Down for the Count: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America
The updated edition of Steal This Vote—a rollicking history of US voter suppression and fraud from Jacksonian democracy to Citizens United and beyond.
 
In Down for the Count, award-winning journalist Andrew Gumbel explores the tawdry history of elections in the United States. From Jim Crow to Tammany Hall to the Bush v. Gore Florida recount, it is a chronicle of votes bought, stolen, suppressed, lost, miscounted, thrown into rivers, and litigated up to the Supreme Court. Gumbel then uses this history to explain why America is now experiencing the biggest backslide in voting rights in more than a century.
 
First published in 2005 as Steal This Vote, this thoroughly revised and updated edition reveals why America faces so much trouble running clean, transparent elections. And it demonstrates how the partisan battles now raging over voter IDs, campaign spending, and minority voting rights fit into a long, largely unspoken tradition of hostility to the very notion of representative democracy.
 
Interviewing Democrats, Republicans, and a range of voting rights activists, Gumbel offers an engaging and accessible analysis of how our democratic integrity is so often corrupted by racism, money, and power. In an age of high-stakes electoral combat, billionaire-backed candidacies, and bottom-of-the-barrel campaigning, this book is more important than ever.
 
“In a riveting and frightening account, Gumbel . . . traces election fraud in America from the 18th century to the present . . . [the issues he] so winningly addresses are crucial to the future of democracy.” —Publishers Weekly, on Steal This Vote
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Down for the Count: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America
The updated edition of Steal This Vote—a rollicking history of US voter suppression and fraud from Jacksonian democracy to Citizens United and beyond.
 
In Down for the Count, award-winning journalist Andrew Gumbel explores the tawdry history of elections in the United States. From Jim Crow to Tammany Hall to the Bush v. Gore Florida recount, it is a chronicle of votes bought, stolen, suppressed, lost, miscounted, thrown into rivers, and litigated up to the Supreme Court. Gumbel then uses this history to explain why America is now experiencing the biggest backslide in voting rights in more than a century.
 
First published in 2005 as Steal This Vote, this thoroughly revised and updated edition reveals why America faces so much trouble running clean, transparent elections. And it demonstrates how the partisan battles now raging over voter IDs, campaign spending, and minority voting rights fit into a long, largely unspoken tradition of hostility to the very notion of representative democracy.
 
Interviewing Democrats, Republicans, and a range of voting rights activists, Gumbel offers an engaging and accessible analysis of how our democratic integrity is so often corrupted by racism, money, and power. In an age of high-stakes electoral combat, billionaire-backed candidacies, and bottom-of-the-barrel campaigning, this book is more important than ever.
 
“In a riveting and frightening account, Gumbel . . . traces election fraud in America from the 18th century to the present . . . [the issues he] so winningly addresses are crucial to the future of democracy.” —Publishers Weekly, on Steal This Vote
18.95 In Stock
Down for the Count: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America

Down for the Count: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America

by Andrew Gumbel
Down for the Count: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America

Down for the Count: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America

by Andrew Gumbel

Paperback(Revised)

$18.95 
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Overview

The updated edition of Steal This Vote—a rollicking history of US voter suppression and fraud from Jacksonian democracy to Citizens United and beyond.
 
In Down for the Count, award-winning journalist Andrew Gumbel explores the tawdry history of elections in the United States. From Jim Crow to Tammany Hall to the Bush v. Gore Florida recount, it is a chronicle of votes bought, stolen, suppressed, lost, miscounted, thrown into rivers, and litigated up to the Supreme Court. Gumbel then uses this history to explain why America is now experiencing the biggest backslide in voting rights in more than a century.
 
First published in 2005 as Steal This Vote, this thoroughly revised and updated edition reveals why America faces so much trouble running clean, transparent elections. And it demonstrates how the partisan battles now raging over voter IDs, campaign spending, and minority voting rights fit into a long, largely unspoken tradition of hostility to the very notion of representative democracy.
 
Interviewing Democrats, Republicans, and a range of voting rights activists, Gumbel offers an engaging and accessible analysis of how our democratic integrity is so often corrupted by racism, money, and power. In an age of high-stakes electoral combat, billionaire-backed candidacies, and bottom-of-the-barrel campaigning, this book is more important than ever.
 
“In a riveting and frightening account, Gumbel . . . traces election fraud in America from the 18th century to the present . . . [the issues he] so winningly addresses are crucial to the future of democracy.” —Publishers Weekly, on Steal This Vote

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781620971680
Publisher: New Press, The
Publication date: 04/12/2016
Edition description: Revised
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

About The Author
Andrew Gumbel is a British-born journalist, based in Los Angeles, who has won awards for his work as an investigative reporter, a political columnist, and a feature writer. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian and the author of Won't Lose This Dream and the co-editor (with David W. Orr, William S. Becker, and Bakari Kitwana) of Democracy Unchained (both from The New Press). He is also the author of Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed, and Why It Still Matters.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Introduction: "Everything Is a Violation" 1

1 The Antidemocratic Tradition and the New Right 19

2 Slavery and the System 35

3 Patronage, Liquor, and Graft: The Ascent of Machine Politics 47

4 The Theft of the Century 61

5 The 1896 Watershed and the Paradox of Reform 73

6 The Long Agony of the Disenfranchised South 89

7 Chicago: The Other Kind of Mob Rule 107

8 The Fallacy of the Technological Fix 121

9 Democracy's Frangible Connections: Florida 2000 139

10 Miracle Cure 159

11 Election 2004: The Shape of Things to Come 177

12 The 3 Percent Solution 189

13 Pope and Abbott: The New Religion of Buying and Suppressing Votes 205

14 The Super-Rich and the Democratic Future 223

Acknowledgments 237

Notes 239

Index 277

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