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From Party Tickets to Secret Ballots
217
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FIGURE 1. 1876 Democratic Party Ticket. (Maryland Historical Society.
Photo: Jeff Goldman.)
on tissue paper, which were folded inside a regular ticket to permit
multiple
voting. The skilled voter could even crimp his ticket with accordion folds,
as a fan,
with a pudding ticket concealed in each fold; the skilled election judge,
in depos-
iting the ticket in the ballot box, could fan it out and cause the
different pudding
tickets to fall out and mix with other tickets already cast. In Baltimore's
1875
election, these tissue pudding tickets accounted for the discrepancy in one
precinct
between the 542 voters recorded on the poll list and the 819 ballots
counted out of
the box. 8
The distribution and use of parry tickets further prevented secrecy while
facili-
tating voter intimidation and election fraud. The tickets were distributed
or "ped-
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