Amicus Brief Filed by Seven Secretaries of State Wrongly Thinks that in 1868, State Officials Decided Who Could be on Ballot

Posted on by

One of the amici filed in Trump v Anderson, 23-719, the Colorado ballot access case, says that the U.S. Supreme Court ought to rule that state election officials have no authority to decide whether a candidate is an insurrectionist.  The amicus in general is persuasive and may be useful to the Court.

However, the amicus contains a gross error of fact.  The author seems to believe that governments could determine who ran for office in 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was written.  It says on page 7, “It would have been ironic indeed for the Reconstruction Congress to believe Section Three would be fully and faithfully enforced on nothing more than the good faith of Southern Secretaries of State.”

There were no government-printed ballots in 1868.  Ballots were private.  State election officials had no ability to keep anyone from running for office.  The amicus, on page 20 and beyond, seems to understand that, because it cites various state court decisions from the late 1860’s and early 1870’s, in which persons thought to be insurrectionists were elected to office in the south, and after they had been elected, various individuals sue to prevent them from being sworn into office.

The amicus is filed by the Secretaries of State of Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia.  The Missouri Secretary of State organized the amicus for the other states.  All these Secretaries of State are Republicans.

Comments

Amicus Brief Filed by Seven Secretaries of State Wrongly Thinks that in 1868, State Officials Decided Who Could be on Ballot — 14 Comments

  3. 1862 I/R LAW >>> 1868 14-3 AMDT — CRIMINAL CONVICTION IN USA COURT.

    CAN NOT DIS-QUALIFY BY MERE USA/STATE LAW WHEN QUALIFS ARE IN USA CONST-

    1-2-2 USA REP
    1-3-3 USA SEN
    2-1-5 USA PREZ
    12 AMDT END USA VP

  7. INSURRECTION/REBELLION AGAINST USA AND AGAINST A STATE —

    SEPARATE REGIMES – ESP COURTS

    A-N-Y STATE I/R PROSECUTIONS IN STATE COURTS IN 1865 ONWARD ???

    ESP IN WV AND BORDER SLAVE STATES – MO / KY / MD / DE

  8. Ballot shenanigans are a product of Jim Crow, not Reconstruction. The secret ballot is a novelty of the modern era, too.

    Amazing how simple facts about history are distorted and forgotten, or worse, defended as “it was always this way.” Such is the memory hole.

  9. It would be interesting if Richard Winger could create a Ballot Museum with actual ballots from past elections to as far back as any have survived.

  10. The Jim Crow states were the last ones to have government printed ballots. The last two were Georgia and South Carolina, in 1925 and 1950.

  11. “The secret ballot is a novelty of the modern era, too.”

    Yeah. There was an article back in the Smithsonian in the mid 1970s or so about the history of voting that said that in some states, you used to go to the county seat where you would stand in front of the sheriff and tell him your vote. He would tabulate the vote as you went.

    I like the idea of privately printed ballots. Those would work well in my precinct of about 35 voters.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.