american elections have always been at least a little dirty. what would a political campaign be without unseemly actors stirring trouble, duping voters and raising the specter of violence? political mischief is as old as politics itself, and the united states has countless examples . if you were a voter choosing between john adams and thomas jefferson in 1800, you might have been told, falsely, that you couldn<u+2019>t vote for jefferson because he had died, according to joseph cummins, the author of <u+201c>anything for a vote,<u+201d> a book about tricks in presidential politics. in 1928, you might have heard that al smith <u+2014> the new york governor and the first catholic to run for president <u+2014> had access to a tunnel that went all the way to the vatican, mr. cummins said. and in 1964, people working for lyndon johnson wrote hundreds of letters to dear abby and ann landers, the advice columnists, claiming to be ordinary citizens terrified by the thought of a barry goldwater administration, mr. cummins said. <u+201c>people tend to be weirdly reassured that american elections have always been dirty, from the very beginning,<u+201d> he said. this year has brought several examples of duplicitous acts carried out by individuals either unaffiliated with or at the fringes of the campaigns. they have been aimed at confusing voters <u+2014> or intimidating them with violence <u+2014> by relying on a mix of old tricks and new ones. razor blades on a trump sign dirty tricks are one thing <u+2014> bloody ones are quite another. this week, someone lined a trump sign with razor blades outside a polling place at collin college in mckinney, tex., according to wfaa , a local tv station. a poll worker got cuts on his hand as he tried to move it, the station reported. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m not even sure what the motivation to do something like that would be,<u+201d> said bruce sherbet, the collin county elections administrator. misleading mail in miami, some voters have received suspicious mailings that appear to be in support of democrats, but instead slip in recommendations for republicans and for ballot issues that democrats oppose. two separate cards were spotted in recent weeks that carried the democrat<u+2019>s branding, with smiling faces of barack obama and hillary clinton , telling voters to <u+201c>preserve the legacy<u+201d> or <u+201c>protect and continue our legacy<u+201d> by electing a slate of democratic candidates. but one of the cards endorses two republican incumbents for state senate, while the other encouraged people to vote for a republican school board member and to vote yes on a ballot issue on solar competition that democrats oppose, according to the miami herald. in both cases, the candidates who were endorsed by the mailings denied being involved, and it<u+2019>s unclear who sent them. whoever did distribute the misinformation likely broke a law that requires a truthful disclaimer about the groups behind campaign material, the miami herald reported. vote by text? no. images have circulated on the internet falsely claiming that pennsylvania residents can vote online by simply using certain hashtags on twitter. others have encouraged people to vote by text message. both targeted democrats. a city councilman in murrysville, near pittsburgh, was among the people to share such images, according to billy penn , a news site in philadelphia. the councilman, joshua lorenz, told billy penn it was <u+201c>abundantly clear<u+201d> it was meant to be a joke. jack dorsey, twitter<u+2019>s chief executive, said on wednesday that the company had <u+201c>fixed<u+201d> the issue, but some of the fake campaign ads were still circulating on friday. republican office firebombed and there have been more serious acts. a firebomb at the republican party headquarters in north carolina<u+2019>s orange county in october was accompanied by a spray-painted swastika and a warning: <u+201c>nazi republicans leave town or else.<u+201d> no one was injured, but the office was declared a total loss. dallas woodhouse, the executive director of the state republican party, called it an act of <u+201c>political terrorism.<u+201d> <u+201c>whether you are republican, democrat or independent, all americans should be outraged by this hate-filled and violent attack against our democracy,<u+201d> he added. <u+201c>everyone in this country should be free to express their political viewpoints without fear for their own safety.<u+201d> black church burned, with pro-trump message a predominantly african-american church in greenville, miss., was burned this week , with the words <u+201c>vote trump<u+201d> scrawled in spray paint on the outside of the building. no one was injured. no one has been arrested, but investigators named arson as the cause. <u+201c>we feel that the quote that was placed on the church was basically, it<u+2019>s an intimidation of someone<u+2019>s right to vote whatever way they choose to vote,<u+201d> said delando wilson, the police chief. <u+201c>so that would be definitely considered a hate crime.<u+201d> undercover videos put democrats on defensive undercover videos produced by project veritas, a conservative group, captured democratic operatives describing how to create mayhem and instigate violence at trump rallies. the democrats are seen discussing how people could illegally vote, though it<u+2019>s not clear if any of the plans would be carried out. mrs. clinton<u+2019>s campaign distanced itself from the videos and questioned their veracity, but mr. trump has pointed to them as proof of dirty tricks.
dirty tricks, vandalism and the dark side of politics
daniel victor