Poll

“ It is rather difficult, when the declaration of the poll is announced by the Returning Officer, and you find yourself, by a swinging (or narrow) majority, the elected representative of some 30,000 people, to avoid a certain feeling of pleasurable self-congratulation. For the first time in your life you are, suddenly, the central figure of a great demonstration. You are astonished at your own popularity. ”

“ Unfortunately, due to these baseless attacks on the election results, many of these election workers have been threatened and intimidated. Yet these poll workers did their duty and counted the votes, shepherding and overseeing one of the most fundamental and integral pillars of our democracy—free, fair and open elections. ”

“ Hunt for the little share of the freedom of election which they had left them, and although he got behind upon the poll every day, yet he solemnly declared that he would not resign as long as there was a man left to poll for him. ”

“ As long as every man can split his vote, and all are agreed to give half to themselves, the amount of the poll will be the same as if all gave whole votes. There is encouragement, therefore, to canvass, as we are about to do, in favour of a candidate whom we would fain see more popular than at present. ”

“ It may seem strange that a party thus constituted and led should poll such a heavy vote. But in our large cities, and progressively in the country as a whole, the active managing portion of a party bears a very small proportion to the vote which it polls. In New York or Philadelphia, as in San Francisco, but a handful of men make the tickets between which, on election-day, the majority of voters must choose. ”

“ The result of the next hour’s polling had considerably increased the Conservative majority, and, as a large proportion of the electors had voted, it became evident that the battle, as far as Liberal interests were concerned, was all but lost. As the day advanced, the position of the Liberals on the poll became worse, and all chance of retrieving their position was hopeless. ”

“ The principle of party spirit prevailed over a sense of justice, for the scrutiny of an election is nothing more than a revision of the poll itself, and if such revision cannot be completed before the period at which the writ is returnable, he is bound by his office and oath to make the return agreeably to the poll as actually taken. So the counsel on the side of Fox argued ”

“ The polling from eight to nine o’clock was very rapid, both parties striving their utmost to bring up men so as to head the poll. The popular feeling, which manifested itself unmistakeably in favour of the Liberal cause, was sadly damped between the hours of nine and ten o’clock by the appearance of a placard bearing the state of the poll, and showing that the Conservatives, notwithstanding the activity displayed by the other side, had stolen a march upon them, and meant winning. ”

“ They have never seen a primary, and they have an aversion for the polls.
7. Men proposing to create a Casting Vote lodge should not advertise their purpose; conspiracies for good, like conspiracies for evil, are best conducted privately until success is sure. The poll of the two Great Parties should be examined, and the winning party’s majority noted. It is this majority which the Casting Vote must overcome and nullify. ”

“ These reasons appear to me decisive against the change proposed, and in favour of the present plan of delivering the vote at a public polling-place: but the places of voting should be sufficiently numerous and convenient to enable the poorest elector to vote without losing his day’s wages; and, as already intimated, the expense of the poll should not be a charge upon the candidates, but upon the county or borough, or upon the State. ”

“ The last hour of the poll was a period of unremitting labour for both parties; it was generally estimated that not more than a dozen votes separated the candidates, and every effort was made to bring up obstinately wavering electors. It was with a feeling of relaxation and relief that every one heard the clocks strike the hour for the close of the poll. Exclamations broke out from the tired workers, and corks flew out from bottles.
“Well, if we haven’t won; we’ve done our level best.” ”

“ Then fall off, poll a man now and then only, and see what they will do, how they are playing off their men. If you can hang back till late in the day, then direct, very secretly and cautiously, the bribery oath and the questions to be put to each of the enemy's men as they come up; and, while you are thus picking them off, pour in your own voters before the opposite party is aware of your game, and the hour for closing the poll may perhaps arrive while some dozen or so of their men are unpolled. But above all, gentlemen," said Crafty, "every one to his own work only. ”

“ He may only stand for one, and all votes given for him in any other than that specified in the declaration are void. To secure election a candidate must at the first voting poll an absolute majority and a number of votes equal to one-fourth of the number of electors. ”

“ Those who know him will be able to judge of his mortification and displeasure when it was distinctly proved that in one instance a Special Agent relieved his pugnacious propensities by getting into a regular fight at the polls, and damaging one poll, by biting off an ear attached thereto; the poll aforesaid being the property of a political opponent. ”

“ But I have often asked my Radical friends what is to be done if out of every hundred enlightened voters two-thirds will give their votes one way, but are afraid to fight, and the remaining third will not only vote but will fight too if the poll goes against them? ”

“ Lately, however, many prefer to walk to the polls, and they go in pairs, trios and quartettes, voting their little sentiments and calmly returning to their cookies and crazy quilts as though politics didn't jar their mental poise a minute. ”

“ It will be noticed that the total number of votes was more than seven times the number of votes, and no one ought to have voted more than seven times! The show of hands was a fraud and a farce, so it was only in common justice to the parish and myself that I should demand a poll. ”

“ The people, who are infinitely ignorant of all political work, do want it. There are counties in which, if you were to poll the people, Home Rule would carry nearly every voter,—except the members themselves. ”

“ If a Revolutionary Father could visit his old haunts on election day, he would be astonished at the sober decorum. In his time elections lasted three days, days filled with harangue, with drinking, betting, raillery, and occasional encounters. Even those whose memory goes back to the Civil War can contrast the ballot peddling, the soliciting, the crowded noisy polling-places, with the calm and quiet with which men deposit their ballots today. For now every ballot is numbered and no one is permitted to take a single copy from the room. Every voter must prepare his ballot in the booth. ”

