Before the adoption of the secret (\u201dAustralian\u201d) ballot, ballots would be printed by party members and handed out to voters at the polling places:
By the middle of the nineteenth century the ballot was used in almost\n all of the United States. The term \u201cballot,\u201d however, meant one or \nseveral pieces of paper which contained the names of the candidates and \nthe designation of the offices, and which were used by the electors in \nvoting. The ballots could be either written on printed; but were, as a \nmatter of fact, almost always printed.
In appearance and form the ballots varied in different states and in \ndifferent elections. The ticket of each party was separate, and, as a \ngeneral rule, could be distinguished, even when folded, from all other \ntickets as far as it could be seen. Frequently the party tickets were of\n a different color. In a municipal election in Massachusetts the \nRepublicans used a red ticket and the opposition a black one; and in the\n same state state\n in 1878 the Republican ticket had a flaming pink border which threw out\n branches toward the center of the back, and had a Republican \nindorsement in letters half an inch high.[52]\n In another election in Massachusetts the Republicans used a colored \nballot, while the Democratic ticket was white with an eagle so heavily \nprinted as to show through the ballot.[53]\n In one election in Orangeburg County, South Carolina, the Republican \nticket was of medium-weight paper, with the back resembling a \nplaying-card, and, according to statements made, could be recognized \nacross the street. The Democrats had a tissue-paper ticket of a \npale-blue color. There were two sizes of this tissue-paper ticket, so \nthat the smaller could be folded in the larger one, and an outsider \ncould not tell that there was more than one ticket being voted.[54] The Democratic ticket used at the polls in Charleston, South Carolina, had a red checked back and was printed with red ink.[55] Tissue-paper ballots were used quite extensively throughout the South.
One object in making the ballots so easily distinguishable was to \nenable the ignorant elector to obtain the ticket he wished to vote; but \nit was usually easy to counterfeit the opposition ticket. A facsimile of\n the opposing party ticket would be printed, containing, however, all or\n sometimes only a few of another party\u2019s nominees. This was so skilfully\n done at times as to deceive even the most careful voter. Another reason\n for making the tickets distinguishable was to discover how the elector \nvoted. This was the greater of the two evils, and greatly facilitated \ncorruption and intimidation.
During the Civil War and Reconstruction period this condition became \nintolerable, and led to the enactment in fifteen states of laws \nprescribing the color of the paper and the kind of ink to be used in the\n printing of the ballot. Maine[56]\n was the pioneer state in this movement, the law in this state having \nbeen passed as early as 1831. Maine was followed, in 1867, by \nConnecticut,[57] Indiana,[58] and Virginia;[59] by Ohio[60] and West Virginia[61] in 1868; by Kentucky[62] and Illinois[63] in 1872; by Missouri[64] and Florida[65] in 1877; by Massachusetts[66] and Texas[67] in 1879; by New York[68] in 1880; and by Delaware[69] and Alabama[70]\n in 1881. The provisions of the New York law are typical. It provided \nthat \u201ceach and all ballots used at any such election shall be upon plain\n white printing paper, and without any impression, device, mark, or \nother peculiarity whatsoever upon or about them to distinguish one \nballot from another in appearance, except the names of the several \ncandidates, and they shall be printed with plain black ink.\u201d[71]
This law also failed to accomplish its purpose, because the several \nparties used different shades of white. In Ohio, for example, the \nRepublicans used a very white paper, while the Democrats adopted a cream\n color. So it was still possible to tell what ticket an elector voted. \nCalifornia[72] and Oregon[73]\n tried to secure a uniform weight and color of paper by requiring the \nballots to be printed on paper furnished by the secretary of state.
There was great variety in the number of tickets used in the \ndifferent states. Twelve states required the names of all candidates \nvoted for at an election to be written or printed on a single ticket.[74] Massachusetts allowed the elector to vote for the several candidates on a single ballot or on separate tickets.[75]\n The elector in New York in 1882, or Florida in 1889, had to vote for \nthe candidates of his choice on eight tickets, while a voter in Nebraska\n in 1887 was compelled to use nine.
