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.
It is amazing that so many people think the government has always had a monopoly publishing ballots. It was a confiscation.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/redistricting-fights-states-could-determine-225047845.html
2024 USA H REPS MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDERS – COUNT THE STATES
— IN A-L-L STATES WITH 2 OR MORE REPS
—
PR
APPV
TOTSOP
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
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=140924
NOOOO 14-3 BRIEF SO FAR FROM USA DOJ ???
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/24/rnc-karamo-properly-removed-as-state-gop-chair/72344763007/
RNC NOSE IN MI GOP BIZ
https://www.sos.nh.gov/2024-presidential-primary-election-results
NH RESULTS – 2024 PREZ PRIMARIES
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
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.
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.
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.
“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.
Max Plan is better
https://www.yahoo.com/news/maines-top-court-declines-hear-005117948.html
ME — TRUMP 14-3
I like the Trump plan. We elect Trump again and save America.
It is interesting to note that when government printed ballots became the norm, some states started requiring literacy tests in order to vote.
Biden would be really screwed if we still required literacy tests.
WZ –
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS MAY HAVE OLDE BALLOTS ???
Illiterates make up a large part of the Biden base.
@WZ,
You would be interested in the book, “This Is What Democracy Looked Like” by Alicia Yin Cheng.
It has dozens of pictures of historical ballots, both private and public. It is more of an art book than history or political science.
The back cover has a ballot, with the text, “Regular Citizens Independent Ticket. Down With The Bosses”. A picture shows a burly workingman with his foot on the throat of a ‘boss’, as he throttles another ‘boss’ who is worriedly looking over at his crony that he might share the same fate.
The book suggests that not many ballots survive because ballots were destroyed after an election so that they could not be re-used. Some that survive had been used (on the back) as tally sheets. Paper was a more valuable commodity then, and paper might be recycled by bleaching the ink out.
In the 1871/1872 apportionment debate following the 1870 Census, Massachusetts representatives were proud of the fact that they excluded illiterates, imbeciles, idiots, and the insane from the franchise (under the apportionment clause of the 14th Amendment they were excluded from the numerator in determining the apportionment population).
The 1870 Census was originally intended to have a column about whether Male Citizens over the age of 21 who were disenfranchised or had their right to vote abridged, but did not provide funding. The head of the Census asked the states to estimate the numbers, and got indifferent responses. Ever since, the Census and Congress have not bothered. The current Census goes out of its way to not enumerate the number of adult citizens.
The 1871/1872 apportionment law required the use of paper ballots in federal elections, and also set the uniform election date for congressional elections.
If only imbeciles, idiots and the insane were excluded now. The demon rat party would be out of business, or at best on life support.