Secret ballot (Australian ballot)

The secret ballot is a system of voting in which voters privately cast votes during an election, often using uniform ballots provided by the government. Also known as the Australian ballot because it originated in Australia before eventually being adopted in Europe and the United States, this system was designed and implemented in the latter half of the nineteenth century as a replacement for more public systems of voting—such as voting by voice or via party ticket—that largely eschewed ballot privacy and were easily corruptible. As such, the secret ballot represented an effort to protect voters, improve election integrity, and strengthen democracy. In the United States, the introduction of the secret ballot empowered voters by thwarting coercion and corruption at the ballot box and making it easier to vote for individual candidates rather than political parties. Although it is not without complications, the secret ballot system remains an integral part of modern electoral processes and American democracy itself.

Background

The road to the secret ballot began in Australia in the 1840s. After the transportation of British convicts to what was then the Colony of New South Wales was temporarily suspended in 1840, calls for creating a new political system quickly arose. Two years later, the British Parliament responded to these demands with the passage of the New South Wales Constitution Act, a law that made some seats on the colony’s Legislative Council elected positions. Elections to fill these seats were held for the first time in 1843, and the process involved was based on existing English voting traditions. The wealthy landowning men who qualified to vote had to publicly cast their ballots in front of large crowds, an approach that invited a great deal of coercion, bribery, and even violence at the polls.

As Australia began taking its first steps towards self-rule in the 1850s, demands for various electoral reforms grew louder. When gold rushes subsequently brought a wave of immigrants into New South Wales and Victoria and the pro-working-class Chartist movement took hold throughout Australia, those demands grew louder still. One of the specific reforms supported by the Chartists was the implementation of a secret ballot. Widespread support for this and other measures ultimately led to the election of a spate of political candidates who favored the secret ballot and the enfranchisement of all adult males in 1855.

The first Australian colonies to move towards the secret ballot were Victoria and Tasmania. Both passed laws to that end in 1856 that instituted a secret ballot to be conducted according to a system devised by New Zealand judge and politician Henry Samuel Chapman. In Chapman’s system, each voter would be provided a government printed ballot with the names of all the candidates, and he would cross out the names of the candidates he did not support. Victoria adopted the same secret ballot system a short time later. In 1858, New South Wales followed suit with one key difference: rather than crossing out the names of the candidates he did not support, the voter was simply required to place an X next to the name of the candidate for whom he wished to vote. With that, the Australian ballot was born.

Overview

The secret ballot was successful enough in Australia that other countries soon adopted it. Great Britain introduced the secret ballot in 1872, and eventually, the system reached the United States as well.

In early American elections, there were two commonly employed methods of voting. The first was viva voce, or “by voice.” In states and counties where voting was carried out viva voce, men who came to the polls gave their names and openly proclaimed their candidate of choice. This information was then recorded in a poll book that would be used to determine the outcome of the election. The other common approach to voting involved the use of ballots that took the form of party tickets provided by members of political parties with only their own candidates listed. Voters would place their party ticket in a large, transparent glass globe ballot box. Whether votes were cast viva voce or with a party ticket, the process of voting was a very public matter. Poll workers, party officials, and onlookers could easily tell which candidates each voter supported. This made for an environment in which elections could be easily manipulated through vote-buying, intimidation, and outright violence, among other underhanded means. As a result, American elections, in addition to being public spectacles, were frequently corrupt and less truly democratic than ostensibly meant to be.

By the late nineteenth century, it was clear that America needed broad election reform. Following the 1884 presidential election, which saw Grover Cleveland win the first of his historic two non-consecutive terms in the White House, a movement to introduce the Australian ballot began to take shape. Four years later, Massachusetts became the first state to pass a secret ballot law. New York passed a similar law in 1890 and other states gradually followed. By the turn of the twentieth century, almost every state was using the secret ballot. South Carolina became the last to do so, in 1950.

The adoption of the secret ballot dramatically changed American elections. Using the secret ballot made it difficult to manipulate elections through intimidation or bribery and made going to the polls a much safer endeavor. It also virtually eliminated the once-powerful influence that corrupt business magnates known as robber barons previously had in determining the outcome of elections. From a broader perspective, introducing the secret ballot also essentially brought an end to Gilded Age government capture and paved the way for the Progressive Era of the early twentieth century.

Instituting the secret ballot did not come without complications, however. Critics quickly pointed out that the often difficult-to-navigate ballots used in secret ballot voting effectively disenfranchised the illiterate and others who required assistance at the polls. Some states even supported the secret ballot specifically because this problem was likely to disproportionately impact African Americans and other minorities. In any event, the secret ballot ultimately became a crucial part of the American electoral process and a necessary pillar of democracy itself.

Bibliography

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