Watching the shenanigans in the still contested New Jersey gubernatorial election, I have to wonder
My Democratic great great grandfather may well have voted.
whether there has ever been a truly honest election in state history. From my own experience, I would say probably not and, as I also learned, there are a thousand ways to cheat.
In 1982, through an odd sequence of events, I found myself with a ringside seat on a routinely crooked Newark mayoral election. I had been offered a job as “associate director” of the 1,000-employee Newark Housing and Redevelopment Authority. This being a recession year, and I needing to finish my Ph.D. dissertation, I took it. This was not a career move.
I had two qualifications that endeared me to the Philippine-born woman who ran the show: I lived in Newark public housing growing up, and I aced her borderline illegal IQ test. An elitist whose role model was the then little-known Imelda Marcos, my “Imelda” took me under her wing.
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