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Australian Ballot

The way we vote, by "secret ballot," may seem like the obvious way to vote...

John Lewis Krimmel's "Election Day in Philadelphia" (1815).

But it took a long time for democracies to make voting secret.

Back when democracies limited voting to men who owned property (like land, livestock or watches), voting was a very public act. Elections during this time were often a spectacle: A party-like public event filled with booze and food in the town square, with onlookers often outnumbering voters.

At this time, voting was NOT secret. In many places, men declared their votes publicly and out loud for all to hear. In other places, voting was by "ticket." Pieces of paper (aka "tickets") were distributed by political parties, candidates, and other groups, and greatly varied in size, color, and style. Often, any piece of paper with candidates and offices listed on it could be voted, including tickets handwritten at home or cut out of newspapers.

In the 19th century, democracies began removing their "property qualifications" to vote. More and more men (and in a few places in the latter part of the century, women) were eligible to vote.

Devising a way to make voting secret

By the 1850s, reformers in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand (among other places) wanted to protect the votes of working class men from the influence of their employers by making voting secret. Massachusetts came close to creating a secret ballot scheme in the 1850s, as did New Brunswick in 1855 (Elections Act 1855 s. 35 ), and California in 1872 (Political Code 1872, ss1185-1199).

These places invented ways to help encourage secrecy by providing opaque ballot poxes, requiring ballots be folded and hidden near the polling place and making sure ballots looked the same (e.g. the California law required ballots voters brought to the polling place be written or printed on paper provided by the government). These methods provided for some secrecy, but did not guarantee it.

A ticket from an 1888 Californian election printed on government issued paper.

Key characteristics of the secret ballot

The central elements of the secret ballot regime Chapman developed include:

The government creates rules for who appears on the official ballot (i.e. who may be "nominated").
The government prints and distributes official ballots, which contain the names of all legally nominated candidates.
Voters are issued the official ballots inside the polling place.
Voters mark the official ballots in secret, depositing the completed ballot in the official ballot box.
No ballots except official ballots are counted.

Party issued ticket from Virginia for the 1860 U.S. presidential election.

The Answer: Government printed ballots

Ultimately it was Henry Chapman in the Australian colonies who devised a working scheme that guaranteed secrecy.

The innovation: The government printed ballot.

This was a novel idea at the time, when political parties, candidates, and voters were used to using their own paper and writing or printing whichever candidates they wanted on it.

In the secret ballot, the government prints an official ballot paper, complete all the offices and legally nominated candidates names on it, and distributes them to voters at the polling place. No self-prepared (or party-issued) ballots are accepted.

The secret ballot was first used in Tasmania, South Australia, and Victoria in the mid-1850s. The system spread quickly across Australia and New Zealand, then to Canada and the United Kingdom in the 1870s, then to the United States in the late 1880s.

Official ballot from Australia for the 2016 Australian Federal Election.

Australian cartoon depicting an early secret ballot election (National Museum of Australia)

Adopting the Secret Ballot in the United States

There is a long history of political parties trying to manipulate the form of the ballot to give them greater control over their nominations. Indeed, one of the main reasons American states adopted the secret ballot in the late 19th century was because political parties thought they could use it to assert more control over election outcomes.

As far as we know, the secret ballot (known as the “Australian ballot” for the place it was invented) was first used in the United States in an 1888 city election in Louisville, Kentucky. It was different from the ticket and viva voce systems that existed before it in that (1) the state printed an official ballot that listed all duly nominated candidates and (2) the only way to cast a valid vote was to place the official ballot in the official ballot repository.

A ballot from the first statewide election using the secret ballot, the November 1889 Massachusetts gubernatorial election. (Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society.)

Before the secret ballot, anyone could print a “ticket” or slate of candidates and distribute it to voters to cast it as their vote. Political parties struggled to control their nominations and voters in this environment. Parties faced competition from splinter parties and interest groups, who would print their own tickets with some of the party's nominated candidates but not others. Their tickets, printed carefully and at great expense to the party, were also frequently altered by tenacious voters and breakaway candidates who would use “pasters” to insert alternative candidates to the ticket.