The states which required separate ballots for different offices had \nas many combinations as the particular legislature thought desirable, \nand it is almost impossible to discover any common principle guiding \ntheir actions. Six states required officers voted for by all the \nelectors of the commonwealth\n to be elected on a separate ticket. Five states required separate \nballots for presidential electors. Seven states placed candidates for \nCongress on a distinct ticket. Other offices placed on a separate ballot\n were: judicial, in four states; justice of the peace, in three states; \ncounty officers, in four states; and city or town officers, in three \nstates.[76]Constitutional amendments were sometimes printed separately.
The size of the ballot was regulated in only five states: Massachusetts,[77] Delaware,[78] Indiana,[79] Alabama,[80] and California.[81]
Since the law made no provision for the printing or distribution of \nthe ballots, the party organizations, prior to the day of election, saw \nthat the tickets were printed. Usually a select committee on printing \ntook charge of the entire matter of getting up the ballot, seeing that \nit conformed to the law, and that the tickets were properly folded, \nbunched, and distributed throughout the organization. In New York City[82]\n the tickets for Tammany Hall and the county democracy were distributed \nunder the supervision of a committee of the organization. The assembly \ndistrict bag was delivered to the assembly district leaders, and by them\n to the election district leaders. In the Republican party, the tickets \nwere delivered to the district leaders. Thus the district leaders had \ncontrol of a vital part of the election machinery. They could destroy or\n fail to distribute the tickets, and then there would have virtually \nbeen no election.
The tickets were given to the voter in advance of the election, or \nthey could be obtained near the polling-place on the day of election. \nEach party customarily had a ticket booth for each polling-place and \nattached to it a number of ticket peddlers.
As the elector approached the polling-place, he was met by these \nticket peddlers, who were only too anxious to supply him with their \nparty tickets, and a close watch was kept to see what party ticket he selected.\n The tickets were usually folded, and, from the voter\u2019s habit of \ncarrying them in the vest pocket, become known as \u201cvest-pocket tickets.\u201d\n The provisions of the California law of 1850 are typical of the \nprocedure inside the polling-place: \u201cWhenever any person offers to vote,\n the inspector shall pronounce his name in an audible voice, and if \nthere be no objection to the qualification of such person as an elector,\n he shall receive this ballot, and in the presence of the other judges \nput the same, without being opened or examined, into the ballot box.\u201d[83]
Seven states required the ballot to be numbered, and the same number \nrecorded on the list of voters opposite the voter\u2019s name. This worked \nagainst the secrecy of the ballot[84] by making it possible to identify the ballot cast by any elector.
Even more open to abuse was the provision in three states permitting \nthe voter to write his name on the back of the ballot. The Pennsylvania \nconstitution of 1873 provided that \u201cany elector may write his name upon \nhis ticket, or cause the same to be written thereon and attested by a \ncitizen of the district.\u201d[85] What an opportunity for fraud this presented! The signature of the elector was required by the Rhode Island[86] laws of 1822 and 1844. The signature of the elector was permissible in Indiana[87] from 1867 to 1881.
