obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises . . . .”) (emphasis added). Nothing in the language of Sections 1341 or 1343, or McNally, for that matter, indicates that the process of selecting the official or employee – be it by popular election or a more traditional hiring procedure – is material for purposes of determining liability. It would be an odd result indeed if a bad actor who secures elected office by fraud could evade prosecution under Sections 1341 or 1343 simply because the hiring procedure involved delegation or otherwise involved multiple actors, not all of whom were directly targeted by the fraudulent conduct. (b) “Cost-of-election” theory: 18 U.S.C. § 1341 One court, the D.C. Circuit, has held that a scheme to cast fraudulent ballots in a labor union election, which had the effect of tainting the entire election, was a scheme to defraud the election authority charged with running the election of the costs involved. United States v. DeFries, 43 F.3d 707, 710–11 (D.C. Cir. 1995). DeFries was not a traditional election fraud prosecution. Rather, it involved corruption of a union election when supporters of one candidate for union office cast fraudulent ballots for that candidate. Id. at 708. When the scheme was uncovered, the United States Department of Labor ordered that a new election be held, thereby causing the union to incur an actual pecuniary loss. The D.C. Circuit held that the relationship between that pecuniary loss and the voter fraud scheme was sufficient to satisfy the requirements of McNally. Id. at 710–11. This theory of prosecution has potential usefulness primarily when the mail and wire fraud statutes are needed to federalize voter frauds involving the counting of illegal ballots in non-federal elections, particularly when the fraud has led to a successful election contest and the election authority has been ordered to hold a new election, thereby incurring additional costs. 72