[Ads-l] maybe not worth a second look: "a 'Mulligan'" 1926

[Stephen Goranson]

Maybe not related to the (later-attested [1931ff]) golf use. Maybe a one-off.

[quote]
[...]what chance has a man in San Francisco against this infernal patent box which they have brought into use? Honest people may go and vote, but a "Mulligan" can neutralize all their votes by a single touch of this complicated machinery. You might as well go into a harvest field with an old, common, rusty, primitive reaping sickel, against one of McCormick's double-horse, patent, improved reaping machines, and expect to compete with it, as to get fairness when these fellows use these boxes. [end quote]

Billy Mulligan long ago was charged with ballot box tampering. This text apparently warns of a new-fangled way of vote miscounting. Snippet at GB. Search-only at HT. Full text, HeinOnline subscription.

"Trial of Various Criminals by the Second Vigilance Committee San Francisco, California, 1856,"
American State Trials (Thomas Law Books) vol. 15, 1926, page 83.

Stephen Goranson
http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/


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