[Lazamataz]

For the United States’ first century, Americans elected their leaders in full view of their neighbors, gathering on courthouse steps to announce their votes orally or hand a distinctive preprinted ballot or unfolded marked paper to a clerk. Such a public process made elections ripe for bribes and threats, although the scene around American polling places never matched Australia’s, where a population of criminals and goldbugs made electoral intimidation something of a democratic pastime.

The author correctly recounts history.

Then, having established that open ballots were rife with intimidation, violence, bribes, and other criminal acts, she suggests we would want to return to this time.

We need to start collecting names for the final days.

[C19fan]

Sort of explains why you see some crazy vote totals in pre-secret ballot America, for example nobody voting for Lincoln in entire swaths of the South in the election of 1860.

[C19fan]

Sort of explains why you see some crazy vote totals in pre-secret ballot America, for example nobody voting for Lincoln in entire swaths of the South in the election of 1860.