of the
Reichstag were to be conducted by universal suffrage under the ballot in
conformity with the electoral law of the 31st of May 1869.

_America._--At the first elections in America voting was viva voce; but
several of the colonies early provided for the use of written or printed
ballots. By 1775 ballots were used in the New England states, in
Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina and South Carolina; they were
introduced in New Jersey in 1776, and in New York in 1778, so that, at the
time the constitution of the United States was adopted, viva voce voting
prevailed at public elections only in Maryland, Virginia and Georgia. Of
the new states which later entered the Union, only Illinois, Kentucky,
Missouri and Arkansas did not have a ballot system when they became states.
During the first half of the 19th century, Maryland, Georgia, Arkansas
(1846) and Illinois (1848) adopted the ballot. In Missouri ballot-voting
was introduced to some localities in 1845, but not until 1863 was it
generally adopted in that state. Virginia did not provide for voting by
ballot until 1869, and in Kentucky viva voce voting continued until 1819,
but while the use of ballots was thus required in voting, and most of the
states had laws prescribing the form of ballots and providing for the count
of the vote, there was no provision making it the duty of any one to print
and distribute the ballots at the polling-places on election day. In the
primitive town meetings ballots had been written by the voters, or, if
printed, were furnished by the candidates. With the development of
elections, the task of preparing and distributing ballots fell to political
committees for the various parties. The ballot-tickets were thus prepared
for party-lists of candidates, and it was not easy for any one to vote a
mixed ticket, while, as the voter received the ballot within a few feet of
the polls, secrecy was almost impossible, and intimidation and bribery
became both easy and frequent.

Soon after the adoption of the Australian ballot in Great Britain, it was
introduced in Canada, but no serious agitation was begun for a similar
system in the United States until 1885. In 1887 bills for the Australian
ballot were actively urged in the legislatures of New York and Michigan,
although neither became law. A Wisconsin law of that year, regulating
elections in cities of over 50,000 population, incorporated some features
of the Australian system, but the first compl