Elections
The election day.
How an Election is Held.—The date on which an election is held is fixed by law. National elections always take place on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November.[[43]] State elections are usually, although not always, held on the same date. Local elections take place on such dates as the state laws or city charters provide. It is usually thought best that local elections shall not be held on the same day as the state or national elections because of a desire to keep national and state politics out of local affairs. When national, state, and local elections are held on the same day the tendency is for the voters to focus their whole attention on national and state issues, giving very little attention to the problems of their own communities. The names of candidates for the local offices are away down near the bottom of the ballot where they appear relatively unimportant. Separate elections involve additional expense, however, and increase the number of times a voter has to come to the polls.[[44]]
Polling places and poll officers.
The voting is done at polling places, one or more of which are located in each precinct. The precinct is a small division of the county, town, or city; as a rule it does not contain more than four or five hundred voters. The polling place is in charge of officials, commonly known as poll-wardens or inspectors, who are appointed by the state or local authorities. They are assisted by clerks. The duty of these various officials is to open the poll, give ballots to persons who are registered and to no others, count the votes after the poll is closed, and report the results to the authorities who are in charge of the elections. They are responsible for the lawful and honest conduct of the polling. Each party is also allowed to have one or more “watchers” at the polling place and these watchers have the right to challenge any person whom they believe to be an impostor. When anyone is challenged he may take oath that he is entitled to vote, in which case he will be given a ballot; but such ballots are counted separately. When a voter receives a ballot, his name is checked off the voters’ list. Various stalls or booths are provided, into one of which the voter then goes and marks his ballot privately. Having finished marking it he folds the ballot and hands it to one of the polling officials who, in the presence of the voter, deposits it in the ballot box. Polls are kept open during designated hours, usually from six or seven o’clock in the morning until five or six o’clock in the afternoon.
History of balloting.
The Ballot.—The history of the ballot in the United States is interesting. |1. Oral voting.| Originally all votes were given orally. The voter came to the polling place, stated his choice aloud and the poll officials wrote it down. The objection to this plan was that it precluded secrecy and left the voters open to intimidation. Then paper ballots came into use, each party providing ballots for its own members. |2. The party ballot.| Outside the polling place, at each election, stood a group of party workers each armed with a handful of ballots, which were distributed to the voters as they came. This method also was objectionable. |Objections to the party ballot.| It encouraged the voting of a “straight party ticket”, in other words it took for granted that everyone wished to vote for the entire slate of party candidates without exception. If the voter desired to do otherwise, it was necessary for him to scratch out the unacceptable names and write others in. Most voters would not go to this trouble. This method of balloting was not secret, because a voter could be watched from the time he received his ballot outside the polling place until he deposited it in the box. This was an encouragement to bribery and intimidation. It also facilitated fraud at elections since there was no limit upon the number of ballots printed by the parties and it was not difficult for dishonest voters or corrupt officials to slip extra ballots into the box. This abuse, known as “stuffing” the ballot box could only be prevented by having all the ballots officially printed. When a definite number of official ballots is given to each polling place every ballot must be accounted for.
3. The Australian ballot.
In nearly all the states, therefore, an official ballot is now used. This is commonly known as the Australian ballot. Usually the names of all the candidates are printed in parallel columns, each party having a column of its own, with the name and insignia of the party at the top. Immediately below the insignia is a circle in which the voter, by marking a cross, may record his vote for every one of the candidates in the entire column. The voter who does this is said to vote a “straight ticket”. But if he desires to vote for some of the candidates in the column of one party and for some in the column of another party, he leaves the circle unmarked and places a cross after such individual names as he may choose. This is called voting a “split ticket”. In some states there are no party columns; the names of the candidates are printed on the ballot in alphabetical order, each name followed by a party designation. In a few large cities, such as Boston and Cleveland, the party designation is omitted. Here the voter must pick and choose individually. The party-column arrangement encourages the voting of straight tickets; the alphabetical plan does not.[[45]]
Evils of the long ballot.