Charged with safeguarding the vote was the ineffectual Philippine Commission on Elections. In the summer of 1951, Lansdale hatched a scheme with Ramon Magsaysay to have the commission request the assistance of the armed forces. President Elpidio Quirino’s Liberals had been the worst offenders among vote stealers the last time around, so Lansdale was careful to ensure that the request from the election commission came while Quirino was out of the country receiving medical care at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
