Before secret elections voting at hustings was known to all

It was used in a county by-election – and then turned up in a antique dealer’s store

This month, as we drop our voting papers into a plain sealed ballot box, we will give little thought to the fact that the electoral system was not always run in such an anonymous way. The secret ballot at elections has only been around since the early 1870s.

The ballot is a relic of ancient Greece, copied by the Romans. In those far-off days the system involved voting with stone or metal balls, pebbles, beans or shells, which were marked with symbols indicating the point in questions.

In Britain until 1872 open voting was the custom. Candidates were nominated at a husting in the open air to an accompaniment of cheers and groans, often on the receiving end of missiles of an obnoxious nature!

During polling each man’s vote was declared openly on the husting, the elector orally stating his selection. The votes were recorded in a poll book, along with the name of each voter, and many of these poll books still survive.

Anyone could find out who had voted for whom. At the end of the polling, the returning officer was required to declare the result from the husting and return the members elected.

In Halifax during the early 19th century these husting events took place in the Piece Hall. But the system of open voting had bred an outcome of widespread bribery, corruption and intimidation.

Despite this the reform of the system by introducing a

The Piece Hall, Halifax, where election hustings took place, with open voting, before the era of the ballot box. William Edward Forster, MP, who fought for the ballot box. chance of success. Introduced in the interest of “improving political independence and public morals,” the bill was passed and became law for a trial period of eight years.

From that time, at every polling location, a plain box with a slit in the top was provided into which voters placed their papers. The new system was never seriously questioned thereafter.

In November 1902 the Halifax Courier reported that the first ballot box ever used under the new system, was located in Halifax, having recently been purchased by Marshall Robert Youngman, a fine art and antique dealer, of Crossley Street. His business occupied a section of what is today known as Princess Buildings.

And from that old edition of the Courier we learn of its