Election Ballots
Election Ballots have been used in political and other types of elections
for centuries. Sometimes called a ticket, these ballots listed the names
of people who are hoping to be elected. In early American political
elections, ballots were specific to a party, listing every person from
that party who was running for office. The voter would turn in the party
ballot to the voting station. By 1888, many states began instituting
secret ballot voting by supplying voters with ballots that listed several
parties in columns, allowing the voter to choose a particular party of
individual. They could then drop the ballot in a general ballot box and
keep their election choices secret.
The American Antiquarian Society has a large collection of election
ballots that include national, state, and town elections. The collection
is housed in four boxes, three of which hold Massachusetts ballots ranging
in date from 1827-1889. The fourth box holds ballots from a variety of
other states, dating from 1811-1888. Because of the date ranges, these
ballots are mainly party
-Terri Tremblay, Assistant Curator of Graphic Arts
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Whig Ticket. For Representative in Congress, Ichabod Goodwin.
Free Soil Ticket from Massachusetts (1848).
* Election Ballots Inventory
For current information on the cataloging status of this and
other AAS collections, choose "Collection Access" below.
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