Politics of AlabamaManning, Joseph C. (Joseph Columbus)
History
Politics of Alabama
Manning, Joseph C. (Joseph Columbus)
Alabama -- Politics and government
"The law provides for booths or stalls--one for each fifty voters as
shown by the preceding election. One voter at a time gets a ticket
from an inspector, goes into the booth and is allowed five minutes
to prepare his ticket. If he cannot read or use his hands to make a
cross mark opposite each name of the candidate for whom he desires
to vote, the inspector appoints one of the partisans of his
party--not the voter's--to fix the ticket. He will fix it, too.
Nobody can see or hear what transpires between the voter and this
appointed manipulator. No penalty is provided for deceiving or
wrongly marking the ticket. All the frauds about that feature are
protected. When it is marked, the voter casts it. Why not number
it, so that it can be identified in case of contest or dispute?
That would prevent fraud, and is not wanted. No one is allowed
within fifty feet of the voting place nor the booths. There is
great particularity about the way the ticket shall be prepared, and
none shall be voted unless they shall have the initials of the
inspector who hands them out, on the ticket. Any other ticket, if
voted, shall not be counted. There is another chance for fraud.
Suppose the inspector refuses to mark his initials on the tickets,
there is no penalty and each one can refuse and defeat the
election.
"The law requires the registration of voters to be completed the
first twelve days in June, before the August and November
elections. Before registering for each election, the voter must
present his poll-tax receipt. When he registers he gets a
registration certificate. When he votes he must present this
registration certificate and leave it with the inspector. The way
is not plain how it will get back to him, when he delivers it in
August and desires to vote in November, but it is supposed that he
will have a slim or good chance at that, as he shall be in accord
or opposition to the officer who ought to return it. If the
registrar fails to act after he shall be appointed, there is no way
for the voters of the beat to register that year; the probate judge
and registrar can manage that little trick so as to disfranchise
all the opposition beats with heavy majorities. The probate judge
can appoint another, but there is no penalty for not serving nor
for the appointment of an incompetent registrar. That feature is
well fixed. The bill provides penalties for everything to protect
secrecy, but nothing to protect the honesty of the count. It seems
to proceed on the assumption that the principal thing about an
election is secrecy, and that the honest expression of the will of
the voters is not to be protected. The inspectors will fix that for
the party to which they belong and the probate judge will see that
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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