RUSH TO VOTE? Years ago, when I was working for a small Orange County newspaper, the publisher hurried to my desk, warning of a supposed “bracero rush” on the polls coming that very day.
He’d apparently been alerted that temporary field workers imported from Mexico under the bracero program were planning to mass at the town’s polling place and vote.
I had great doubts about this. The young Mexican workers had at that point demonstrated zero interest in our election and in any case were ineligible to cast a ballot even if they wanted to. But the likelihood of this rumor had apparently escaped the publisher’s attention. But who can account for political paranoia of those days, or these?