When the votes were counted in New Mexico's U.S. Senate election in 1952, the result was close enough for an argument. The official count gave Democratic Senator Dennis Chavez a lead of only 5,071 votes over onetime U.S. Secretary of War Patrick Jay Hurley. Republican Hurley cried fraud, contested the election and got the U.S. Senate to investigate. For 15 months a Senate subcommitteeRepublicans Frank Barrett of Wyoming and Charles Potter of Michigan and Democrat Thomas Hennings of Missouritried to discover who had won.
Last week the subcommittee gave up, declared by a 2-1 vote (Democrat Hennings objecting) that no one had...