“ Let those stand behind the check-clerks, who are best acquainted with the names, persons, and circumstances of the voters who come up, and can detect imposture of any sort before the vote is recorded, and the mischief done. The scoundrel may be thus easily kept off the poll-books, whom it may cost you a thousand pounds hereafter to attempt to remove, in vain. ”

“ With open voting the grouping of electors could be arranged with comparative ease, for if more electors than were sufficient to constitute his group desired to vote for a particular candidate, those who arrived late at the poll could be asked to give their votes to another candidate, and so help to build up another group of the requisite size. ”

“ He divided each of these states into units containing five thousand voters, and, at the national headquarters, he placed one man in charge of each unit. Of the five thousand, he roughly calculated there would be two thousand voters that no kind of persuasion could turn from his party and two thousand that could not be changed from the opposition. This would leave one thousand doubtful ones to win over. So he had a careful poll made in each unit, and eliminated the strictly unpersuadable party men, and got down to a complete analysis of the debatable one thousand. ”

“ There is a glorious and detailed account of the slow progress of an election before the Reform Bill began to cut the rottenness from the heart of the Parliamentary borough; when polling extended beyond one day, and alternate applications of threats and spirits brought the free and independent electors one by one to the presence of the polling clerk, when the ladies openly assisted their candidates with polite bribery and the scene closed in universal intoxication. ”

“ Every vote is counted and every voter known, and to make assurance doubly sure the polls are guarded by both parties, and the noble citizen runs the gauntlet through double lines of detestable township or ward politicians, potent for mischief in their sneers and jeers, and, if need be, ready with dirty fists or clubs, sometimes revolvers, to back the edict of the party. ”

“ When a man can walk up to the ballot-box with his wife or his sister on his arm, voting-places will be far more agreeable 253 than now, and the polls will not be such bear-gardens that refined men will be constantly tempted to omit their political duties there. ”

“ Is polling really essential to the democratic idea? That is the question now very earnestly put to the reader. We are so terribly under the spell of established conditions, we are all so obsessed by the persuasion that the only conceivable way in which a man can be expressed politically is by himself voting in person, that we do all of us habitually overlook a possibility, a third choice, that lies ready to our hands. ”

“ Then I'm sure I was ordained to be a mimber o' parliament, but I never got a chance to rise to it. How I could ha' talked the electors over into believin' as black was white! How I could ha' made 'em a'most swallow anything and believe it was apricot jam! I could ha' told 'em lies enough to carry me to the top o' the poll by a thumping majority. ”

“ Even those high-minded dames, who had neither the desire nor the intention of soiling themselves in the handling of a ballot at such a questionable place as the polls, felt in their secret hearts that they should have the right to do this if they chose. ”

“ The campaigns increase in intensity week after week and expire, or explode, in a blaze of glory the night before election, at which time the committees of the leading parties set forth the reasons that make each side certain of success. On election day a hush spreads over the land and the voters wend their way to the polling places, where each voter is permitted to register a sovereign's will. ”

“ The principle of eliminating a candidate at the bottom of the poll is not peculiar to the single transferable vote. When a constituency returns but one member and there are three candidates, and it is desired by means of the second ballot to ensure the election of the candidate who commands the support of the majority of the electors, the candidate lowest on the poll is eliminated and a second ballot is held to decide between the claims of the remaining two candidates. ”

“ This changes our entire conception of politics. Voting at the polls is not to be the expression of one man after another. My vote should not be my freak will any more than it should be my adherence to party, but my individual expression of the common will. The particularist vote does not represent the individual will because the evolution of the individual will is bound up in a larger evolution. Therefore, my duty as a citizen is not exhausted by what I bring to the state; my test as a citizen is how fully the whole can be expressed in or through me. ”

“ Which oath, or affirmation the said mayor, or other presiding officer or officers, or his or their deputy or deputies, or such sworn clerks by him or them appointed to take the said poll as aforesaid, is and hereby authorized to administer; and at every such election upon closing the poll, the number of voters in each poll shall be publickly proclaimed ”

“ It is enough that I must mingle with the brawling crowd on election day," and the speaker indignantly signified his desire to dismiss the discussion of such a subject, leaving me to meditate in silence upon all the positions the ballot might compel me to occupy.
To many a mind that most insignificant part of the question, "going to the polls," is a most serious objection to the whole suffrage movement, for what woman, It is asked, would be willing to mix with the drunken, fighting, excited throng that gathers around the ballot box? ”

“ For their want of intimate knowledge of affairs, I do not think this ought to disqualify them from voting at any town-meeting which I ever attended. I could heartily wish the objection were sound. But if any man will take the trouble to see how our people vote,—how many gentlemen are willing to take on themselves the trouble of thinking and determining for you, and, standing at the door of the polls, give every innocent citizen his ticket as he comes in, informing him that this is the vote of his party ”

“ Our safety and our success rest on the ballot in the hands of freemen at the polls, deliberately deposited, never for an unworthy man, but always with a profound sense of the responsibility which should govern every citizen in the exercise of this fundamental right. ”

“ The appeal has been taken to the ballot box, and the "people" have returned the verdict! What a libel, when one-half of the citizens of our country are denied the right to vote, and when consequently not one of that number has the chance to pass an opinion upon the questions at issue!
Come with us, reader, and take a survey of the voters around the polls at election. You see the professional politician, the wily attorney, the wealthy merchant, the devout clergyman, and last but by no means least, the sturdy workingman. ”