CHAPTER I
THE MANNER OF VOTING BEFORE THE INTRODUCTION OF THE AUSTRALIAN BALLOT SYSTEM
1. THE NEW ENGLAND STATES
Following the contemporary practice in England,[1] the governor and other officers in New England were at first elected by the view, or the showing of hands. This system was soon abandoned, and according to Governor Winthrop, in 1634 and thereafter in Massachusetts, “the Governor and deputy were elected by papers wherein their names were written.”[2] A special procedure was used for the election of assistants. The governor formally named one man; the people all went out and came in at one door, and every freeman dropped a paper into a hat. Those voting for the candidate turned in a paper with a figure or scroll on it, while the others handed in blanks.[3] In 1643 this method of electing assistants was abandoned in favor of the corn-and-bean ballot. In the acts of 1636 and 1653, it was enacted that it should be lawful for the freemen of every town to choose by papers deputies to the General Court.[4]
The use of the ballot, or papers, seemed to have been entirely for convenience and with no object of secrecy. This is shown by an enactment of 1647, whereby it was provided that the governor, deputy, major-general, treasurer, secretary, and commissioners were to be elected by writing the names of the persons on open papers, or papers once folded, “not twisted nor rouled up, that they may be the sooner perused.”[5]
The history of the other New England colonies is very similar to that of Massachusetts. In organizing the Rhode Island government of 1647,[6] the election of officers by papers was agreed to. The Hartford Constitution of 1638 definitely provided for the election of officers by written papers.[7] The constitutions of all the New England states, adopted during, or immediately after, the Revolutionary War, pro-
- ↑ Cox, Ancient Parliamentary Elections, p. 121.
- ↑ Bishop, History of Elections in the American Colonies, p. 141.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 142.
- ↑ Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, ed. 1660–72, p. 145.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 149.
- ↑ Rhode Island Colonial Records, I, 148.
- ↑ Bishop, History of Elections in the American Colonies, p. 150.
