Digging Up the Bodies

Even in West Virginia's Kanawha County, where corrupt elections are no surprise, the primary last May was a standout. The minute the Charleston Gazette (circ. 86,500) saw the returns, it smelled fraud. Many precincts in the capital's county showed a far heavier vote than could be expected from the size of the registrations. City Editor Harry G. Hoffman set two reporters, Charles R. Armentrout and James A. Hill, to work looking for the buried bodies.

It did not take long to dig them up. Reporter Hill went to an outlying district, found that the dead, insane and bedridden sick had been voted. The paper covered its front page with printed registration records and poll slips to show the forged signatures.

The Gazette was flooded with tips from readers. One woman reported: "I saw votes being paid for in front of me." The paper's day-by-day stories and editorials forced the impaneling of a special grand jury three weeks ago. The first witness: Newsman Armentrout. On the basis of his and Hill's evidence, the grand jury started calling in witnesses, summoned 300 in all.

Last week the grand jury indicted 32 from Kanawha County for vote frauds, 18 Democrats and 14 Republicans. They ranged from ward heelers to the Republican mayor of Dunbar (pop. 8,032), who was charged with fraudulently adding to the votes cast for Charleston's Republican Mayor John T. Copenhaver in his unsuccessful campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Despite its victory, the Gazette thinks the battle not yet over. It plans to campaign to change the state laws so the vote frauds can't be repeated.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.