[EM] Public parties: a Trojan Horse in the party system

[Michael Allan]

It's strange to think I once opposed Ed on some of these points...
though that was years ago.

Peter Zbornik said:
> Talking about history, I'll share what I learned about the secret
> ballot too: "The use of a secret ballot in America was first deemed
> necessary to protect the voting rights of recently freed slaves
> after the Civil War.  Voter intimidation during southern
> reconstruction was rampant, with African American first-time voters
> being threatened with physical violence, even lynching, based on how
> their publicly known ballots were cast. In 1892, Grover Cleveland
> became the first United State president elected by secret ballot."
> http://www.sosballot.org/frequently-asked-questions/

I'm afraid that's not a reliable source.  Most of the freed slaves
were unable to read.  India takes special care in the design of its
ballots to ensure the illiterate can vote, but the former Confederate
states often had the opposite intention.  There is no single reason
why they adopted the secret ballot, but disenfranchising the newly
emancipated slaves was one of them [1].  It was called the "Australian
ballot" back then and this an exerpt of a Democratic campaign song of
1892: [3][4]

    The Australian ballot works like a charm
    It makes them think and scratch
    And when a Negro gets a ballot
    He has certainly met his match.

They sang this in Arkansas where the secret ballot was enacted in
1891.  "Under the law, an illiterate man who needed help to vote was
required to apply to two of the precinct judges, who would then have
to order all other voters to vacate the polling place before the two
judges could prepare the ballot for the voter.  Of course, this
process naturally discouraged most illiterate men from even going to
the polls." [2] As a consequence, "the percentage of black men who
managed to vote dropped from 71 to 38." [4]

So it happened that the secret ballot helped the ruling Democratic
party tighten its grip on power in the south, the Republicans being
the party of Lincoln and the Union during the war.  Local details vary
[1], but the general pattern around the world is one in which the
secret ballot (as with other modern electoral reforms) serves to
enhance the power of the political elite. [5]

In fact, that power has no other basis than the restrictions imposed
on electors, or would-be electors (the who, where, when and how of
voting).  Currently those restrictions are about as tight as can be,
and the power of the elite is at a peak.

    They go into the booth alone
    Their ticket to prepare
    And as soon as five minutes are out
    They have got to git from there.       [3]

Yet it's all a house of cards.  The restrictions are an illusion.
Voting can never actually be restricted in a modern society.  Maybe
this is why the Germans are ahead of others in this field, because
"vote" and "voice" are the same word in German (Stimme).  It must be
dawning on them that guarantees of free speech *also* apply to voting.

I'll reply to your other points in a while, Peter.  (Freedom of speech
was enabled by technology and demonstrated in practice long before it
was recognized as a human right.  And I'm terribly late on delivering
that beta we were speaking of.)

Mike

  [1] "There are four interpretations to explain why [Arkansas' secret
      ballot] election law was enacted in 1891: to quell the growing
      momentum of the agrarian third-party and Republican fusion
      movement, to eliminate the black vote (particularly in local
      contests in eastern Arkansas), to centralize political control
      of the state into the hands of a few elite Democrats, and to
      remove the need for federal election oversight (reform). Various
      historians of the Southern disfranchisement have tended to
      stress one of these explanations over the others depending on
      the historian’s particular ideology.  Recent research of the
      Election Law of 1891 points to all four of the explanations
      working in different regions of Arkansas independently, based
      largely on population demographics and local political concerns
      in various sections of the state." [2]

  [2] http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=4033

  [3] Paul M. Schwartz.  2002.  Voting technology and democracy.
      N.Y.U. Law Review. *75*.  pp. 625-698.  (see p. 679)
      http://www.paulschwartz.net/pdf/votingtech.pdf

  [4] Jill Leport.  2011.  The Whites of Their Eyes.  The Tea Party's
      Revolution and the Battle over American History.  Princeton
      University Press.  (see pp. 111-2)
      books.google.ca/books?id=e4XQLrY9T3oC

  [5] Frank O'Gorman. 2007. The secret ballot in nineteenth century
      Britain.  *In* Cultures of voting: the hidden history of the 
      secret ballot.  pp. 16-42.