As long as universal suffrage exists there will probably be more or \nless bribery of voters. It is hard, however, to imagine a system more \nopen to corruption than the one just described. The ballots were not \nonly distinguishable, but the briber was permitted to have full view of \nthe voter\u2019s ticket from the time it was given to him until it was \ndropped in the ballot box. Money, or \u201csoap,\u201d as it was called, with \nincreasing frequency was used to carry elections after the Civil War. \nMoreover, the buying of votes was not confined by any means to the city,\n but was freely used in the country as well. One writer described the \nconditions as follows:
This sounds like exaggeration, but it is truth; and these are facts \nso notorious that no one acquainted with the conduct of recent elections\n now attempts a denial\u2013that the raising of colossal sums for the \npurpose of bribery has been rewarded by promotion to the highest offices\n in the government; that systematic organization for the purchase of \nvotes, individually and in blocks, at the polls has become a recognized \nfactor in the machinery of parties; that the number of voters who demand\n money compensation for their ballots has grown greater with each \nrecurring election; \u2026 . men of standing in the community have openly\n sold their votes at prices ranging from fifteen to thirty dollars; and \nthat for securing the more disreputable elements\u2013the \u201cfloaters,\u201d as \nthey are termed\u2013new two dollar bills have been scattered abroad with a \nprodigality that would seem incredible but for the magnitude of the \nobject to be obtained.[89]
It was charged that the bribery of voters in Indiana in 1880 and 1888\n was sufficient to determine the result of the election. In 1888 it was \ncommonly reported that one item in the Republican expense account was \none hundred thousand dollars paid to W. W. Dudley toward the expense of \ncarrying Indiana by \u201cblocks of five.\u201d[90]\n The use of money has indeed become a serious menace to American \ninstitutions, and was filling thoughtful citizens with disgust and \nanxiety. Many electors, aware that the corrupt element was large enough \nto be able to turn the election, held aloof altogether.
Intimidation was just as rife as bribery, and was largely traceable to the same cause\u2013the non-secret ballot. According to a report of a committee of the Forty-sixth Congress,[94]\n men were frequently marched or carried to the polls in their employers\u2019\n carriages. They were then supplied with ballots, and frequently \ncompelled to hold their hands up with their ballots in them so they \ncould easily be watched until the ballots were dropped into the box. \nMany labor men were afraid to vote and remained away from the polls. \nOthers who voted against their employers\u2019 wishes frequently lost their \njobs. If the employee lived in a factory town, he probably lived in a \ntenement owned by the company, and possibly his wife and children worked\n in the mill. If he voted against the wishes of the mill-owners, he and \nhis family were thrown out of the mill, out of the tenement, and out\n of the means of earning a livelihood. Frequently the owner and the \nmanager of the mill stood at the entrance of the polling-place and \nclosely observed the employees while they voted.[95]\n In this condition, it cannot be said that the workingmen exercised any \nreal choice. The need of a secret ballot to protect debtors and the \nlaboring class was especially urgent.
A third consequence of the non-secret ballot was the opportunity it \ngave for fraud, particularly the stuffing of the ballot box. By this the\n writer does not mean to imply that it was responsible for such frauds \nas the false-bottom ballot box, but the failure to provide an official \nballot gave a great opportunity for an elector to deposit more than one \nballot. This was particularly true of the thin or tissue-paper ticket, \nwhere one or two smaller ballots could be folded inside a larger one \nwithout an outsider being able to tell that there was more than one \nticket being deposited.[96]\n Yet the inside ballot could be so folded that it would fall out if the \nouter ballot was shaken a little when it was being voted, or if a \nfriendly judge would materially assist by shaking the box, before it was\n opened to count the votes.
This evil was recognized, and it was commonly provided that ballots \nfound folded or rolled together should not be counted. Since skilful \nmanipulation could separate these double votes, it was generally \nrequired by statute that, \u201cIf after having opened or canvassed the \nballots, it shall be found that the whole number of them exceeds the \nwhole number of them\n entered on the poll lists, the inspector shall return all the ballots \ninto the box, and shall thoroughly mingle the same; and one of the \ninspectors, to be designated by the board, shall publicly draw out of \nsuch box, without seeing the ballots contained therein, so many of such \nballots as shall be equal to the excess, which shall be forthwith \ndestroyed.\u201d[97]\n In drawing out the excess number, there was opportunity for corruption \nand narrow partisanship, and many charges were made of gross \ndiscrimination against certain parties.
Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, in response to the Long Depression, working people began to organize in order to protect their interests from the rich. In rural areas, this primarily took the form of the Farmer\u2019s Alliance, while in urban areas, industrial unions united under the banner of the Knights of Labor.
