SECRET BALLOTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1941, Page 3

SECRET BALLOTS

HERITAGE FROM ANCIENT GREEKS i USE 2.400 YEARS AGO. SOME RELICS OE THE PAST. WASHINGTON. November 5. "On election day. when the Ameri- ■ can voter registers his preference for I the Presidency, the click of the lever 'on the voting machine echoes down i through the centuries to distant lands, • states a special despatch to the "ChrisI tian Science Monitor"). “The precess of secret voting is a heritage from early Greek civilisation.” says a bulletin from the National Geographic Society. "While the Greeks voted viva voce on most matters, such questions as exile called for secret balloting. » "Secret ballots used at Athens, 2.400 years ago in the day.- or Themistocles and Aristides, have been unearthed.! They were broken bits of pottery, or | potsherd, on which the secret ballot i was scratched, casting into exile for years citizens thought inimical to the i young Athenian democracy. "Election days in ancient Rome were days of general assembly, and those unwilling to make the journey to Rome did not vote. Election day was determined by the eonstt»3 and Senate and proclaimed by the neral* at least 17 days in advance, with a sc-1 cond call early on election day. "The list of candidates was road to j the thirty-five tribes assembled in tho| Campus Martius, each tribe declaring | its choice as a unit, after having first 1 ascertained the tribal preference by secret ballot. The ballot consisted of a small pieces of thin board, coated with wax. called the 'tabella' on which the voter noted his choice with a stilus. j Filing through a narrow passageway, ; ! the voter dropped his ballot into the j ! large 'cista' or urn. I "Later ballots were, as the name I suggests, balls, both black and white, deposited secretly in a box to express ! the voter’s decision, hence the phrase black-balled.’ Or balls of one colour were placed in different boxes to indicate the voter’s wish. The word ballot' is from the Italian word for •ball.’ Later, in Venice, these lots were cast with bullets, gently dropped by hand. "The highly prized privilege, the, democratic right of the individual to-| day to cast his vole for the Presidentl of the United States, was not in the | minds of the founding fathers when I they assembled for the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, in 1787. "The various State constitutions did not then call for the popular election of State executives, except in New York. Massachusetts and New Hampshire. James Wilson of Pennsylvania ‘ was the first delegate to suggest the , idea of election of the President by . the people.” j "Selection of a President by the ; Congress, by the State governors, b.v .. electors chosen by State legislatures. was first considered. It was thought ; the lack of communication through the . vast territory of the United States would make intelligent choice by the £ people impossible. Voting b.v word ( of mouth long prevailed in many of ( the States, but the ballot was early .■ used in Massachusetts in gubernatorial elections, and was required by the ( State constitutions of Pennsylvania, I j New Jersey and North Carolinn as| c early ns 177(1. Federal enactment !n| : 1875 made the election of Congress-p men by secret ballot obligatory in all: - States.

• George Washington was elected by the vote of 10 of the 13 states. New York's Legislature held up the ivote; Rhode Island and North Carolina did not recognise the new United States, and would not join in the election. The Australian ballot indicates its distant origin, first proposed by Francis S. Dutton, a member of South Australia’s legislature, in I'Ll- It was firs', adopted in the United States in 1889, by New York and Michigan; as late as 1921. in Missouri, and ’929. in North Carolina. Machine voting today is .->. mechanised adaptation of the .Australian ballot system. It was introduced into the United States at Rochester. New York, in 1898."