JOHN KENNEDY and Richard Nixon before their first debate (Wikipedia).

It’s almost a tradition now in elections that losing parties or candidates claim fraud as the reason for their defeat. It’s hard to prove that, especially when the so-called fraud is alleged to have taken place in an area where their own party counted the votes.

But election fraud did occur in the past, with one of the most famous (or infamous cases) taking place in Illinois during the 1960 presidential race. The Democratic candidate – John Kennedy – narrowly won in Illinois, giving him enough Electoral College votes to defeat the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon.

Chicago, the biggest city in the state, was controlled by the Democratic political machine of Mayor Richard Daley. It was an open secret that his operatives could always squeeze a few extra votes out to help a candidate across the finish line.

But that was not all of the story. Urban Chicago may have been Democratic, but downstate Illinois was more rural and controlled by the Republican machine based in the state capital of Springfield.

So, you had two competing political “clubs” trying to outdo the other in a somewhat odiferous contest. No one seriously doubted Chicago’s efforts for JFK, but most political observers believed that the GOP did the same for Nixon.

By that reasoning, two cheaters clashed, and one was more successful at it than the other. Or, as the saying went, “For every dead person who votes Democratic, a cow votes Republican downstate.”