Tacoma Election Officials Brace for Voter Fraud
With the municipal election approaching, Tacoma officials scramble to investigate 'manufactured' voters and illegal registrations by transients.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Tacoma, March 23.—Registration for the municipal election, April 3, closed this evening, the total registration being 7,997, against 10,839 in Seattle. There has been some illegal registration this year. Taxpayers are in no mood to tolerate any voting whatever by a purely transient population. Arrests will follow in cases where illegal registration is manifest. Today between fifty and 100 men were sent to the city clerk's office to register by interested parties. Most of these stated that they were woodchoppers and lived in the city. One of the alleged woodchoppers, after succeeding in having his name placed on the registration books, admitted that he had registered at Seattle for the Seattle municipal election. He cannot vote here. Several warrants have already been sworn out.
“Taxpayers are in no mood to tolerate any voting whatever by a purely transient population.”
The suspicion toward 'transient' populations and the fear of organized vote-padding are hallmarks of 19th-century machine politics in the Puget Sound. This local concern with ballot integrity reflects a persistent anxiety in rapidly growing cities.
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