Page:Mr. John Stuart Mill and the ballot.djvu/14

12 all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence, and to find that limit and maintain it against encroachment is as indispensibleindispensable [sic] to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism."

The limits of the power which society has a right to exercise over the individual voter are capable of very easy definition. The only control to which he is amenable is that of public opinion: this control secret voting fully recognises. The only influence to which it is opposed is that which seeks, by fear of consequences, to induce him to vote contrary to his convictions. Under universal suffrage this influence may be far more powerful than it is under the present electoral system. Secret voting recognises only the employment of moral influence. Open voting, it is true, recognises that influence, but also, in addition thereto, the influence of intimidation, loss of social position, and all the countless evils that swell the "tyranny of the majority." The strong defy these influences, but all are not strong: hence the necessity for protecting freedom of election by means of secret voting.

It is true that "a great number of the electors will have two sets of preferences—those on private, and those on public grounds;" but it is not true that "the last are the only ones which the elector would like to avow." All who have had experience in elections must admit that the former are frequently avowed. If an elector has no definite opinions, private friendship or obligation will decide his vote under any circumstances. Nor is it true that votes will be given from "malice or pique" more readily in secret than openly: nothing is more striking than the readiness with which voters who