Open Voting UK - Hogarth

Election battles UK - Hogarth

Your right to vote in parliamentary elections is your most precious right as a citizen. Your right to vote is...
The sword of your power	and the shield of your freedom.
Sword against bad Government.	A shield against dictators.
They are the greatest guarantee of your freedom. You can use it to remove bad members or Governments.
Your right to vote in parliamentary elections is a very recent right that emerged from Chartist agitation in England and Australia in the 19th century.

The Evolution of Your Sword  of Power
By British ‘Chartists’ in the UK 1832-52

• The Six Point People’s Charter of the London Working Mens’ Association, a group of respectable radicals 1836.
   

• The Petition of the Birmingham Political Union for these Six Points to become law 1838
  - Universal male suffrage
  - Secret ballot
  - Equal electoral districts
  - Payment for members of parliament
  - Abolition of property qualification for members of parliament
  - Annual parliamentary elections.
   

• The violence in response to Fergus O’Connor’s Northern Star 1839.
   

• The transportation of two leaders of a brief uprising to Australia . Imprisonment of a number of others for a short time. 1840.
   

• The second Chartist petition six miles long with over 3,000,000 signatures presented to Parliament and rejected 1842.
   

• 100’s arrested, and 79 transported in Midlands and Scotland 1843.
   

• The plan for an immense procession from Kennington Common  to the House of Commons bearing a petition signed by 6 million aborted by the Duke of Wellington’s planned ‘defence of London’.
  By agreement, it went by cab 1848.
   

• The campaign by Chartists, sent to Australia, to include universal suffrage in the Victorian legislation for self-government 1851-5.

The Evolution of Your Shield of Freedom 1856
By the British barrister, H.S.Chapman

The Victorian shield of freedom was in fact a double shield. It invented the polling booth and identification of voters by roll numbers. This created a double security for the honest voter of his/her vote.

(A) A secret voting process in a polling booth in a secure room.

• A secret ‘polling’ booth which screened a voter while voting

• A secure room to ensure voters queued in an orderly manner.

(B) A voter’s electoral roll number was written on the ballot paper.

• This number was written on the corresponding stub

• No loose ballot papers nor voting outside polling booths.

Means were adopted to prevent this device being abused.

• They were only matched with the original ballot paper books if the result of an election in a particular seat was challenged

• Meanwhile they were sent to the House of Commons for security.

This device of identification of voters by roll numbers broke the deadlock of opposition to a 100% secret ballot, which parliaments rejected as protecting the dishonest voter not the honest voter. It was adopted in many countries, including the UK and USA as the ‘Australian ballot’.

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