environment. But as long as those in office attained their positions through questionable, at best, methods it will remain difficult to make things better. And those suffering are also the ones being blamed for society's ills and demonized for attempting to make the system fair.

I would recommend this to anyone interested in the larger picture of voter fraud and the systemic aspects of it rather than the scapegoating aspects we see and hear from the politicians. This is a well-researched and thorough examination and, while well written and quite accessible to all, is designed to present facts rather than simply stir emotions, so will be less appealing to those who just want to be told who to blame, since blame and responsibility spreads far and wide.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

[iamfoxfire · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learned so much more about the way elections function. I even found myself reconsidering my position on several key issues (such as voter ID laws). The book has a rather loose focus with a theme of vote buying (and to a lesser extent voter fraud) at it's core. Dr. Berry pulls examples from recent history (with occasional forays into more distant history to put recent events into context) from across the country to support her point that vote buying is a serious issue that remains under-acknowledged.

This book is packed with information but I wish it had been longer! It felt like each chapter could have been it's own book and I was frequently left wanting for more details. It also flowed rather awkwardly from one case to the next and I had trouble keeping track of when all of the events were transpiring. Dates aren't always mentioned up front and that made it difficult sometimes to tell even what decade things were happening in.

Still, it is an illuminating book that I highly recommend to any American citizen looking for more information on election tampering.

[matthew1982_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If I had to summarize this book in a single sentence, I'd call it: "A quick guide to vote-buying in America, from a somewhat leftist perspective." It covers crooked political shenanigans in rural Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky, a few other places, and everyone's favorite corruption-related whipping boy, the city of Chicago. The stories in it are mostly very readable, although I had a hard time following the events in the Martin-Thibodeaux story. I don't feel bad about that, though, because the guy whose job it was to do the investigating had a hard time following them, too. The biggest single problem I had with the book was the small number of sources. On the one hand, that contributed to making it easy to read, but on the other hand, it makes the book more of an extended series of anecdotes than anything else.

The portrayal of the American history of the vote is one of the more interesting concepts in the book - in short, whenever the government expands the vote, there is usually a reaction against doing so. I think the book could have benefited from some more material covering the difficulty of getting the vote expanded in the first place, and the reason why places like Wyoming gave women the vote ahead of the Constitutional Amendment that did so - my understanding of that is that it happened so that Wyoming could claim that they had a bigger voting public and thereby could claim more clout in national politics.

An implication that I didn't feel was fully addressed in the book was, "So what's the bigger crime: selling your vote for $5 and a six-pack of bad beer, or being the vote buyer who then doesn't enact policies that benefit the people whose votes you bought?" There was some coverage of this idea, but it didn't seem like there was enough meat on the bones of that argument.

I did appreciate that most of the material covered places other than Chicago. Anybody from there knows the city has lots of problems with political stuff. Mike Royko, among other people, did a much better job covering that than anybody these days is going to. This bit tipped the book from a 3.5 star to a 4 for me.

[outdoorsman-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very informative book on voter fraud in this country today and in the past. It has been going on for a long time just under different aspects however today it is more questionable and people are realizing it truly does go on. Unless the American people fight this it will continue and the right to vote could be taken away from us.

[bemislibrary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Voters Apathy and Profiteers
This is a well-documented look at voter fraud cases in Louisiana, Illinois, Texas, Florida, Kentucky, and Mississippi. This is not about the one off individuals voting in the wrong location or a felon voting when right to vote removed. This is about systematic collusion between candidates, election officials, and prosecutors to deny certain classes, races, or political party members a voice. Louisiana was an interesting case with paying the poorest of poor five dollars to vote for a certain candidate, using redistricting to diminish the black voters impact on election outcomes, sending publics inspectors to intimidate opponents to stop holding elections at all. Besides extensive chapter notes, an index is provided. The author mentions several ways to combat election fraud but one of the most powerful is voter education. Besides knowing where to vote, the educated voters is aware of the issues, candidates, and voter registration requirements. Another way is making sure the legal system works whether it is at the local, state, or federal level. This includes both prosecution of violations and fair and impartial laws. Finally, there needs to be accountability from every eligible voter to elected officials and law enforcement.

LibraryThing Early Reviewers Giveaway randomly chose me to receive this book free from the publisher. Although encouraged, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

[squeakychu · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I became interested in reading about voter fraud/voter suppression as a result of the accusations flying around the 2016 Presidential election of Donald Trump in the United States (e.g. the president's claim that he would have won the New Hampshire election if not for the “thousands” of people who were “brought in on buses” from Massachusetts to “illegally” vote in New Hampshire). I didn't believe his accusations, but I did want to look into the subject by reading a book in which I could believe there were more facts and less fantasy.

What I found out about voter fraud and voter suppression, according to this book by Mary Frances Berry, is that in American history much of this was caused by powerful white families that wanted to stay in political control of their jurisdictions. In a large part of the book, the author explored voter fraud in the parishes of Louisiana during the years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, legislation which had been enacted to prohibit racial discrimination in voting. At that time, it was primarily focused on helping African-Americans get fairer representation in elected office.

