Cooping was a form of

electoral fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, often cited in relation to the

death of Edgar Allan Poe The death of Edgar Allan Poe on October 7, 1849, has remained mysterious. The circumstances leading up to the final days of Edgar Allan Poe are uncertain, and the cause of death is disputed. On October 3, the American author was found delirious i ...

in October 1849, by which citizens were kidnapped off the street and forced to

vote Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holde ...

, often several times over, for an election candidate. According to several of Poe's biographers, so-called 'cooping gangs' or 'election gangs' working for a

political candidate A candidate, or nominee, is the prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position; for example: * to be elected to an office — in this case a candidate selection procedure occurs. * t ...

would hold random victims in a room (the "coop") and ply them with alcohol or give them face beatings to get them to comply. Often their clothing would be changed to fool voting officials and vote multiple times, or they would be given

disguise A disguise can be anything which conceals or changes a person's physical appearance, including a wig, glasses, makeup, fake moustache, costume or other items. Camouflage is a type of disguise for people, animals and objects. Hats, glasses, ch ...

s such as wigs, fake beards, or mustaches. Other 19th-century accounts do not relate to voter fraud but instead, describe

press gangs Impressment, colloquially "the press" or the "press gang", is the taking of men into a military or naval force by compulsion, with or without notice. European navies of several nations used forced recruitment by various means. The large size of ...

that used cooping to pressure recruits for the Union Army during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

. One claim of cooping enlistees was made in a letter from Brigadier General Edward Winslow Hincks read by the

Clerk of the House of Representatives The Clerk of the United States House of Representatives is an officer of the United States House of Representatives, whose primary duty is to act as the chief record-keeper for the House. Along with the other House officers, the Clerk is elec ...

in 1865. The general, who was in charge of the enlistment in New York, blamed the poor quality of enlisted men on cooping, whereby the men were "cooped up", plied with a drink to the point of stupefaction, and tricked into enlisting.

References

{{reflist Political history of the United States Edgar Allan Poe Voting in the United States Electoral fraud in the United States

See also

References