This month marks the 141st anniversary of the first use of the secret ballot to elect an MP, at a by-election in the Yorkshire borough of Pontefract. Before the 1872 Ballot Act, and throughout the period covered by our Victorian Commons project, MPs who faced a contest were elected in public by viva voce voting at a designated polling booth.
At its most basic the booth was little more than a table with chairs for the poll clerks, who would ask electors to confirm their identity and qualification (sometimes with an oath) before inquiring how they wished to vote, often surrounded by cheering onlookers and the agents of the candidates. The voter would state his preferences – “I vote for William Biggs and Thomas Harding” or “I give a plumper for James Gordon” – and the clerk would then mark the choices in an official poll book, based…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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