Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich: Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy - Hardcover

"As the former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the author has seen expansion of voting rights lead to more voter suppression and actually cause vote counts to decline...Berry helpfully exposes disturbing facts from across the country."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Thank goodness for Mary Frances Berry. At 78, the former chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights shows no signs of slowing down. In her latest book, Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich: Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy, Berry exposes election fraud, from vote buying to absentee ballots in communities that we call home."
--Essence Magazine

"Dr. Mary Frances Berry states in this urgent book that 'free and fair elections are a democratic ideal.' Laying out the history and nature of vote buying, voter suppression, voter intimidation, and turnout, Dr. Berry shows that, rather than being a lock-step march toward greater 'inclusion' in voting, the United States exemplifies a push-pull phenomenon--sometimes expanding the franchise and other times restricting it. Above all, Dr. Berry's work instructs us to be vigilant: if we are to have our democracy live up to its potential, it is up to us to stop restrictive laws and work to expand the franchise fairly at the local, state, and federal levels."
--Donna Brazile, veteran Democratic strategist and Democratic National Committee's vice chair for Voter Registration and Participation

"Mary Frances Berry uncovers a type of voter suppression that many readers will be shocked and outraged to learn exists in twenty-first-century America. Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich is an urgent, timely, and nonpartisan book that is vital to our democracy."
--Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union

A timely and nonpartisan book on voter manipulation and electoral corruption—and the importance of stimulating voter turnout and participation

Though voting rights are fundamental to American democracy, felon disenfranchisement, voter identification laws, and hard-to-access polling locations with limited hours are only a few of the ways to suppress voter turnout. These methods of voter suppression are pernicious but, in this book, Mary Frances Berry focuses on forms of electoral corruption including vote buying, vote hauling, the abuse of absentee ballots, and other illegal practices by candidates and their middlemen, often in collusion with local election officials. Through a close analysis of the work of Greg Malveaux, former director of the State of Louisiana’s electoral fraud division, Berry shows how this “everyman” who, with Sisyphean persistence, tried to clean up elections in a state notorious for corruption. Berry observes that such corruption is rarely exposed and not only undermines basic democracy but often occurs in already disenfranchised and poor communities. She asserts that, as a society, we need to become creative in rewarding people for voting, and that grassroots education is crucial—for all, but especially poorer communities—so that citizens understand voting as empowering and as a way to help create the kind of environments they deserve.