The Ballot Act 1872 was an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

that introduced the requirement for parliamentary and local government elections in the United Kingdom to be held by

secret ballot The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote ...

.archive.org: "The Ballot Act, 1872, with an Introduction: Forming a Guide to the Procedure at Parliamentary and Municipal Elections", p97 (Fitzgerald, London, 1876)
/ref> The act abolished the traditional

hustings A husting originally referred to a native Germanic governing assembly, the thing. By metonymy, the term may now refer to any event (such as debates or speeches) during an election campaign where one or more of the candidates are present. Devel ...

system of nomination and election in Britain.

Background

Employers and landowners had been able to use their sway over employees and tenants to influence the vote, either by being present themselves or by sending representatives to check on the votes as they were being cast. Small retailers were also concerned not to upset their bigger customers by voting differently from them. Radicals, such as the

Chartists Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, w ...

, had long campaigned for the system to end by the introduction of a secret ballot. The

Representation of the People Act 1867 The Representation of the People Act 1867, 30 & 31 Vict. c. 102 (known as the Reform Act 1867 or the Second Reform Act) was a piece of British legislation that enfranchised part of the urban male working class in England and Wales for the first ...

, or Second Reform Act, enfranchised the skilled working class in borough constituencies, and it was felt that their economic circumstances would cause such voters to be particularly susceptible to bribery, intimidation or blackmail.LEAVE. FIRST READING. House of Commons Debates, MR. LEATHAM
14 February 1870 vol 199 cc268-84 § 268 The radical

John Bright John Bright (16 November 1811 – 27 March 1889) was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies. A Quaker, Bright is most famous for battling the Corn Laws ...

expressed concerns that tenants would face the threat of eviction if they voted against the wishes of their landlord. It fell to

Edward Aldam Leatham Edward Adam Leatham (2 August 1828 – 6 February 1900) was an English Liberal Member of Parliament. Background and early life Leatham was the son of William Leatham of Heath near Wakefield, by his wife Margaret Walker, daughter and heiress of ...

, the husband of Bright's sister, to introduce the Ballot Act on leave. Many in

the Establishment ''The Establishment'' is a term used to describe a dominant social group , group or elite that controls a polity or an organization. It may comprise a closed social group that selects its own members, or entrenched elite structures in specific ...

had opposed the introduction of a secret ballot. They felt that pressure from patrons on tenants was legitimate and that a secret ballot was simply unmanly and cowardly. Lord Russell voiced his opposition to the creation of a culture of secrecy in elections, which he believed should be public affairs. He saw it as 'an obvious prelude from

household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...

universal suffrage Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stanc ...

'. Election spending at the time was unlimited, and many voters would take bribes from both sides. While the secret ballot might have had some effect in reducing corruption in British politics, the

Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883 The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883 (46 & 47 Vict c. 51) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was a continuation of policy to make voters free from the intimidation of landowners a ...

formalised the position and is seen by many to have been the key legislation in the attempts to end electoral corruption. The Ballot Act, in combination with the Municipal Elections Act 1875 and the Parliamentary Elections (Returning Officers) Act 1875, is considered to have ushered in today's electoral practices.

Effects

The secret ballot mandated by the Act was first used on 15 August 1872 to re-elect

Hugh Childers Hugh Culling Eardley Childers (25 June 1827 – 29 January 1896) was a British Liberal statesman of the nineteenth century. He is perhaps best known for his reform efforts at the Admiralty and the War Office. Later in his career, as Chancellor ...

as MP for

Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the towns in the City of Wake ...

in a

ministerial by-election A ministerial by-election is a by-election to fill a vacancy triggered by the appointment of the sitting member of parliament (MP) as a minister in the cabinet. The requirement for new ministers to stand for re-election was introduced in the Hous ...

, following his appointment as

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a ministerial office in the Government of the United Kingdom. The position is the second highest ranking minister in the Cabinet Office, immediately after the Prime Minister, and senior to the Minist ...

. The original ballot box, sealed in wax with a liquorice stamp, is held at

Pontefract museum Pontefract Museum is a local museum in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England. The collections cover archaeology, archives, decorative and applied art, fine art, photographs and social history. History The museum is located in an Art Nouveau bui ...

. Of those who voted, 16%, were illiterate, and special arrangements had to be made to record their previously-open oral votes. The first general election using a secret ballot was in

1874 Events January–March * January 1 – New York City annexes The Bronx. * January 2 – Ignacio María González becomes head of state of the Dominican Republic for the first time. * January 3 – Third Carlist War &ndas ...

, which saw the first Conservative majority elected since 1841. The Ballot Act 1872 was of particular importance in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, as it enabled tenants to vote against the landlord class in parliamentary elections. The principal result of the Act was seen in the general election of 1880, which marked the end of a landlord interest in both Ireland and Great Britain. Although the ballot in the UK is routinely characterized as "secret" the fact that ballot papers are numbered, and that the voter's electoral roll identifier is written on its identically numbered counterfoil by the officer issuing the ballot to the voter at the voting station, means that in principle the identity of a voter can be linked to the ballot they cast.

Abroad

The Act inspired Belgian minister

Jules Malou Jules Edouard Xavier Malou (19 October 1810 – July 1886) was a Belgian statesman, a leader of the clerical party. Career Malou was born at Ypres. He was a civil servant in the department of justice when he was elected to the Chamber of Deput ...

to implement a similar system in Belgium, which he did with the act of 9 July 1877 (''la loi du 9 juillet 1877 sur le secret du vote et les fraudes électorales''). The elections of 1878 were a victory for the Liberal Party.

Background

Effects

Abroad

See also

References

Further reading