Did Richard Daley Steal the 1960 Election for Kennedy?

I met one of (the elder) Richard Daley’s grandsons yesterday. Great guy. At the risk of poisoning a possible friendship, I just had to ask him whether his grandfather really stole the election for Kennedy in 1960 through vote fraud in Chicago.

He said no. And I believe him.

I once had a research assistant spend a month going through old voting records to find any evidence of fraud in the 1960 presidential election in Illinois. We couldn’t find a thing. There are lots of ways to cheat that we wouldn’t have detected, but the easiest ones we likely would have found. Honestly, I was shocked we found nothing.

There is an interesting article five years ago on Slate about that election and possible fraud.