Competing Tickets

Political parties printed their own tickets with their slate of nominated candidates. But so did third parties, candidates, and interest groups. These tickets would often “borrow” major party candidates. Below is the “regular” Republican ticket from the 1888 presidential election in California’s sixth district and the “Regular Cactus” ticket. If you look closely, you can see the Cactus ticket (a pro-labor group) borrowed Republican nominees for many offices, but inserted their own local candidates.

Regular Cactus Ticket, California’s 77th Assembly District, 1888. (Courtesy of the Huntington Library.)

Regular Republican Ticket, California’s 77th Assembly District, 1888. (Courtesy of the Huntington Library.)

In another example, the Independent Tax Payers’ Union in California printed (at least) two tickets each district in San Francisco in 1869: One with their preferred candidates for the city election and the Republican Party legislative candidates; the other with the Democratic Party legislative candidates.

Tax Payers’ Union ticket with Republican state legislative nominees from a local San Francisco 1869 election. (Courtesy of the California Historical Society.)

Tax Payers’ Union ticket with Democratic state legislative nominees from a local San Francisco 1869 election. (Courtesy of the California Historical Society.)

In response to competition from other tickets, political parties made their tickets more distinctive, more colorful, and printed on both sides of the page, so that their “poll watchers” could monitor voters and see which tickets they were voting. Below is a Republican (“Union”) ticket from the 1864 presidential election in Ohio. Note the bright printing on the back, which would have aided poll watchers monitoring the election and ensure that the voter’s vote was not a secret.

Front of the Union Presidential Ticket, Ohio, 1864. (Courtesy of the Huntington Library.)

Back of the Union Presidential Ticket, Ohio, 1864. (Courtesy of the Huntington Library.)

These efforts helped parties keep some control over elections, but they were imperfect. Printing in color was expensive and the designs time consuming. Plus voters, interest groups, and candidates still found ways to vote other tickets and alter party tickets.

Altering Tickets

Using “pasters” to alter tickets was a common practice in the 19th century. The term “paster” refers to a rectangle with a different candidate’s name printed on it that was pasted over the spot where a party nominated candidate appeared on the party ticket. Candidates who missed out on or did not seek a party nomination – as well as newspapers and interest groups – would distribute pasters to voters. Voters could also scratch out names and try to write legibly their preferred candidate over the top, but that was riskier than pasting. It also required being able to write (a less common skill in the 19th century). Both these practices frustrated political parties immensely.

A Democratic Party 1836 presidential elector ticket with a “paster” for the 15th District electors. (Courtesy of the Huntington Library.)

In response to pasters, political parties began to print their tickets in very “artistic” and imaginative ways so that their nominated candidates’ names could not easily be covered by a rectangle paster without obscuring the names of other candidates or the office being voted for.

Union Ticket for the 1864 presidential election in the 1st Congressional District of California. (Courtesy of the Huntington Library.)

Democratic Ticket for the 1868 presidential election in the 1st Congressional District of California. (Courtesy of the Huntington Library.)

Perhaps the most famous example of political parties’ attempts at preventing voters from splitting their tickets comes from Vallejo in California, where the local Republican Party came up with the “tapeworm ticket” in 1871: A ticket so small and crammed with text that no voter could alter it with a candidate of choice.

An Easier Way to Control Nominations

Taken together, political parties were expending an impressive amount of effort to preserve their tickets in the 19th century and were eager to find new ways to gain control back.

Political parties started to hear about something called the “Australian Ballot” and it understood that it would help them out in their battle to control nominations. After its adoption in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1888, the secret ballot quickly spread to Massachusetts in 1889 and across the country. There were only seven states still using the old ticket system in 1900, with South Carolina completing the US' switch to the Australian ballot in 1950.

Learn more:

For more about how American political parties used the secret ballot to serve their own ends, read Alan Ware’s impressive work (behind a paywall) or visit the "Social Logic" website at the University of Virginia.