Crain, “Secret Lives of the 19th-Century Ballot”
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Secret lives of the nineteenth-century ballotby Patricia Crain
Voting is meant to be the culminating moment in American civic life. It’s the answer to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service’s citizenship exam question, “What is the most important right granted to United States citizens?” And yet, like those out-of-time days spent on jury duty, going to the polls can feel less like a moment of decisive action than like the dream-life of citizenship, a surreal and unique event, whose meaning seems to inhere in its very isolation from everyday life.
The act of voting self-evidently centers on the ballot, but that item is so various in current practice as to be barely contained by one rubric. In Manhattan, where I have voted for decades, the “ballot” has long since disappeared behind the toggles and gears of the stalwart if vaguely Chaplinesque mechanical lever machine (yearly threatened with extinction, it was still in place, in my district anyway, in February 2008). You enter the polling booth through a curtain; now in effect inside the machine, you pull the lever to the left to close the curtain. Record your votes by turning handles (think pinball machine) next to the names and party symbols of your choice; pull the lever to the right to lock in your vote; and with that the curtain springs open and you spring out, your performance on the democratic stage enacted in secret. In Minnesota, I’ve voted by an optical scanning system, where the act is more in the nature of a literacy event, characterized entirely by the voter’s relationship to reading and writing practices. Here you are presented with a grease marker with which to fill in a gap in an arrow pointing to the name you want to vote for.
[This is just a snippet. Read the whole article at Common-Place, with illustrations, and comment below.]
This is a most excellent article. I am a retired lawyer who represented political candidates in connection with elections. After retirement, I studied for a master’s degree in history, which I received in 2006. The subject of my thesis was the transformation from open votes to secret ballots in 19th-century Oregon elections. I have since begun collecting voting materials and ballots. I thought I had seen most versions of ballots, but the ones pictured here, except for one or two, are completely new to me. I agree with the author’s observations, and have learned new facts and sources for further research.
Thanks
Comment by Richard M. Botteri — October 2, 2009 @ 8:30 pm
Mr. Botteri: We’re very glad you liked the article. I will pass your comments on to the author. — Jeff Pasley
Comment by Jeff Pasley — October 2, 2009 @ 10:53 pm