What I read was very disheartening. It seems that people in power stay in power despite legislation to protect those more vulnerable. The book talks about various voter fraud, such as unfair districting lines (gerrymandering), "buying" votes with money, drugs or liquor, transporting voters to the polls in illegal ways, having voters use fraudulent or nonexistent addresses especially in cases of absentee ballots, harassment of those who try to uphold the law, and failure to prosecute cases of voter fraud fairly. It's a pretty bleak picture.

The book goes into much detail about particular cases. This makes the book more of a "dry" read, but this is important to show facts with examples.

[lpmejia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a lifelong resident of Louisiana, I am sadly quite familiar with the concept of voter fraud, a point that is illustrated by the percentage of Berry's book set in my home state. In a country that strives toward democratic ideals, this book is necessary, and Berry has taken the time to thoroughly research the subject matter. A painful, but essential read.

[cheetosrapper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book really saddened me to find out that voter corruption is alive and operating in our current political system. The lengths at which political parties will traverse just to win is sickening. It is of little wonder that many in the USA do not trust their political leaders to have their best interests in mind.

[fields.steph · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With "Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich," Dr. Berry dives right into corrupt voting practices. Vote buying, vote hauling, etc. are common features throughout American politics, even today and especially at local levels, and Dr. Berry makes no attempt to shy away from this fact. Dr. Berry focuses part of her narrative on the efforts of Greg Malveaux, the one-time director of Louisiana's Fraud Division, while also exploring the topic as a larger problem.

The first thing I have to say is Awesome! It's so exciting to see books like this come out with such knowledge and experience behind it. I was intrigued from when I first read the title; however, the book is far from perfect. "Five Dollars" didn't hit its stride until chapter three, when Dr. Berry gave her full attention to a specific case instead of trying to touch on a lot of cases without enough detail and falling into the problem of generalizations. (But chapters three and four were amazing.) Despite the lack of detail I desired, the book was overall well-written and informative with a lot of personality through the use of a few colloquialisms and an easy tone, yet Dr. Berry assumes her audience already has some political and historical knowledge, such as an understanding of "soft money," "public financing," and "slavery by another name," none of which are explained in the book. There is also an assumption that readers will understand the shifting ideologies of Republicans and Democrats, notably in the South, and when this shift occurred. Additionally, some of the attempts to tie in Malveaux's role seemed forced, especially in chapter two when Dr. Berry reviewed many Louisiana fraud cases. Finally, the shift between topics was a little abrupt when the first half of the book was about Louisiana, then there was a chapter on Chicago, then a chapter on various other places. It didn't flow well. Maybe if the book was longer and Dr. Berry was able to add more description and details to the various examples everything would have tied together better.

HOWEVER, now that I've sounded like one of those really cranky critics, I think this book is an important piece in showing readers that everything isn't peachy in the land of democracy. Dr. Berry seems very passionate about the subject and that passion shines through these pages. I would love to read more of her writing.

[mrmapcase · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dr. Berry provides a look into the intriguing and infuriating world of vote buying, albeit mostly in Louisiana. The Bayou State provides the majority of the examples in the 150 pages of stories, with Berry showing a non-partisan look at all of the shenanigans pointing out criminal activity on both sides of the objectors. There are brief chapters dealing with Chicago and the 2000 election in Florida and there are probably many other examples she could have used.

[doctordebt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mary Frances Berry’s “Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich” is a damning indictment of vote buying and corruption in the U.S. The book focuses primarily on Louisiana – a long-time hotbed of electoral fraud and small-town political dynasties. Berry follows Greg Malveaux, the first director of the Louisiana State Fraud Division and his struggle to clean up the election process in Louisiana. From vote-buying schemes reminiscent of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” to a sheriff setting up road blocks on polling day and only letting people through who promised to vote for him, the incidents detailed by Berry are shocking. It’s hard to believe that they occurred within just the last few years.

While Berry focuses on electoral fraud in Louisiana, she also details a number of incidents in other states – namely a chapter on Chicago and a chapter broken into sections detailing incidents in other states. “Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich” spends so much time focusing on Louisiana that the incidents in other states feel like an afterthought. While I understand the purpose of these examples – showing that voter suppression is a wide-spread issue – I can’t help but feel that Berry’s case would have been bolstered by spending more time exploring electoral issues in the other states mentioned, or by fitting the incidents explored into Louisiana’s narrative the help illustrate the problem. After four chapters on Louisiana, a chapter on Chicago and a chapter on the other states (with a follow-up on Louisiana) felt jarring.

All in all, “Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich” is a timely volume. It sheds light on a side of politics most of us thought had been left in the past, and manages to do so in a non-partisan way. Although it may not be a book for the casual reader, Berry’s book is both a sidelight on pressing economic issues of our day and an important work in its own right.