It may be that the American poet, editor, critic and writer Edgar Allan Poe died from an Election Day. He was in Baltimore during an election for sheriff; he was found, much worse for the wear, on Oct. 3, 1849, at a tavern that was also used as a polling place. He died four days later.
One theory holds that Poe was a victim of a campaign trick called “cooping” — men were grabbed off the street, shoved into a tiny room, beaten and force-fed liquor and opium, then sent around to vote. Their clothes were changed between trips to the polls.
Since Poe was found wearing clothes not his own, and had suffered from recent physical abuse, it’s a plausible theory — but only one of many, which range from rabies to a brain tumor. The cause of Poe’s death remains a mystery.
This does, however, illustrate that our elections have improved over the years. The worst modern corruption that I have heard about with my own ears isn’t that modern. During my newspapering days in Summit County, I knew a seasoned pol whose career started in the North Denver political machine.
Primed with some whiskey, he’d reminisce about the old days, when they had put No. 4 pencils in every voting booth. “The lead in those pencils was so hard that the mark was really light,” he explained, “and so it was easier to erase every damn Republican ballot and then mark it right.”
Martha grew up in Macomb County, Mich., often in the news since 1980 as the home of the “Reagan Democrats.” County voters might have wanted to vote Republican for years before that, but felt stymied; Martha recalls her mother complaining to the election judges one year that it was impossible to pull the levers for the Republican candidates.
But I’ve never encountered anything like that. My first journalistic adventures with elections were in Grand County in 1974. The county was overwhelmingly Republican then, so there wasn’t much suspense in local races. Even so, I headed to the courthouse on election night. The only close local race was for assessor, as many Republicans were quietly supporting the Democrat. The race came down to the paper absentee ballots, and the judges kept making mistakes and having to start over. We were there until sunrise.
There was no radio or TV at the courthouse, so I didn’t know how the statewide races turned out. But I was pretty sure Democrat Gary Hart had defeated incumbent Republican Peter Dominick because they were exactly tied in Grand County. If a Republican couldn’t do better than that in our GOP stronghold, I figured he was toast statewide, and I was right.
Another memorable election night was 1982, when I was in the Chaffee County clerk’s office as the returns came in. Chaffee had old-fashioned mechanical voting machines that worked very well. The polls closed at 7 p.m. and we were usually out of there well before 8 p.m.
The incumbent clerk was a Democrat, Jasper Cortese. He faced a strong challenge from a Republican, Mary Ellen Belmar. The first returns came in from Salida precincts. Cortese had a narrow lead, but he said, “I’ve lost. The north end of the county [Buena Vista area] always votes real Republican, and I don’t have enough of an edge to beat that.” He was right.
But just when you think you know the patterns, you can get fooled. My friend Dave Ward, a Democrat, ran for county commissioner in 1990. The Buena Vista precincts came in first, with Dave leading in Republican territory. We figured he had it bagged if he was ahead up there — but then the south end of the county got carried by the Republican, who won re-election.
Sometimes you can guess it right, and sometimes you can’t. That’s just the nature of elections, unless you go to the lengths the Whigs of Baltimore did in 1849.
Ed Quillen (ed@cozine.com) is a freelance writer, history buff, publisher of Colorado Central Magazine in Salida and frequent contributor to The Post.
