CHAPTER TWO CORRUPTION OF THE ELECTION PROCESS HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Federal concern over the integrity of the franchise has historically had two distinct areas of focus. The first, to ensure elections that are free from corruption for the general public, is the subject of this chapter. The second, to ensure there is no discrimination against minorities at the ballot box, involves entirely different constitutional and federal interests, and is supervised by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Federal interest in the integrity of the franchise was first manifested immediately after the Civil War. Between 1868 and 1870, Congress passed the Enforcement Acts, which served as the basis for federal activism in prosecuting corruption of the franchise until most of them were repealed in the 1890s. See In re Coy, 127 U.S. 731 (1888); Ex parte Yarborough, 110 U.S. 651 (1884); Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371 (1880). Many of the Enforcement Acts had broad jurisdictional predicates that allowed them to be applied to a wide variety of corrupt election practices as long as a federal candidate was on the ballot. In Coy, the Supreme Court held that Congress had authority under the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause to regulate any activity during a mixed federal/state election that exposed the federal election to potential harm, whether that harm materialized or not. Coy is still good law. United States v. Slone, 411 F.3d 643, 647 (6th Cir. 2005); United States v. Mason, 673 F.2d 737, 739 (4th Cir. 1982); United States v. Malmay, 671 F.2d 869, 874–75 (5th Cir. 1982). After Reconstruction, federal activism in election matters subsided. The repeal of most of the Enforcement Acts in 1894 19