The Blocks of Five were groups of electors whose selling of their votes to the United States Republican Party for voting in the United States presidential election, 1888 was exposed. Presidential Electors in the United States are the individuals who actually vote for Presidential candidates in the Electoral College. ... Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. ... The Republican Party, often called the GOP (for Grand Old Party, although one early citation described it as the Gallant Old Party) [1], is one of the two major political parties in the United States. ... Presidential electoral votes by state. ...

Background

In the Gilded Age, prior to the adoption of the secret ballot in Federal elections, political parties printed up ballots and distributed them to their voters, who then cast them at their polling station. The Breakers, a gilded-age mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. ... Elections Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voters choices are confidential. ...

The Republican campaign, William Wade Dudley, send out a circular on October 24 to Indiana Republican officials. In it, he told them to "divide the floaters [Vote sellers] into blocks of five" and appoint a more integral leader who would be given the money to pay them with for their fraud. William Wade Dudley (1842-1909), born in Weathersfield Bow, Vermont, started life as a soldier in the American Civil War, then became a lawyer, a government official and a Republican campaigner. ... A circular may be: the adjective form of circle an advertisement which is circulated a Pastoral letter, Encyclic, or Papal bull that is circulated between churches a circular argument is a term for a type of logical fallacy where the very thing that is trying to be proved is assumed... October 24 is the 297th day of the year (298th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Official language(s) English Capital Indianapolis Largest city Indianapolis Area  Ranked 38th  - Total 36,418 sq mi (94,321 km²)  - Width 140 miles (225 km)  - Length 270 miles (435 km)  - % water 1. ...

The plan was exposed when a railroad official turned one up and it was subsequently publicized. The Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison, was elected anyway. Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was the 23rd President of the United States, serving one term from 1889 to 1893. ...

The publicity of the notoriously brazen fraud is credited with aiding in the adoption of the secret ballot by the states.

Sources

• Dictionary of American History by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940
• The Object at Hand: The Vote That Failed — Smithsonian Magazine