The People's House

by David Pepper

  During her junior year, the sole conservative professor in the political science department arranged a summer internship with his old college classmate, Congressman Tom Stanton. This presented her one chance at the big leagues, and she worked furiously for the whole summer, putting in more hours than any of Stanton’s paid staff. Four years later, she served as Stanton’s go-to research and policy guru and enjoyed her reputation as one of Capitol Hill’s brightest stars.

  Now, Simpson applied all her talents to get to the bottom of Abacus. She had long ago accepted that certain dark arts—lobbying, outside money, attack ads, even gerrymandering and quid pro quo fundraising—were part of politics. But rigging an election? In America’s swing districts? That was way out of bounds. Un-American. If she could stop it, she would. And it would start with convincing her boss that she was right.

  So she reached out to boards of elections throughout the country, scoured newspaper clippings and the Internet, and constructed her own map of what she dubbed the “Abacus Counties.” Those districts almost perfectly coincided with the swing congressional districts of the country.

  She dug further into the history of Abacus, a struggling company miraculously saved by a mysterious investor, just in time to protect and add to its footprint of accounts in those swing counties.

  What were the odds?

  As she always did on deep-dive research projects, Simpson painstakingly documented her findings in a long memorandum, adding maps, election statistics, and detailed findings to support her conclusions. She also summarized years of research on the vulnerability of electronic voting machines to errors and voter fraud schemes.

  Given Stanton’s gruff response, she kept her additional research quiet. She didn’t tell her officemates, her friends from school, or her family. Didn’t even tell her equally secret new boyfriend.

  * * *

  Joanie Simpson lived in a small apartment, a few blocks up the street from the National Zoo, in a neighborhood called Woodley Park. It was the perfect location for a young professional in the District.

  Each morning, she jogged out of her apartment building down to Rock Creek Parkway, then along the Potomac and up to the Mall. She’d usually slow her pace for a few minutes to climb the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, stopping to look up at Lincoln as he peered out over his city. She’d then continue alongside the reflecting pool, veer left at the Washington Monument, run by the White House, and make her way home via Connecticut Avenue. For a political junkie, it was the best six-mile run in the world.

  To get to work from Woodley Park, she walked two blocks to the subway and hopped on the red line to Capitol Hill. Getting home was just as simple.

  Her apartment also placed her only a few miles from Georgetown. While this put her close to the Georgetown nightlife, for Simpson it had a more practical consequence: the Thursday night car ride to and from Stanton’s townhouse took only ten minutes. The car would pick her up around 10:10 p.m., drop her off at 10:20, and get her back home shortly after 1:00. She’d made the miserable trip for more than three years.

  The congressman first came onto her during her third week on the job, a few months after her twenty-third birthday. He had asked her to come into his office to review her latest research. As she walked in, he shut the door behind her.

  “Thanks for coming in,” he said. “This is an important issue for me. Have a seat.”

  She sat in the chair across from his cedar desk, taking in the office. A bookshelf behind Stanton’s desk displayed photos of the congressman and various presidents going back to Reagan. Stanton had aged incredibly well—same build, same sharp features in each photo—with only a few streaks of gray marking the passing of the years. An assortment of awards and plaques hung on the walls to the left and right of the bookshelf, along with his framed Yale and Harvard diplomas.

  Funny. Not one photo of his family. Within moments, she learned why.

  “Do you mind reading through your conclusion and recommendations?” Stanton asked.

  As she recited her findings, he eyed her legs, which she had crossed as she sat down. Unlike most men, who tried to grab a quick glimpse on the sly, he cast an uncomfortably long gaze up and down. He could care less if she noticed. Given her height, and the skirt that stopped above her knees, she had inadvertently given him much to ogle that morning.

  After about a minute, he stood up and paced behind his desk. She continued her report.

  He walked around the desk and behind her chair, forcing her to make a decision—awkwardly twist her neck to keep eye contact or stare forward and read her report to a wall. She continued reading.

  She couldn’t see him, but after a minute, could hear him—his breathing, his light footsteps, right behind her. Then, even worse, he touched her. As his hands lightly gripped her shoulders, she shuddered slightly, but then held still. Looking down at her papers, she continued to deliver her report as if nothing was happening. But her heart pounded away at the uninvited contact.

  A few of her friends on the Hill, having endured similar experiences with their bosses, had warned her about Stanton. But all instructed her in the same way: “If it happens, and you want to stay employed in such a prime-time job, you have no choice but to go along.” On the road, away from their wives, toasted by lobbyists and other supplicants daily, men like Stanton felt entitled to conquests. Untouchable, her friends had explained. And any women who didn’t understand this reality didn’t survive long in D.C.

  She had objected to this awful advice and vowed she would never go along. But now she did.

  For fifteen minutes, Stanton rubbed her shoulders, working his way down her arms midway to her elbows, while the two discussed policy as if nothing odd was taking place. Twice, he curled his fingers a few inches forward, over and down from her shoulders toward her upper chest, but pulled back after a few seconds.

