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 disenfranchisement, voter identification laws, and hard-to-access polling locations with limited hours are only a few of the ways to suppress voter turnout. These methods of voter suppression are pernicious but, in this book, Mary Frances Berry focuses on forms of electoral 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. Through a close analysis of the work of Greg Malveaux, former director of the State of Louisiana s electoral fraud division, Berry shows how this everyman who, with Sisyphean persistence, tried to clean up elections in a state notorious for corruption. Berry observes that such corruption is rarely exposed and not only undermines basic democracy but often occurs in already disenfranchised and poor communities. She asserts that, as a society, we need to become creative in rewarding people for voting, and that grassroots education is crucial for all, but especially poorer communities so that citizens understand voting as empowering and as a way to help create the kind of environments they deserve."
