John Fund latest piece at National Review Online headlines “How the New York primary exemplifies how many American elections are amateurishly run.”
The near-meltdown in the
vote count for the New York Democratic primary featuring scandal-tarred
congressman Charlie Rangel should serve as a warning siren about what
could happen in this November’s national election. It’s not just voter
fraud we have to worry about. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where the
fraud ends and the incompetence begins.
The Rangel fiasco reminds us that the United States has, as
Walter Dean Burnham, the nation’s leading political scientist, put it,
“the developed world’s sloppiest election systems.” And New York City is
no unsophisticated backwater.
The troubles in the Rangel race began on Election Night, June
26. The voting-machine totals put down on paper had the incumbent
beating his challenger, state senator Adriano Espaillat, by a
comfortable 2,300 votes in a Harlem district that is now equally divided
between black and Hispanic populations.
Full story here.