Just as the Greenback Party folded, a new wave of agrarian unrest swept through the West and the South fueled by a new economic downturn in the late 1880s, falling prices, low rainfall, and a more conservative Supreme Court that made it nearly impossible for states to regulate interstate rail rates. In the South, the effects of the crop lien system resulted in even more hard times as farmers lost their homesteads to foreclosures, threatening a whole generation with the reduced status of landless peasants.
Southerners got an added dose of personal humiliation. When the Civil War ended Dixie\u2019s capital base was destroyed. Banks were so rare that small farmers turned to local merchants to carry them over until the cotton crop was harvested. These merchants came to be known as the \u2018\u2018furnishing man\u2019\u2019 or \u2018\u2018the man\u2019\u2019 to the local African American community. In the \u2018\u2018crop lien\u2019\u2019 system the furnishing man advanced the local farmer food and equipment during the growing season in exchange for a lien against his crop. Every week or two the farmer would arrive at the general store with a list of needs. The furnishing man pulled from his shelves all or some of what the farmer wanted, based on an assessment of what he already was owed and what he thought the crop would eventually bring for the year. He entered each item in the account book. For a can of beans that might cost 10 cents for a cash customer, the farmer was charged 14 cents plus interest, so by the end of the season the cost of the beans amounted to 19 or 20 cents or double that to a cash customer. The farmer could not grow his own food or trade with another merchant. He was locked in to his crop lien with the one merchant who governed his economic life in a state of near bondage. The arrangement was repeated in millions of similar transactions throughout the South. It is safe to say that more than three-quarters of all farmers, white and black, were locked-in to the crop lien system. When the cotton was picked, the farmer and merchant would meet at the local gin and settle the account for the year. With the decline in commodity prices, the crop did not always \u2018\u2018pay out,\u2019\u2019 so the farmer\u2019s debt might be carried over to the next season. Eventually the farmer might have to turn over the deed to the farm to make a final settlement. He could become a sharecropper or tenant or pack up and move west to Texas for a new start.
Each year more than 100,000 southern farmers moved across the Mississippi to the Lone Star State. When the southern farmer moved west, he faced a set of problems similar to those of the wheat and corn farmers of the Great Plains. He needed a social outlet, knowledge of scientific farming, and a way to confront the capitalists who controlled the railroads and supply houses. Reduced prices for his crops and lower rainfall compounded his problems. In 1883, A. O. Davis, a former Mississippian raised under the crop lien system organized a farmers\u2019 alliance in Texas. Davis, a great speaker whom the farmers could relate to because of his background, attracted large crowds with his denunciations of the railroads, credit merchants, and the \u2018\u2018money power.\u2019\u2019 Other speakers joined Davis with a message of self-help and self- respect, instilling in the farmers the idea of uniting and transforming the dynamics of their relationships with the powers that kept them in a state of near peonage. The Alliance organized cooperatives for buying supplies and equipment and selling cotton in bulk without middlemen.
Eventually, the Southern Farmers\u2019 Alliance had three million members. When opposition arose from merchants and bankers, the Alliance concluded that political activity was the only way out. A similar movement known as the Northern Alliance was founded in Kansas with a membership of more than two million. Delegates from the Northern and Southern Alliances met in 1889 to agree on a common program. Foremost was the solution proposed by the Greenbackers, an expansion of the money supply. Only now they demanded free coinage of silver as the solution, along with a graduated income tax and government ownership of railroads. Local parties put Alliance candidates on the ballot in 1890. Speakers included \u2018\u2018Pitchfork\u2019\u2019 Ben Tillman of South Carolina, \u2018\u2018Sockless\u2019\u2019 Jerry Simpson of Kansas, James Weaver of Iowa, and the inimitable \u2018\u2018Queen Mary\u2019\u2019 Elizabeth Lease of Kansas, whose famous line, \u2018\u2018you farmers have got to stop raising corn and start raising hell,\u2019\u201914became a rallying cry. With so much enthusiasm 53 congressmen were sent to Washington.
