Ballot Boxes in Many Shapes
Ballot Boxes in Many Shapes
The “ballot box” came to be the sacrosanct artifact of American electoral culture relatively early in the nineteenth century. As the repository of the collective voice of the community, the ballot box held enormous symbolic power as well as practical importance. As ideas about how voting should work changed, so did ballot boxes. And as concerns about manipulation of elections waxed and waned, designers and engineers responded by creating new types of ballot boxes. All of the items here are from the The Landon Myers Collection of Early American Election Administration, and show the variety of ballot boxes that voters encountered in the nineteenth century.
Mule-mounted ballot box for the Boone Precinct. St. Louis, MO: Geo. D. Barnard & Co.: c. 19th century. The Landon Myers Collection of Early American Election Administration.
Ballot boxes designed to be carried by mule or horse tell a different story about how elections functioned–the ballot box went out to the people rather than voters gathering in a central place to vote. Concerns about ballot-box stuffing by people trying to manipulate elections inspired people to pursue “transparency” in electoral processes, including making ballot boxes out of glass, which would help observers ensure that voters only put one ballot at a time in the box.
“Congress” Wooden Ballot Box. From The Landon Myers Collection of Early American Election Administration.
“National Ballot Box.” Chicago: “Pat’d June 17, 1884 / Mf’D By Amos Pettibone.” The Landon Myers Collection of Early American Election Administration.
All of these changes in the basic technology of voting–the ballot and the ballot box–were shaped by concerns about the security of the electoral process. What do these changes have to tell us today about how we ensure that the way we vote accurately reflects the will of the electorate?
Bacon, Steuben T. The Ballot: Dangers from its Perversion. Cambridge: Printed at the Riverside Press, 1881. The Landon Myers Collection of Early American Election Administration.
“Vote Here” poster. Kalamazoo: Doubleday Bros., c. early 1900s. The Landon Myers Collection of Early American Election Administration.
