This being
admitted, it is at least a prima facie consequence that the duty of
voting, like any other public duty, should be performed under the
eye and criticism of the public; every one of whom has not only an
interest in its performance, but a good title to consider himself
wronged if it is performed otherwise than honestly and carefully.
Undoubtedly neither this nor any other maxim of political morality
is absolutely inviolable; it may be overruled by still more cogent
considerations. But its weight is such that the cases which admit of a
departure from it must be of a strikingly exceptional character.
It may, unquestionably, be the fact that if we attempt, by
publicity, to make the voter responsible to the public for his vote,
he will practically be made responsible for it to some powerful
individual, whose interest is more opposed to the general interest
of the community than that of the voter himself would be if, by the
shield of secrecy, he were released from responsibility altogether.
When this is the condition, in a high degree, of a large proportion of
the voters, the ballot may be the smaller evil. When the voters are
slaves, anything may be tolerated which enables them to throw off
the yoke. The strongest case for the ballot is when the mischievous
power of the Few over the Many is increasing. In the decline of the
Roman republic the reasons for the ballot were irresistible.
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