The Secret Ballot Comes To Utah (1878)
by Davis Bitton

In early 1878 Brigham Young had been dead only a few months. The Mormons in Utah still made up the great majority of the population, but “gentiles,” the non-Mormons, were increasing in number, and their party, the Liberal Party, was gaining in strength.

Salt Lake City would be much better off, said the critics, if different men were elected to office. “Instead of filling up the city Council with plodding, illiterate bishops and their counselors,” said the Salt Lake Tribune on 5 February, men of business experience are needed, who will honestly and economically expend the city revenue.” It is not hard to detect the contempt for the Latter-day Saint local leaders.

A much-discussed issue was the form of the ballot used in elections. Here are the official instructions as set forth in an act approved 3 January 1853 and found in the Compiled Laws of Utah of 1876: “Each elector shall provide himself with a vote containing the names of the persons he wishes elected and the offices he would have them to fill, and present it neatly folded to the judge of the election, who shall number and deposit it in the ballot box; the clerk shall then write the name of the elector, and apposite it the number of his vote.”

For the enemies of Mormonism the numbered vote was a sinister device by which church leaders maintained control over the people who, fearful of their bishop, dared not vote their own minds. But using a secret ballot was not as obvious as we might think. Only in 1856 had the secret ballot been introduced in South Australia, and it did not spread to all democratic countries immediately. In 1872 Great Britain had accepted its use in the Ballot Act. Not until after the presidential election of 1884 was the secret ballot extensively adopted in the United States.

So in 1878 Utah Territory provided an interesting test case. On 15 January 1878, Territorial Governor George W. Emery addressed the territorial legislature and called for the end of the marked ballot. For additional protection he asked that ballots be enclosed in envelopes of uniform size and color. Each precinct should have two election judges of differing political parties. “The right of suffrage allowed to citizens,” he said, “should carry with it the right to exercise that suffrage in a manner satisfactory to himself, without the possibility of being called to account for his choice of candidates, or of experiencing unpleasant consequences.” Emery was advocating the secret ballot.

In endorsing the idea, the Salt Lake Herald said it was better to adopt the change in Utah than have it imposed from Washington, D. C. The paper also wanted better control of registration. “At every election held in Salt Lake many transients and persons from the surrounding mining districts, who happen to be in town, succeed in voting, though they are clearly ineligible.”

A new act on elections was passed by the legislature and signed by the governor on 22 February 1878. Qualified to vote were citizens who had lived in the territory for at least six months, who were at least twenty-one years old, and who were tax payers. An oath had to be taken to get oneself placed on the registration rolls. At the polls would be election judges from different political parties. On the ballot or the envelope would be no marks, writing, printing, or identifying device. In short, it was the secret ballot.
Was universal elation the result? Well, no. Those who deplored Mormon domination at the polls under the numbered ballot were not satisfied with mechanical changes in the voting procedures. They wanted different election results.

So a new complaint was leveled. The requirement of being a tax payer, said the critics, would prevent transients from voting. But restricting the vote to taxpayers was the standard in many states. By comparison the Utah law was generous in not insisting on any minimum tax payment. Defending the new law, the Herald editorialized: “We doubt if any one of the property owning soreheads would like to see the door thrown wide open, and let Tom, Dick and Harry street loafers, bar room bummers and tramps elect officers to assess and collect taxes, disburse the public funds, and administer the affairs of government.”
Another complaint against the new law was that the county assessor, who had the record of tax payers, was almost always a Mormon. Governor Emery had no patience with the criticism. Anyone who refused to register a qualified voter, he pointed out, would be subject to felony charges.

The anti-Mormons had actually launched a three-pronged attack. Getting rid of the marked ballot was only one objective. At the same time legislation had been introduced in Congress that would disfranchise polygamists and all Utah women.
When an effort was made in committee to remove tax paying as a requirement for voting, the Salt Lake Herald editor was not amused. “The bill would allow the impecunious tramp, corner loafer, pimp and saloon bummer, who have no interests at stake, to go to the polls and make their voices heard with as much force as the honest, industrious citizen–as the man who pays taxes, supports the schools and public institutions, and contributes to the maintenance of the government and the preservation of peace and order.”

Utah’s elected delegate to Congress, George Q. Cannon, used his influence to keep the bills in committee until after the Utah territorial legislature had passed the new election bill and the governor had signed it. This took the wind out of the sails of those who had made the numbered ballot one of the main complaints. Leaders of the national woman suffrage movement joined to oppose the effort to disfranchise Utah’s women voters.
We should give much credit to the non-Mormon governor George Emery. Persuaded that the old marked ballot was a bad system, he worked with the Mormon legislators to put through the new election law, which he promptly signed. He found himself in the uncomfortable position of being accused of being a collaborator and Mormon-lover. Militant anti-Mormons mounted a campaign to “get Emery,” drive him from office. Maintaining his dignity, Emery explained how the improved election procedures would work, traveled to Washington, answered questions to the satisfaction of the Administration, and remained as governor for another two years.

Efforts to disfranchise women, polygamists, and, later in Idaho, all Mormons would continue. Not until Utah statehood in 1896 were the issues resolved. But 1878 remains an important landmark in our history. The secret ballot had arrived.

In the turbulent United States election of 2004, with charges of fraudulent registration, persons voting in more than one precinct or even more than one state, intimidation at the polls, and complaints about the configuration of the ballot, the time is ripe for fine tuning that will assure integrity at the polls. But whether in paper, punched card, or electronic voting machine, the secret ballot is here to stay.