  When she finished her report, he lifted his hands, thanked her for her good work, and gestured to the door. As Joanie walked through the doorway, the congressman’s executive assistant glanced up with wide, empathetic eyes. The woman’s expression made clear she knew exactly what had happened behind that closed door.

  Back at her desk, Simpson sat erect in her chair, breathing heavily, hands and arms trembling, eyes gazing straight ahead at a blank computer screen. She convinced herself that all her colleagues were staring, knowing exactly what had happened and judging her for being too weak to say anything. But as her breaths steadied, she glanced around. No one was paying any attention to her at all. They had no idea. For some reason, that calmed her down.

  A few minutes later, Stanton rushed out of his office, fully suited up for a vote on the House floor. As he hustled by her desk, he stopped and reached out to hand her a file. “Could you look into this food stamp issue for me?” he asked. She took the file, and tried to utter the words “of course.” But no sound came out as he jogged away.

  The bad behavior continued.

  At first, he arranged for the occasional meeting alone in his office, just like the first one. More unwanted touching. More silent submission.

  But then the congressman began to ask her to stop by the Capital Grill at the end of the day to review issues. She’d walk over from her office. There, he insisted she drink the same drinks he did. Because they were in public, he touched her more subtly than in the office, but inevitably, he’d manage to brush her thigh, her arm, her hand. Nothing more.

  At about 10:00, they’d go their separate ways.

  Then it got worse. Much worse.

  One Thursday evening several months after the first encounter, as she lay stretched out on her couch after a workout, Joanie’s cell phone rang. A 215 area code, a number she didn’t recognize. She picked up, and Stanton’s voice came over the line, firmly but quietly.

  “In about fifteen minutes, a black Suburban is going to pull up outside your apartment,” he said as if instructing her
on a work assignment. “I’m going to have it take you over to my place.”

  She felt instantly nauseated as she processed his words, and how to react. She had learned to tolerate the prior behavior, as bad as it was. Classic harassment, but she could handle it. This new episode would clearly elevate things to a new level of abuse.

  But she steeled herself to go through with it. She had come a long way from her rough Missouri suburb, and this was the price of the job, and the career, she felt privileged to have. She could handle this.

  If she ever got fired, she would certainly tell the world. But as long she had the job, as long as she made a dent in her hefty student loans one month at a time, as long as she advanced conservative policies and worked for one of America’s most powerful men, she would go along.

  “Okay,” she said.

  As promised, a dark Suburban pulled up in front of her apartment building at 10:10. She crossed the sidewalk, opened the back door, and climbed in.

  She stared out the tinted window the whole ride, tapping her nails nervously against the leather seat. When the car jostled along the cobblestone streets of Georgetown, she breathed more quickly. Three minutes later, they stopped in front of a three-story townhouse, waited ten seconds, then pulled into a garage.

  “That’s the door there. Simply ring that bell and he’ll let you in,” the driver said, pointing. His dark eyes looked at her in the rear-view mirror as he spoke. She glared back. Like Stanton’s assistant, he knew exactly what his boss was doing. Spineless.

  She rang the bell, which led to a soft buzz and a click as the door’s lock unbolted. Stanton’s voice echoed through a small speaker, “Come on in, and go up one flight of stairs.” She pushed the door open and walked up the flight of stairs.

  As the stairway leveled off at the second floor, she followed a hallway into a dimly lit entertainment room. She walked past a large bar to her right, and a small, circular dining table to her left. Past the table sat a dark leather couch facing a wall. A TV hung on the wall, with two large windows on its left and right. The shades of each window were down.

  Still in a suit, tie off, white shirt unbuttoned two buttons down, Stanton stood behind the bar. He flashed the biggest smile she had seen from him, a painful mix of creepy and cheesy.

  “Welcome. Can I offer you a drink?” he asked.

  “No thanks.”

  “I’m having a gin and tonic,” he said. “You should have one too.”

  This was not a suggestion.

  “Okay.”

  He fixed both drinks as she stood stiffly, looking out the window.

  “You are so beautiful, right now and every day,” Stanton said to her. He had never before addressed her in a personal way, although his voice sounded as wooden as at work. The cold tone did not match the sentiment of the words.

  “Thank you,” she said. Normally she’d smile at such a compliment but refused to now.

  “Thank you your willingness to come over here. I have such a hard time resisting you, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know you better.”

  The debate champion considered the rebuttals she wanted to fire back his way. I’m only here because I don’t want to lose my job. Or, We don’t know each other at all. You just rub me like a creep whenever you feel like it. Maybe, I liked you a lot better before I got to know you a little better. And others.

  But she held back. Too much to lose.

  “Let’s sit down on the couch,” he said as he finished pouring both drinks.

  Hoping the gin and tonic would make it all go smoother, she downed it quickly and asked for another. She rarely drank hard alcohol, and weighed all of 120 pounds, so the second drink had her head spinning as she had hoped.

  The two then sat on the couch together.

  “Tell me more about yourself,” he said, once again flashing the cheesy grin that never appeared in the office. She turned away at the sight of it, looking out the window as they talked.

