Secret ballot

“ But the voter by ballot is strongly impelled to the practice of the more enormous sin of simulation. It is known, as I have said, that he has his secret. And he will often be driven to have recourse to various stratagems, that he may elude the enquirer, or that he may set at fault the sagacity of the silent observer. He has something that he might tell if he would, and he distorts himself in a thousand ways, that he may not betray the hoard which he is known to have in his custody. The institution of ballot is the fruitful parent of ambiguities, equivocations and lies without number. ”

“ The secret ballot makes a secret government; and a secret government is a secret band of robbers and murderers. ”

“ The ballot itself is a standing protest against inquiry into motives. It enjoins and protects the secret of the hand; much more should it enjoin and protect the secret of the heart. And as for adding [Pg 15] votes, on the supposition that they might or would have been cast but for untoward circumstances, no plausible reason can be given for it which would not apply to any case of disappointment in the fullness of the vote. A rainy day of election costs one of the parties thousands of ballots. If it happen to rain on that day, why not order a new election in better weather ”

“ The secret ballot is with us. Times are good. There’ll be a big vote, on the quiet, to let well enough alone. Harrison is a great President, and it is the will of the people that he shall continue his good works.’ The Democrats said: ‘The secret ballot is with us this time. ”

“ The Legislature passed a prohibitory law, subject to its ratification by the people by the use of the open ballot. The question of the secret ballot was one of the prominent questions between the parties, and at the session of 1851 the coalition had passed an act requiring the votes to be deposited in envelopes of uniform character and to be furnished by the State. I vetoed the bill upon the ground that if the bill was to be submitted to the people the secret ballot should be used. Thereupon the Legislature passed a similar bill without a reference to the people. ”

“ The Virginia Supreme Court in overruling this objection said:
The vote by ballot ex vi termini implies a secret ballot. The secrecy of the ballot is a right which inheres in the voter and of which he cannot be lawfully deprived. It must be, however, in some degree subordinate to the right to vote by ballot, of which it is but a part; and the main object, which is the right to vote, must not be defeated by a too rigid observance of the incidental right, which is that of secrecy. ”

“ The task of securing freedom of election by means of secret voting may thereby be rendered more difficult, and will require more determined effort. In the end, however, the advocates of the ballot must triumph, and by its introduction a death-blow will be struck at every influence which is adverse to freedom and purity of election. ”

“ The rights of individuals to vote by secret ballot are fundamental. If any state or federal law requires or permits an election for public office, for any initiative or referendum, or for any designation or authorization of employee representation, the right of any individual to vote by secret ballot shall be guaranteed. ”

“ In each of the polling places in Mariposa there is a returning officer and with him are two scrutineers, and the electors, I say, peep in and out like mice looking into a trap. But if once the scrutineers get a man well into the polling booth, they push him in behind a little curtain and make him vote. The voting, of course, is by secret ballot, so that no one except the scrutineers and the returning officer and the two or three people who may be round the poll can possibly tell how a man has voted. ”

“ And the thoughts of man are widened
With the process of the suns.
In the recent movement for election reforms, four lines of advance are marked: (1) —To secure the voter, by protecting him from evil influences, as is the object of the various “corrupt practices acts” and kindred laws; by guarding him against fraud, intimidation [78] and overawing, by means of an absolutely secret ballot, as under the Australian system; and by preventing, as with voting-machines, any manipulation of ballots or count. ”

“ All elections by the people are by secret ballot. Generally, election officials are sworn in office the day of the election; one of the judges opens the ballot box publicly, turns it upside down to prove its emptiness, locks it and keeps it locked until the voting polls are closed. At the beginning of the election day, the election judges receive the registration books and the list of those citizens whose past three years poll tax has been paid. The election clerk receives a poll book, a blank book to be used for the official listing of the voters who come to the polls. ”

“ The optimates had greatly impaired the value of the secret ballot through the custodes tabellarum, who stood on the pontes as well as by the boxes (cistae) to keep watch over the voting. They were often influential men [2408] —in elections selected by the candidates [2409] —who used their influence with the voters, especially of the principium or of the prerogative century, [2410] thereby maintaining for the aristocrats a high degree of control over the comitia in spite of the ballot laws. ”

“ The town was marked out into districts, and the canvassers proceeded systematically from house to house. Never before had there been so extended a canvass introduced of what they call a straw ballot in any constituency. It was, of course, not a ballot in the sense of secret voting at all, for all the citizens signed their papers, which were then taken to the central office and carefully examined. ”

“ Voting by ballot is rarely, if ever, used in legislative bodies, but in ordinary societies, especially secret ones, it is habitually used in connection with elections and trials, and sometimes for the selection of the next place for the meeting of a convention. As the usual object of the ballot is secrecy, where the by-laws require the vote to be taken by ballot any motion is out of order which members cannot oppose without exposing their views on the question to be decided by ballot. ”

