By Richard Miller
Author, “In Words and Deeds: Battle Speeches in History”

What will you do if you believe that the results of November’s election were fraudulently obtained?

This phenomenon is not new. Ballot box stuffing was a fixture in many nineteenth century elections even before the advent of the great urban “machines” (remember Tammany Hall?) with which the practice is most often associated. And some of these machines continued into the 1970s and ’80s.

In the modern era, Richard Nixon believed that Mayor Richard Daley (father of the current mayor) stuffed ballot boxes in Chicago; in that razor-thin election, as went Chicago, so went Illinois, and thus the nation. John F. Kennedy became president. Nixon could have challenged the outcome but did not, choosing to devote himself to his famous comeback.

Then there was the 2000 presidential election. Many Democrats  believed that they were disenfranchised by another kind of fix: according to this narrative, the election was decided by the Republican appointees to the United States Supreme Court all of whom voted as “their party” might have instructed.

That story line was factually wrong, but it didn’t matter–Democrats believed–and many still do–that, as the old quote has it, “we wuz robbed.”

No doubt this perception contributed to the most rancorous opposition of modern times that George W. Bush has faced from almost his first day in office.

Eight years later Republicans are confronted with a prospect that is a distinctly modern twist of the old machine model–except this machine is not confined to one city but is national. I refer to the activities of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. And here, the accusations aren’t of some indirect or third-party influence as were the allegations of the Supreme Court fix in Bush vs. Gore, but direct connections between Barack Obama’s campaign and ACORN, now under investigation in 12 states for registering the dead, so to speak. Obama’s own machine contributed $800,000 to ACORN which it first tried to disguise but was later forced to ‘fess up to the Federal Election Commission. Moreover, Senator Obama himself is personally connected with ACORN, having represented them during his brief career as community organizer and lawyer.

Some have suggested that ACORN is in fact a criminal conspiracy of the type envisioned by RICO statutes; instead of drugs or gambling, its goal is the election of Obama. While the organization has been cited for internal corruption as well (one of its senior officers embezzled $1million), no one knows about the extent to which ACORN’s apparent voter fraud schemes will influence an election that hasn’t yet taken place.

But in politics, perception is everything. Because of the financial bailouts–increasingly in the plural–the next president will have unprecedented powers, something Americans are traditionally uncomfortable with. This only adds to the importance of making sure that these election results have integrity.

So here’s the question: what will you do if you believe that the election results were obtained by fraud?

No one else has asked you so I thought I might.