aching the voting
place and carry them in the vest pocket, with a margin showing. This
was a sort of signal that the voter's mind had been made up and that
he should be let alone, yet even with this signal showing, in hotly
contested elections the voter ran a noisy gauntlet of eager solicitors,
harassing him on his way to vote as cab drivers assail the traveler
when he alights from the train. This free and easy method, tolerable in
sparsely settled pioneer districts, failed miserably in the cities. It
was necessary to pass rigorous laws against vote buying and selling, and
to clear the polling-place of all partizan soliciting. Penal provisions
were enacted against intimidation, violence, repeating, false swearing
when challenged, ballot-box stuffing, and the more patent forms of
partizan vices. In order to stop the practice of "repeating," New York
early passed laws requiring voters to be duly registered. But the early
laws were defective, and the rolls were easily padded. In most of the
cities poll lists were made by the party workers, and the name of each
voter was checked off as he voted. It was still impossible for the voter
to keep secret his ballot. The buyer of votes could tell whether he got
what he paid for; the employer, so disposed, could bully those dependent
on him into voting as he wished, and the way was open to all manner
of tricks in the printing of ballots with misleading emblems, or with
certain names omitted, or with a mixture of candidates from various
parties--tricks that were later forbidden by law but were none the less
common.

Rather suddenly a great change came over election day. In 1888
Kentucky adopted the Australian ballot for the city of Louisville,
and Massachusetts adopted it for all state and local elections. The
Massachusetts statute provided that before an election each political
party should certify its nominees to the Secretary of the Commonwealth.
The State then printed the ballots. All the nominees of all the parties
were printed on one sheet. Each office was placed in a separate column,
the candidates in alphabetical order, with the names of the parties
following. Blank spaces were left for those who wished to vote for
others than the regular nominees. This form of ballot prevented "voting
straight" with a single mark. The voter, in the seclusion of a booth at
the polling-place, had to pick his party's candidates from the numerous
columns.

Indiana, in 1889, adopted a similar s