STEAL THIS VOTE! - A Review of Andrew Gumbel's Book

Book Reviewed:
Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America

I’ve got a couple dozen book reviews to share, and with the Iowa caucus finished, I decided to review a book I read last summer, STEAL THIS VOTE, by Andrew Gumbel.

I always had a sneaking suspicion something was wrong with our elections, but the how and why escaped me. Lyndon Johnson’s theft of a congressional office, Mayor Daley delivering the 1960 election to Kennedy, and other election frauds are legendary, but what about a plain old governors race, like the last one in Washington, where rampant fraud was found, and a judge finally decided the outcome?


Andrew Gumbel is a leftist writer who was alarmed at the fraud built into the software of the Diebold Voting Machines, a wicked Republican innovation, and set out to expose it. In the process of laying out the background and history of voting in USA, he discovers that the democrats are every bit as wicked when it comes to voter fraud as the republicans. It is a tribute to his integrity that he reports it all, and from this candid basis he makes sound recommendations. His book is timely, it covers even that Washington State gubernatorial race.

The entire book is fascinating, from the beginning on how we arrived at our voting system and its relation to slavery (how that wicked vice has so maladjusted our country!) early elections and innovations, and how every change led to adjustments in voting fraud methods.

Gumbel provides some classic lines, such as one republican, upon being caught red-handed in voter fraud, claimed it must be the will of God he take the office since he won the election without getting enough votes! I’ll be quoting that line the rest of my life.

The breadth and depth of Gumbel’s research tells me this will be another book that I lend out to someone and never see again. It’s that good. It could be an instruction manual on how to steal an election, and he arrives at the conclusion all elections are fraudulent. Convincingly.

I wanted to know how it is done, not that it is ALWAYS done. Now I have to adjust my thinking to include the fact that all elections are fraudulent. I already knew the world can be a wicked place, (and that is good to know), but I wanted at least a chance to vote on it.

Of course, I see every malpractice an opportunity for a small business to come in and do good while doing well. How about a new system, wherein we double or triple vote, placing the votes with differing private companies at the same time, and all three report the results? All right, obviously I do not have a passion for clean elections, but Gumbel does, and he inadvertently offers a few new business ideas for anyone who is.

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