representatives in Congress should be deposited in the ballot box in a sealed envelope. These envelopes were of uniform size, color, quality, and appearance, and were furnished by the secretary of state to the town and city clerks, and distributed on the day of elections by sword clerks, who were stationed in the same room with the ballot box. Making, stamping, or selling any imitation of the official envelope was prohibited under penalties.[1] In 1853 the conservatives came into power and, not daring to repeal the law, destroyed its value by making the use of the official envelope purely optional. The elector could deposit his ballot in a sealed envelope, or without the envelope, open and unfolded.[2] The voters who could be bribed or intimidated of course were forced to choose the latter method. In the constitutional convention of that year the compulsory use of the official envelopes was proposed, but, by a close vote, was defeated by the voters. The year following the American party carried the state and attempted to restore the law. It passed the lower house, but was defeated in the Senate.[3] In Rhode Island the use of an official envelope was made obligatory in 1851.[4] This was soon abandoned in favor of an optional use of the official envelope,[5] as in Massachusetts.
2. THE MIDDLE EASTERN STATES
During the colonial period both the viva voce method and the ballot were used in the middle eastern states.
In Pennsylvania the framers of government of 1682 and 1683 required elections to be by ballot. Yet, from the disputed elections of 1689, proof was furnished of a great lack of uniformity in the method of voting. One member stated that the ballot was used only when doubt existed as to the number of voices. Another asserted that the members from Philadelphia county only were elected by ballot. A third said that the election was decided by a black and white bean ballot.[6] By an act of the legislature in 1706, the use of the written ballot was continued and provision was made for the illiterate voter.[7] If the illiterate voter brought a ticket to the polls, the judge of election was required to open the ticket and to read aloud the names written thereon, and to ask the elector if these were the persons for whom he wished to vote. If the answer was in
- ↑ Massachusetts Acts and Res., 1851, ch. 226; 1852, ch. 234.
- ↑ Ibid., 1853, ch. 36.
- ↑ Tracts on the Ballot, No. 5, pp. 15–18.
- ↑ Rhode Island Laws, 1851–53, p. 884.
- ↑ Rhode Island Public Laws, 1857, pp. 83–84.
- ↑ McKinley, The Suffrage Franchise in the Thirteen English Colonies, p. 277.
- ↑ Bishop, History of Elections in the American Colonies, p. 169.