Encouraged by their success, the Alliances met in Cincinnati in May 1891, to form an independent political party called the People\u2019s Party, commonly known as the Populists. A nominating convention was called for Omaha on July 4, 1892. The 1,400 delegates nominated former Greenbacker James B. Weaver for president and James G. Field an ex-Confederate from Virginia for vice president. The plat- form protested the corruption of the political system, control of the media, and impoverishment of labor by the capitalist class. Specific planks called for unlimited coinage of gold and silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 and expansion of the money supply to $50 per capita, a graduated income tax, a government-run postal savings bank, and government ownership of the railroads and telephone and telegraph systems. The Populists wanted the government to reclaim all corporate land and natural resources in excess of their actual need.
Third Party Matters, by Don J. Green
One of the key planks in the Omaha Platform was the secret ballot. Indeed, it was number 1. It cost tens of thousands of dollars for a party to print and distribute their ballots at election time. If the Populist Party was to have any success, it would have to make sure those costs were borne by the government instead. The call was also taken up by the elitist Mugwumps, who were annoyed at the display of populism brought on by elections and wanted to calm things down, in particular by excluding illiterate voters comprehensively. Party elites quickly caught on that the key to ballots would be who was printing them and deciding who went on them, and thus passed laws that stated Democrats and Republicans would automatically be entitled to places, with third parties having to go through absurd hoops like getting the signatures of double digit percentages of the population. The issue crystallized around a series of fraudulent elections. Between 1876 and 1888, every presidential election was decided by a margin of less than a percent, or in the case of 1876, the winner, Hayes, actually received 200,000 less votes than the loser but cut a deal to cull enough fraudulent ballots that bore his party\u2019s electoral symbol, Abraham Lincoln, but his competitor\u2019s name, Samuel Tilden, to keep himself ahead. Consequently, states began to rewrite election laws or whole constitutions so that by 1892 38 states had the secret ballot. Part of this was to keep white supremacy going in the South. Poor black and white people would often join for Populist or Populist-Republican tickets, threatening the power of Democratic elites who saw traditional vote-buying schemes work less and less, reducing the power of the open ballot. When Mississippi rewrote its constitution in 1890, for instance, it allowed for a secret ballot, a poll tax, and a literacy test. Subsequently, 100,000 black people and 50,000 white people lost access to voting. In this way, American elites dealt with the demands of the working class by co-opting but modifying them for their own usage, a consistent them in American history.
While all 50 states had secret balloting by the 1896 election, there was still the matter of the Populist Party to deal with. Once again, co-optation was the name of the game. In a normal election season, the Democrats and Republicans might nominate two candidates who varied only in a few views limited to divisions among the upper class. In this case though, Democrats decided to nominate William Jennings Bryan as candidate. Bryan supported numerous Populist platforms in rhetoric and was a skilled orator. His Cross of Gold speech was so powerful that delegates enthusiastically lifted him up and carried him out on their backs. His anti-gold standard plank won him the backing of the Populist Party, which felt that it couldn\u2019t nominate another candidate and split the vote. Much of\u00a0 America\u2019s rich rallied around Bryan\u2019s opponent, William McKinley, feeling that Bryan had gone too far in his quest for working class votes and offended them greatly. They poured in money, giving McKinley\u2019s campaign the dubious distinction of being the most expensive in American history, and giving his campaign manager, Mark Hanna, the chance to pull out all sorts of new dirty tricks (famous Hanna quote: \u201cThere are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can\u2019t remember what the second one is.\u201d) Hanna\u2019s propaganda implied that Bryan was a revolutionary who would destroy the economy. But Bryan himself was still supported by numerous American businessmen, including Randolph Hearst, Thomas Kearns, and Oliver Belmont. When Bryan lost, the Populist Party was demoralized, and its supporters largely exited the political scene, convinced there was nothing that voting offered them. The Populist Party went into a tailspin and contested its last election in 1908. Anti-Third Party restrictions were slowly ramped up, with the worst coming between the 1930s and 1960s as a response to the renewed activism of the Great Depression. American electoral turnout reached a high point in 1896, at 79.3%, with a labour-based third party offering most American voters the feeling of a real political contest with candidates that represented their interests:
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