“ On the other hand, secret voting is not without its disadvantages. The citizen may be surrounded by disguised adversaries. The fair-seeming dissembler he trusts may stab him at the poll. The independence given by the ballot may betray the State, and the traitors be shielded from responsibility. The secret vote also rests on a vast assumption—that of the universal paramountcy of conscience and honesty in electors—which paramountcy is as scarce as political heroism. Those who so trust the people incur the greater and ceaseless responsibility of educating them in political honour. ”

“ At Paris, and in at least nine departments,3323 and in contempt of the law, is suppresses the secret ballot, the last refuge of timid conservatives, and imposes on each elector a verbal public vote, loud and clear, on his name being called; that is to say, if he does not vote as he ought to, he risks the gallows.3324 Nothing could more surely convert hesitation and indecision into good sense, while, in many a place, still more powerful machinery is violently opposed to the elections. ”

“ One great advantage, if not the chief good, of the ballot would be the ignorance in which candidates and committees would be kept as to the state of the poll during the progress of the election. Corruption generally runs riot on the clay of poll, promises are withheld until it is seen how the polling goes, and, in close contests, the highest prices are obtained when there is a neck-and-neck race. It would be little use making up a canvass book if the votes were secret. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each Representative had a constituency of not less than thirty thousand electors, which no one but a rich man or a tool of the financial rings ever attempted to "represent," for not only did it require considerable money to contest such a large electorate, but it was generally believed that the ballot had ceased to be secret and there was so much fraud exercised at elections by the agents of the financial rings that it was regarded as quite impossible to return pure democrats to power. ”

“ If a voter spoils a ballot he should ask for another one. An illiterate person is allowed assistance in marking his ballot.
When the voter comes out of the booth, where he has marked his ballot in secret and folded it so it cannot be read, he gives the ballot to an election official, who announces the name of the voter and the number of his ballot, tears off the stub, and drops the ballot unopened into the box. A person’s vote may be challenged by an inspector or watcher, or at the written request of any voter. ”

“ Nomination of executive officers by direct primaries will inevitably be subversive of the true spirit of the representative system, and the secrecy of the vote in the nominating primaries will ultimately be destructive of all sense of responsibility. The enrolled voter marking his ballot in secret will frequently feel no sense of responsibility or accountability to his neighbors and fellow-citizens, and will frequently fail to appreciate that his vote is a sacred trust to be exercised for the good of the community. ”

“ South Australia was the first community to give the secret ballot for political elections. ”

“ Intrigue and combination are more commonly found connected with secret sessions, than with public debates, with the workings of the ballot box, than with the manliness of viva voce votes. At least, it may be questioned, if the vote by ballot has, in the opinion of a majority of the American people, obtained any decisive preference over viva voce voting, even at elections. The practice in New England is one way, and at the South another way. ”

“ Most educated people were tired, and perhaps ashamed, of the uproar and scandal inseparable from the old system of elections, and the Government brought in a Bill to abolish the hustings and make the proceedings more orderly, against which few voices would have been raised, had it not contained provisions for voting by Ballot. |The Ballot Bill.| The idea of secret voting was repugnant to the national sense of what is fair and above-board; but the Bill eventually got through the House of Commons, though shorn, at the instance of Mr. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was clearly, however, in the contemplation of the framers of the Constitution that such an exigency might arise, and provision was wisely made for it. The freedom of the ballot is a condition of our national life, and no power vested in Congress or in the Executive to secure or perpetuate it should remain unused upon occasion. The people of all the Congressional districts have an equal interest that the election in each shall truly express the views and wishes of a majority of the qualified electors residing within it. ”

“ It is the duty of every good man to see to it that the ballot-box is kept absolutely pure. It is the duty of every patriot, whether he is a Democrat or Republican—and I want further to admit that I believe a large majority of Democrats are honest in their opinions, and I know that all Republicans must be honest in their opinions. It is the duty, then, of all honest men of both parties to see to it that only honest votes are cast and counted. Now, honor bright, which section of this Union can you trust the ballot-box with? ”

“ In the open voting, the law leaves you fairly to choose between the dangers of giving an honest, or the convenience of giving a dishonest vote; but the ballot law opens a booth and asylum for fraud, calling upon all men to lie by beat of drum, forbidding open honesty, promising impunity for the most scandalous deceit, and encouraging men to take no other view of virtue than whether it pays or does not pay ”

“ Purity of election, the fair choice of representatives, must be guarded either by the coercing power of the House of Commons exercised upon petitions, or it must be guarded by the watchful jealousy of opposite parties at the registrations; but if (as the Radicals suppose) ballot gives a power of perfect concealment, whose interest is it to watch the registrations? If I despair of distinguishing my friends from my foes, why should I take any trouble about registrations? ”

“ Even in elections, a consummate hypocrite who was unmarried, and drank water, might perhaps exercise his timid patriotism with impunity; but the instances would be so rare, as to render ballot utterly inefficient as a general protection against the abuses of power.
In America, ballot is nearly a dead letter; no protection is wanted: if the ballot protects any one it is the master, not the man. Some of the states have no ballot,—some have exchanged the ballot for open voting. ”

“ It is true that election agents assert that they would have no difficulty in bribing if the ballot were in operation. Some have even gone so far as to assert that they could do so more easily than with open voting. ”