Modern Elections: Polling, Financing Campaigns, and Political Advertising

Elections have changed greatly over the course of American history. In the nineteenth century, participating in politics was an important public ritual for white men. Voter turnout was high, averaging approximately eighty percent of eligible voters (in most states women could not vote; black men gained the right to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, but were disenfranchised across the South after the end of Reconstruction in 1877.) Election day was a festive occasion, and party members typically gathered at their local headquarters, marched to the polling place together, and cast their ballots publicly. Parties printed ballots listing their slate of candidates, which they distributed to their members.

In 1888, in response to widespread allegations that parties sometimes "stuffed" ballot boxes by supplying their supporters with extra ballots, Massachusetts adopted the Australian ballot. Under this system, government assumed the responsibility for printing ballots, which contained the names of all candidates instead of the candidates of a single party. Voters were permitted to cast their ballots in secret, so that no one would no for whom they voted. The Australian ballot quickly spread throughout the nation. In the 1890s, in another effort to eliminate fraud and make voting more efficient, voting machines were introduced in New York state. Over the past thirty years, a growing number of voters cast their ballots by using machine-readable punch cards or computers.