  Simpson explained what her parents did, talked about her childhood, her schooling, her debate victories. She spoke with no emotion, determined not to leave an impression that she was enjoying the visit, or inviting anything more from her boss.

  Stanton responded to everything she said positively. “I love St. Louis. . . . Debating was also my strong suit. . . . Williams is a great school.” The same smile accompanied each insincere word.

  As she wound down her story, he sidled closer to her. The next moves followed quickly. His right hand settled on her left knee. Then moved up her thigh about six inches, resting there for a few minutes, squeezing gently. Finally, he lifted his right arm, put it around her shoulder, and forcefully pulled her toward him.

  She never said “no”, but she never said “yes” either. She endured the next two hours as if it were a work assignment, with two more stiff drinks helping get her through it. Stanton had strange desires, none involving intercourse itself. Mostly effort on her part. As a clock from another room struck 1:00, he abruptly stood up.

  “I’m so glad you stopped by,” he said as if she had volunteered to visit. “It’s probably a good time for you to go home. I’ll give you a call next Thursday.”

  She said nothing back.

  Instead, she dressed quickly, walked back down to the garage where the Suburban awaited, and sat in the back quietly for the brief ride home. Once in her own bedroom, she threw her clothes into a heap and showered, scrubbing from head to toe, and brushed her teeth for a full five minutes. Between the drinks she’d downed and the memory of those agonizing two hours, she slept two hours the rest of the night.

  The routine continued. Each Thursday, the Suburban appeared at 10:05. A few drinks, conversation, followed by aggressive advances and requests, all fulfilled. Thankfully, no intercourse. At 1:00 a.m., she went home and showered.

  The night visits brought an end to the inappropriate office meetings. And he never asked her to the Capital Grill anymore. These early interactions were nothing but a means to an end—tests of her willingness to go along with the Thursday visits. Tests, sadly, that she had passed.

  Over time, the shallow warm-up conversation evolved into discussions about what they most had in common: policy and politics. At least the views she expressed in the visits actually influenced the congressman’s thinking and actions back at his day job.

  Didn’t make it any better, but if she buried the negative aspects of each encounter deep within, she had access to someone who could advance her conservative principles. And now, someone who could do something about Abacus.

  Chapter 29

  LONDON: 14 months before the election

  “We have shipped to 121 counties and eighteen different states.”

  Fall arrived in London, and Andersson provided Kazarov with an in-person status report. The meeting came after Ariens’ death, after Stanton’s visit, after months of tailing the congressman.

  “We are now in enough places to control the outcome of next year’s election, with some room to spare.”

  “Great news. We have certainly paid enough to get to this point.”

  Location acquisition and rollout had cost a pretty penny. The near instant modernization of the Abacus headquarters totaled millions, as did the rapid staffing, mostly transfers to Philadelphia from across Kazarov’s empire. Abacus set a sale price per machine a full 35 percent below the cost of producing them. And it didn’t help that they needed to rush everything.

  Then there was the design work. The easy part was stealing the vote-counting technology by reverse engineering the latest Diebold machine. The more difficult and costly part had been designing the Abacus machine to manipulate election results when and where they wanted, in a way that would not be detected. But this was the part Kazarov had enjoyed the most, because his engineers used the machine’s paper trail mechanism—newly mandated by the government to improve security—to do their dirty work.
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  In theory, the paper trail feature enhances security by allowing a voter to see that the votes cast on the electronic screen are simultaneously reflected on a paper receipt that is displayed to the voter and then stored by the voting machine. But a decade of American research had found that voters rarely examine the paper receipt as it is displayed, and therefore rarely catch errors, particularly for down-ballot races. The Abacus engineers exacerbated that problem by designing a paper display mechanism that made it difficult for any but the most attentive voters to closely scrutinize each line of the displayed paper receipt. Then, in the targeted House districts, the Abacus machines were programmed to occasionally omit a voter’s electronic vote for the Democratic House candidate from the displayed paper receipt. If a voter noticed the omission, she would assume she had neglected to vote in that race, scroll back on the electronic machine to revote for the desired candidate electronically, and the vote would then appear on the printed receipt (as well as on the memory card). But if the voter didn’t notice the omission on the paper receipt—and voters rarely noticed—that non-vote on the paper receipt would also register as a non-vote on the memory card. The original electronic vote for the Democratic candidate would disappear forever—and the paper and electronic records would match to reflect the non-vote.

  “Brilliant! The machine allows us to induce a mistake that the voter would never have made with a simple paper ballot,” Kazarov had celebrated when Andersson demonstrated the mechanism.

  “Even better,” Andersson had replied. “It is the act of the voter, by unintentionally verifying the mistake, that covers up the manipulation.”

  But these hard costs and design expenses were only the beginning.

  In small counties, Abacus’ low prices and slick sales practices won the day because their competitors only went through the motions. In the larger counties, Diebold and Seiko competed fiercely to keep every account, slashing their prices as well.

  That’s where Kazarov’s Eastern business experience came in handy. But buying off elections officials in twelve counties to choose Abacus over Diebold or Seiko had cost more than Kazarov had paid anywhere else.