Page:A History of the Australian Ballot System in the United States.djvu/24

Rh out of the means of earning a livelihood. Frequently the owner and the manager of the mill stood at the entrance of the polling-place and closely observed the employees while they voted. In this condition, it cannot be said that the workingmen exercised any real choice. The need of a secret ballot to protect debtors and the laboring class was especially urgent.

A third consequence of the non-secret ballot was the opportunity it gave for fraud, particularly the stuffing of the ballot box. By this the writer does not mean to imply that it was responsible for such frauds as the false-bottom ballot box, but the failure to provide an official ballot gave a great opportunity for an elector to deposit more than one ballot. This was particularly true of the thin or tissue-paper ticket, where one or two smaller ballots could be folded inside a larger one without an outsider being able to tell that there was more than one ticket being deposited. Yet the inside ballot could be so folded that it would fall out if the outer ballot was shaken a little when it was being voted, or if a friendly judge would materially assist by shaking the box, before it was opened to count the votes.

This evil was recognized, and it was commonly provided that ballots found folded or rolled together should not be counted. Since skilful manipulation could separate these double votes, it was generally required by statute that, “If after having opened or canvassed the ballots, it shall be found that the whole number of them exceeds the whole number of