selected. The tickets were usually folded, and, from the voter’s habit of carrying them in the vest pocket, become known as “vest-pocket tickets.” The provisions of the California law of 1850 are typical of the procedure inside the polling-place: “Whenever any person offers to vote, the inspector shall pronounce his name in an audible voice, and if there be no objection to the qualification of such person as an elector, he shall receive this ballot, and in the presence of the other judges put the same, without being opened or examined, into the ballot box.”[1]
Seven states required the ballot to be numbered, and the same number recorded on the list of voters opposite the voter’s name. This worked against the secrecy of the ballot[2] by making it possible to identify the ballot cast by any elector.
Even more open to abuse was the provision in three states permitting the voter to write his name on the back of the ballot. The Pennsylvania constitution of 1873 provided that “any elector may write his name upon his ticket, or cause the same to be written thereon and attested by a citizen of the district.”[3] What an opportunity for fraud this presented! The signature of the elector was required by the Rhode Island[4] laws of 1822 and 1844. The signature of the elector was permissible in Indiana[5] from 1867 to 1881.
7. THE DEFECTS OF THE UNOFFICIAL BALLOT
While the ballot was superior to the viva voce system as a method of electing public officers, it was open to serious objections and capable of great abuse. In fact, elections in the United States thirty or forty years ago were not a very pleasant spectacle for those who believed in democratic government.
1. In the first place, the ballot was not secret. In many states there was no regulation of the form or appearance of the ballot whatsoever. As a result, the ballots of the opposing parties were so different that it could be accurately told how an elector voted by the color of his ticket.
- ↑ Garfield and Snyder, Compiled Laws, 1852, ch. 140.
- ↑ Pennsylvania Constitution, 1873, Art. VIII, sec. 4; Colorado Constitution, 1876, Art. VII, sec. 8; Missouri Constitution, 1875, Art. VIII, sec. 3; Mansfield Digest (Arkansas), 1884, ch. 56; Alabama Code, 1877, p. 239; Georgia Code, 1861, p. 237; Texas Constitution, 1875, Art. VI, sec. 4.
- ↑ Art. VIII, sec. 4
- ↑ Rhode Island Public Statutes (rev.), 1822, p. 95; Rhode Island Public Laws (rev.), 1844, p. 491.
- ↑ Davis, Statutes (Indiana), p. 439; Indiana Laws, 1881, ch. 47.
