Bastiat’s Bastions

A progressive measure that came to modern democracies in the last part of the 1800s was the secret ballot. If employers, landlords and others who held power could see how you voted, then they could retaliate if you did not support “their guy.” Imagine what it would be like if the local elected sheriff or district attorney could easily tell if you voted for them or not. Well, it looks like the Dems want to end the secret ballot in union elections and let intimidation rule once more.  Remember, that the secret ballot protects the workers from intimidation by the unions, but also by employers.  See this story from Fox News (yeah, yeah, I know, but this is the kind of story that is hard to lie about). 

Added comment 3/3/2007:  I heard this comment on NPR’s “Marketplace” (read it or click on “listen to the program”) program, a comment by Bob Moon, while driving to beautiful Hattiesburg, MS for the Louisiana and Mississippi Political Science Association, to, as coincidence would have it, present a paper on the secret ballot and bribed votes in England.

Here is a story about voter intimidation and bribery from one of the earliest democracies, that of the Roman

Republic about 100 years or so before the rise to power by Julius Caesar. This is an excerpt from a paper I did several years ago with Gary Pecquet (U. Central Michigan) and Tom Dalton (U. Arizona), titled, “The Secret Ballot in Rome as a Threat to the Political Oligarchy: A Seeming Exception to the Heckelman-Yates Rule.” No need to go into the Heckelman-Yates story (as you probably don’t care), but the point is that the Roman “good ole boys” had plenty of room to intimidate voters, and they often had plenty at stake. The politicians could declare war, especially war against a rich and poorly defended adversary. Without the secret ballot, voters were not free to vote how they wished, because they could get beaten or worse, because the stakes were often very high. Well, here is the excerpt:

4.6 The Secret Ballot in

Rome

A key turning point in the political evolution of Roman politics was the adoption of the secret ballot for candidate elections in 139 B.C. and legislation 131 B.C. (Linderski 1985, 91). Before the adoption of the secret ballot, “new men” must have had a very hard time outbidding patrons for votes because the voters would remain at the mercy of their landlords after the election. The secret ballot weakened the barriers to entry and allowed “new men” to compete more freely in Roman politics. The secret ballot did not need the support of established politicians, as those voting on the secret ballot were the voters themselves, it only needed one Tribune to propose the secret ballot.  Incumbents and established candidates may favor laws against bribery because they expect that the costs of gaining office may be reduced, increasing the rents of elective office. However, if the laws are interpreted unequally, incumbents or established candidates may not favor a law that reduces that unequal treatment, as the secret ballot makes it equally difficult for challengers and established politicians to pay for votes expecting to receive them.   The Tribute Assembly adopted secret ballot laws for candidate elections in 139 B.C., judicial assemblies in 137 B.C. and legislative Assemblies in 131 B.C. (Linderski 1985, 91). After this, voters would inscribe the initials of their choice on small clay tablets, and drop these into large voting urns. At first, a broad approach to the voting urn compromised the secret ballot because it allowed observers to stand by voters and intimidate them as they passed in the line to deposit their ballots. In 119 B.C., Marius, acting as Tribune, enacted a law that narrowed the passage to the urns securing the integrity of the secret ballot. (Botsford 1968, 389 and Yakobson, 1999, 130) The secret ballot, not only released the voter from the contractual agreements of the patronage system, but in a military society the ballot protected voters from any reprisals by the potential commanding officers (Yakobson 1995, 427). Moreover, the Roman voter enjoyed more anonymity than modern voters. Roman votes were never recorded below the tribal level. There were no reported results by smaller voting units such as precincts for politicians to reward or punish. Even so, powerful Roman nobles and cliques fell short of the power that modern ruling parties now possess. (Yakobosen 1995, 434) Yakobson (1995, 438-439) contends

The secret ballot allowed the voter to take bribes from the different candidates and be free to vote the way he liked. The voters would no doubt often reward “the highest bidder,” though it should not be assumed that this was the sole consideration that determined his choice. The voter could not be held to his promise or penalized for failure to keep it; nor could he be asked—or pressured—to vote for a candidate upon a promise (which might not eventually be kept) to pay him later, but he had to be paid, in advance, a sum large enough to compete with the bribes likely to be offered by other candidates.

Following the adoption of the ballot laws, bribery, actually increased. While it is unknown to us which form of bribery increased, the direct or indirect payments, that is, the private good or the group public good, our model suggests the latter. Divisores collected bribes from all candidates and distributed them throughout their tribes. Bribery became a form of advertising that voters expected from all serious candidates. Lintott (1990, 14) summarized the democratic nature of Roman political bribery, “When ambitus (bribery) begins to appear in the second century, it is as a disruptive intrusion for those who have the established power, but for the electorate itself it was not only profitable but liberating, as it created the assumption that their votes were on the open market.”  Before the secret ballot, unequal enforcement of the campaign spending laws, then, produced a large differential between the costs of voting for the established candidate and a “new man,” putting the challengers to a decided disadvantage. In effect, the unequal enforcement of the campaign spending laws had the effect of establishing a tariff on votes for challengers, erecting a large barrier to entry for challengers.

In elections, we will either use the secret ballot in some form  or voters will suffer some form of intimidation.  Which do we prefer?

MC 

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 2:42 am and is filed under Crime, General, Labor, Political Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.