Mr. Upright spends the day circulating around among the workers, giving them that "appreciated" feeling.
Tb achieve such an organization you need several times as many workers as there are in your Doorbell Club. It is not really hard to manage-for one day-if your area supervisors are active and alert. Some of them won't be. Since your efforts must be incomplete work according to the following priorities:
(a) Cover every contact in the precincts canvassed by Mr. Upright even if it means persuading your best workers to leave their own precincts completely vacant
(b) Try to cover every precinct which has been worked by anyone.
(c) Do not put workers in any precinct which has not previously been canvassed unless you are blessed with more workers than you know what to do with, in which case completely untrained workers may hand out literature at the polls in those precincts. Tell them about any local regulation which limits how dose to the polls they may work and caution them not to argue with anyone.
(d) If a precinct has but one worker he or she may accomplish almost as much as three people by working in this routine: Telephone as many as possible the night before and between eight and ten the next morning. Make dates to take people to the polls, where needed, between ten and noon - a full car-load at a time. After lunch go to the polls and remove from the files all who have voted, then get to work on the telephone with the remainder, making more transportation dates for four to six o'clock. At six o'clock weedout the files further and make frenzied attempts to get a few more to the polls during the evening, giving quite as much attention to the inactive list as to the live contacts. As soon as the polls have dosed, grab a hasty supper and return to the polls for the count. Remain there, watching the count (inform the senior polling official of the intention). When the count for congress has been completed, telephone the result to head quarters, and then leave for the election night party. It is a long day's work but it is a perfect picnic for any healthy, intelligent person.
(e) If two persons are available, the same work is split up, except that the polls are not left unguarded even for a moment from the time they are closed until the count is completed.
(f) If three persons are available one of them may try to glean a few votes just outside the polls at the required distance for campaigning. He is permitted, under most state laws, to double as a poll watcher, thus keeping a running record of who has voted for the automobile workers, provided he does no electioneering while inside the balk line. He sets up a "headquarters" - a parked car, a card table, or a packing case - and covers it with signs for your candidate, and then attempts to hand some small, simple printed reminder that Jonathan Upright is running to each person who approaches the polls. If the local administration is unfriendly and unscrupulous he may have trouble with cops. If this is anticipated, have your best lawyer have a talk with the chief of police ahead of time, explaining your intentions, going over the law, and reaching a full understanding as to just what will be allowed. If your police chief is recalcitrant, let him know that you intend to fall back on the federal authorities - there are pertinent Supreme Court rulings which can scare the boots off a local official if he knows that you know your rights.
A second poll worker is desirable, as there are usually two approaches in view of the no-electioneering balk line. Anyone who is old enough to walk can be an assistant, the younger the better.
(g) Telephone workers may be found among supporters or wives of workers who are tied down by small children or ill health but can use a telephone. They must be provided with lists, by the precinct worker, and mimeographed instructions, from you. Here is an adequate formula: "How do you do? Mrs. Duplex? Mrs. Duplex, this is the Jonathan Upright-for-Congress Citizen's Committee. Have you voted yet today? Would you like to have one of us call to take you to the polls by automobile? Oh, that's quite all right - you can take the baby with you; we will take care of him during the few minutes it takes you to vote. Is there any other member of your family who needs transportation? Very well then, suppose we pick you up sometime between ten a.m. and noon? No?
"How about between four and six? Three o'clock is better? Very well, then, we will make a special trip for you at three o'clock; I'll make a note of it. Not at all, we're glad to do it."
No direct attempt to campaign would be made in these phone calls; limit them to offering service and reminding the voter of the election, while mentioning the name of the candidate as often as possible by referring to the committee by its full name. The person who makes the pick-up limits his campaigning to signs on the car and to handing to each passenger as he gets in a copy of the same small printed item used at the polls.
Election day work is simply to turn your potential votes into real votes by seeing to it that all your supporters get to the polls. Many times your interest lies in a minor candidate or in a proposition on the ballot. Votes for these can frequently be obtained by the courtesy of supplying a ride to the polls. Many people vote only for candidates for president, governor, and senator. The votes of these people can be sewed up for Mr. Upright if one of Mr. Upright's friends supplies the transportation.
Watching the Count: These votes gained on election day can be lost on election night, in the count. One of the commonest pieces of chicanery in the counting is to take advantage of the feet that many people neglect to vote for any but the head of the ticket If the ballot is of the style in which the candidates are grouped by offices it is very easy to mark incomplete ballots after the polls are closed. Thus with 300 ballots cast for governor of which only 250 have been marked for a congressional choice, split 110 for Doubletalk and 140 for Trueblue, five minutes work behind closed doors can change the result to 160 for Doubletalk and 140 for Trueblue without leaving any provable evidence of fraud.
Ballots arranged by tickets rather than by offices are more usually faked by throwing out as improperly marked any split ticket ballot which does not suit the dishonest polling judge and by accepting such ballots when the split does suit him, no matter how many technical mistakes the voter may have made.
Actual stuffing of the ballot box is very rare and the cash-in-hand purchase of votes is still more rare, whereas the election which is actually changed in outcome by these methods is so seldom found that it may be regarded as a museum piece.
These crude methods of blatant dishonesty are not used by the more successful city machines, even when the Machine is corrupt to the core, because they are not
as efficient nor as reliable as machine methods which are technically honest. If a Machine resorts to use them it is a symptom that it is on the skids. (Cf. Kansas City vote fraud trials.)
Your watcher will not be able to do much actually to check the count, because there is so much going on. But the presence of the watcher, announced as such to the official in charge, will be an almost airtight deterrent against fraud. In addition to purportedly watching the count the watcher keeps careful track of how many ballots are discarded as spoiled and for what reasons; this can strongly affect the outcome of a contested election.
Voting machines make the above routine unnecessary. It may be possible to inject fraud into an election conducted with a voting machine other than by the crude methods of coercion or bribery, since anything that one mechanical engineer can design another can modify to produce a different result, but there is nothing for you to do at this point. The detection of skullduggery with the innards of a voting machine would call for a type of investigation, probably by the FBI, beyond the scope of practical field politics.