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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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Just going through Chicago mayoral election results since Daley was first elected

1955: 1,290,000 votes cast Daley wins 54-45

1959 1,090,000.votes cast Daley wins 71-28

1963 1,220,000 votes cast Daley wins 55-44

1967 1,084,000 votes cast Daley wins 73-25

1971: 1,056,000 votes cast Daley wins 70-30

1975: 698,000 votes cast Daley wins 77-19

1977: special election cause Daley died: 634,000 votes cast, Bilandic (D) wins 77-21

1979: 854,000 votes cast Byrne (D) wins 82-16

The FBI finds tons of fraudulent ballots in the 1982 federal election, this could be breakpoint though I don't know exactly when reforms in response to this went into effect

1983: 1,290,000 votes cast, Washington (D) wins 51-48

1987 1,160,000 votes cast Washington (D) wins 53-42

1989 Special Election Cause Washington died: 1,040,000 votes cast, Daley Jr. (D) wins 55-41

1991: 637,000 votes cast, Daley Jr. (D) wins 71-26

1995 598,000 votes cast, Daley Jr. (D) wins 60-36

1999: 595,000 votes cast, Daley Jr. (D) wins 71-28.

You're suggesting that a ~10% decline in voter turnout would be a good indication that the machine stopped working, but that roughly the same number of people voted so it was will still working. But there was a massive surge in voting after 1982 not a collapse. Does that mean the machine faked more votes than ever, or that people who had given up started to believe elections were fair and turned out to vote.

I don't know but it just doesn't seem like raw vote totals are a good indication of whether "a machine" is in operation. The lowest total votes cast seem to coincide with the largest margins for the incumbent.

That is another plausible explanation. But it also, IMO, overly privledges the position of free and fair elections, which from my POV is what the law generally overly does, and instead I'd prefer people take election integrity much more seriously.