A Majority of 108 from Seventy Voters
The territorial election returns smelled of the ballot box: Whatcom County, with barely eighty voters, reported a majority of 108 for Stevens.
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.
On Monday last the election for Delegate to Congress, members of the Territorial Legislature, and local officers of the several counties took place in this Territory. Though the result has been adverse to the friends of the opposing candidate, he has canvassed the Sound, with one or two exceptions, without local advantages against him in the way of federal officers and liberal expenditure of money. As if this were not sufficient to defeat him, however, recourse has been had to a large amount of illegal voting, if not actual stuffing of the ballot box, as the reader cannot fail to see in the result in Whatcom. The total vote in that county was estimated, by those who well knew its extent, at some seventy or eighty; and yet Stevens is shown to have a majority thereof 108! We publish below a letter showing how the election was conducted in Whatcom, to which we invite especial attention.
“The total vote in that county was estimated, by those who well knew its extent, at some seventy or eighty; and yet Stevens is shown to have a majority thereof 108!”
The Whatcom returns—more votes than voters—are an early Washington example of the fight over election integrity that still shapes local politics. Then as now, fraud claims were made by partisans and used to question the legitimacy of a delegate. The episode also shows how territorial elections could turn on tiny, remote precincts.
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