Looking Back: 1922 election had its own issues locally
If she thought she could be caught, she obviously would have made a different decision. But it was too late for that now. She had gotten herself into a real mess.
She and her husband had relocated to Chillicothe from Waverly about a year earlier, bouncing around a string of residences before finally settling in a house on Mulberry Street. She thought she had found a home in Chillicothe.
Now, however, it was Saturday night, Nov. 4, 1922, and instead of enjoying a show with her husband at the Majestic or sharing an intimate dinner at the Warner Hotel, the young woman sat uncomfortably inside the Chillicothe mayor’s office, a nervous wreck.
There were several important looking men in the room, and she shifted her weight in her chair and tried to remember to breathe.
And then the questions came flying.
Q: Are you willing to tell the truth about this matter?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: State your name.
A: Anna Dawson.
Q: How old are you?
A: 24.
Q: Why did you move away from Waverly and come to Chillicothe?
A: More doing here. A better place to work.
Q: Has anyone called on you about voting?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: When?
A: About two weeks ago I guess.
Q: Did they talk about giving you anything?
A: Yes, sir. They wanted me to vote the Absent Voter’s Ballot and give me $5 for voting it.
Q: Was there anything said about where your residence was?
A: I told them I did not think I could vote in Waverly since I lived in Chillicothe. They said it did not matter.
Q: What did you do?
A: I did not do anything.
Q: Did you sign any papers?
A: I signed my name twice.
Q: Did they give you a ballot?
A: They had ballots, but they marked them themselves.
Q: Are you willing to swear to the above statements and sign them to be the truth?
A: Yes, sir!
The questioner handed her a pen and in a shaking scrawl Anna Dawson signed her name.
She was not alone. At least four other Ross County citizens gave depositions that night and recounted similar tales of political bribery. All in all, a total of 35 voters were approached by Pike County’s Democratic henchmen.
Before then, in the final weeks before the 1922 midterm elections, most Chillicothians likely paid scant attention to the ongoing election scandal brewing in Pike County.
But then on the morning of Nov 6, the day before the election, readers of the Gazette were greeted with the following mammoth headline spanning the front page: “Tentacles of Doc Nye’s Pike Co. Political Octopus Stretch to Ross.”
Dr. “Doc” George B. Nye was the head of the Democratic organization in Pike County, and he was very powerful and corrupt to his core.
His latest political scheme was to track down former residents of Pike County and pay them $5 each to illegally vote using absentee ballots.
Pike County Republicans became suspicious after an unusual number of applications for absentee voters’ ballots flooded the election board. They hired an investigator and he uncovered political shenanigans of epic proportion.
Almost immediately, three Portsmouth residents were arrested and charged with possessing ballots that had been illegally acquired under the absent voter’s law. Scioto County, however, was just the tip of the iceberg.
Democratic operatives also headed north with a batch of $5 bills, approaching former Pike residents who had relocated to Columbus.
Then, of course, as Anna Dawson knew all too well, Ross County got dragged into the political storm.
Charges and countercharges of “fraud” flew back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in Pike County and Ohio’s Secretary of State was forced to intervene.
“There is no law which permitted the withdrawal of absentee ballots and that such ballots must be sent to the precincts and counted, if not challenged,” he ruled. If ballots were challenged, however, precinct officials were supposed to vote whether to accept the ballots or not.
Predictably, in precincts where Democrats held the majority, challenged ballots were deposited in the ballot box and counted without further examination.
In precincts where Republicans held a majority, on the other hand, challenged absentee ballots were sent to the Board of Elections for further scrutiny.
Despite heated exchanges in precincts all across Pike County on election morning, voting was heavy throughout the day. In one precinct in Waverly, though, a scene worthy of theater played out.
After a screaming match between Republican precinct officials and the Democratic deputy county auditor, the elected official attempted to shove unexamined absent voter’s ballots into the ballot box.
One fed up and quick thinking Republican, however, grabbed the ballot box and planted himself on top of the lid. The standoff was eventually settled, and the ballots were sent to the Board of Elections for closer examination.
Unbelievably, though, the scheme largely worked as the avalanche of absentee ballots, 600 in total, were mostly counted and Democrats swept race after race across Pike County.
In Chillicothe, it’s not clear how closely Anna Dawson followed the election results, or if she ended up staying on Mulberry Street. For good or bad, her name was never mentioned again in the Gazette.
This article originally appeared on Chillicothe Gazette: Looking Back: 1922 election had its own issues locally
