Tickets & Ballots
The 2000 Presidential election led to intense scrutiny of voting technology and policies. But a flawed voting process was not unique to that election; it has been a perennial problem throughout this country's history. Indeed, voting is such a crucial civic issue that it has been the subject of seven Constitutional amendments! Amendments 12, 15, 17, 19, 23, 24, and 26 have all attempted to regulate voting for American citizens.
During the early Republic, votes were often cast vocally, leading to widespread calls for the less public paper ballot. By the mid-nineteenth century, each party issued a ticket that listed only its own nominees. The names of the Presidential nominees headed the list, followed by the names of state electors. Citizens were directed to vote for one party's entire slate of nominees, rather than for individual candidates. Voters could only "split" their tickets by making a special effort to cross out names from the list and write in alternate names, effectively creating their own tickets. Votes were thus not exactly secret, and coercion at the polls was common. Party bosses often tracked individual voters. In 1857, Australians began to issue paper ballots that listed all the candidates. The "Australian ballot" allowed citizens to vote for candidates from both parties, with a new level of privacy. New York became the first state in the Union to adopt the Australian-style ballot in 1889. In the 1890s, the mechanical voting machine was introduced, and it has since dominated voting systems. Today, however, the controversial punch card and various computerized voting systems have largely displaced the levered machine and its curtained booth. New technologies promise to improve voting by making it anonymous (and thus secret) and its tallies reliable.
Early Tickets
For a time, tickets were issued on different colored papers, which allowed observers at polls to know which party individuals were supporting. The idea of a secret ballot is a relatively recent phenomenon. The small size of these tickets and their tiny print made it difficult for voters to "split the ticket" by writing in their own candidates in place of those on the lists.
1856 Tickets
Engraved Portrait of John C. Frémont, ca. 1856.
New Hampshire Republican Electoral Ticket, 1856.
Collection of Evan Stewart, ’74, JD ’77.
John C. Frémont and his running mate, William Dayton, were the nominees of the newly formed Republican Party in 1856. Republican voters submitted this ticket, with its slate of electors, when casting their votes for President.
1860 Tickets
Three partisan tickets from the 1860 election demonstrate how a wide range of ticket styles was used in one Presidential election.
1864 & 1872 Tickets
1900 Voting Machine
In 1896, residents of Rochester, New York, became the first U. S. citizens to cast their votes using a mechanical lever machine that registered individual votes, as well as the number of voters, on a series of levers that controlled counters. Over the next thirty years, voting machines became standard, and by the time of the 1932 Presidential election, very few Americans cast paper ballots. This demonstration model, used in 1900, helped introduce voters to the new machine.
Sample Ballot, 1948
Virginia Sample Ballot, November 2, 1948
This sample ballot demonstrates the range of candidates that appeared on voting machines in the 1948 Presidential election.