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1819 Sept. 18
Parl. Reform Bill
Reasons
§.9. Election Process
Suffrage secret why.
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Now as to the evil liable to be produced for /on the occasion in question by/ want of secresy of /in/ suffrage
1 In the first place, in many instances the wish which by the supposition ought in every instance to take effect this wish /does/ in many instances to a vast extent in an incalculable proportion fails of taking effect: instead of the wish guided by the interest of the individual by whom the vote is given the wish which takes effect is the wish of some other individual by the influence of whose will the voter is induced to sacrifice what would otherwise have been a wish: here then is an evil which is such to the public which is such with reference to the universal interest: the interest served an interest different /which differs/ from the universal interest, and to which the universal interest is sacrificed.
When inquiry comes to be made whose /of what person it is/ the foreign wish, and thence the interest, which by the sacrifice thus made of the wish and interest in question is in the instance of the vote given by any individual voter served it comes /turns/ /is found/ out to be some rich and powerful person to whose single wish and interest the wishes and interests of some vast number of voters say two thousand are thus sacrificed: by this means except that he is saved from the trouble of giving them this one rich and powerful individual is put into the same condition as if to that same individual were given those same two thousand votes.
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Title: [1819 Sept. 17 Parl. Reform Bill]Description: 1819 Sept. 17 Parl. Reform Bill Reasons 1 o §.9 Election Process Suffrage secret why 2 Whenever the suffrage – the direction taken by the vote – fails of being thus compleatly secret, it is liable to be and very likely to be spurious: to be the expression not of the uninfluenced and unbiased will or wish of the votes in question, but of some other individual by the knowledge or supposition of whose will and wish he is influenced and biased. Viewed /Look/ thus far and no further, the state of things in question does not appear to have much of evil in it: look one step further, you will see that in this way one single man, whether Elector or no, may in the choice of the persons filling /occupying/ this branch of the government, possess and exercise a share as /greater than those possessed and exercised by/ hundreds and thousands of Electors put together. Accordingly in fact instances have been known where out of the 658 seats a single individual has been able, by the influence exercised by him over the wills and wishes of Electors, whereby they have been induced to sacrifice their wishes to his, to fill as many as from 8 or 9 to a dozen seats. The service which the Commons House is said to render to the universal interest – the service which if any it would render to that interest is the operating as a check upon the power of the Monarch. But in proportion as individuals are seen who each of them thus possess in the whole number of seats a share of influence exceeding by any such vast amount their equal share – {the share of those whose share would not large enough to be worth purchasing by the Crown if it could be purchased – } the Monarch and his Ministers thus acquire the power, as it always is their /his/ interest to purchase at the expence of the universal purse the whole tenor of their parliamentary services and thus engage them to join in a perpetually operating sacrifice of the universal interest to that particular and because opposite to the universal, sinister interest.
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Title: [1819 Sept. 18 Parl. Reform Bill]Description: 1819 Sept. 18 Parl. Reform Bill Reasons §.9 Election Process Suffrage secret why 6 {The mode being open, suppose Napoleon sovereign of the United Kingdom, and every Election carried on in the presence of a party of his soldiers, known to have orders instantly to put to death every Elector who should give his vote for any proposed Member other than those proposed by Bonaparte. Against an arrangement to this effect what could be said? Nothing but what would amount to this: namely that in the instance of every voter the vote thus given by him being contrary to that which but for the terrorism would have been his wish was contrary to what in his opinion would have been contrary to his interest, and thence contrary to what there is reason to think would actually have been his interest: and so the votes thus given were, all of them taken together contrary to the interests of all: in other words contrary to the universal interest: the universal interest being thus sacrificed to the wish thence to the supposed interest thence to the real interest, of that one tyrant. Nay (says somebody for so somebody has said) Nay but here in this open mode the votes thus given are all of them given in conformity to the universal interest. This is exactly what you are so continually calling for: this is exactly the state of things for the bringing about of which you are labouring by advocating the open mode. In conformity to the universal interest? Yes /True/, but to an universal interest how created? By means conducive to the universal happiness? No: but by means destructive to the universal happiness. You will not say that in this /the thus supposed/ state of things under the open mode universal happiness would be as much promoted as if, with or without the terror the suffrages were taken in the secret mode?}
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Title: [[129b-500] 16 April 1817 Introd]Description: [129b-500] 16 April 1817 Introd § 16 Moderate Reform II Uselessness[?] I Elections 2 5 Omitt? In so far as whether by means of a self-formed judgment or by means of a derivative judgment, the conception which the /an/ Elector has of the universal what on the occasion in question is most conducive to the universal interest and then[?] on that general or any other particular account of what is most conducive to his own individual interests (the two interests being by the supposition coincident) in so far if his suffrage be free the effect of his vote will operate pro tanto in favour of the universal interest. But if in any way it happens to his suffrage not to be free, then the interest in favour of which it will operate will be what /that which/ from the supposed direction taken by the wish desire and will of some other person is supposed to be the particular interest of that /such/ other person. What may be is – that the direction in which the will of that /such/ other person acts is in the direction most conducive to the advancement of the universal interest. But what may also happen and is more likely to happen is – that it shall be the reverse. And in so far as this latter is the case the state of things that has place, the vote of the Elector is at the command of some individual whose private interest is in a state of hostility to the universal interest, and who in his endeavours to give effect to that /such/ private interest, is operating rather in the way of terrorism, or in the way of bribery, or in both these ways at once.
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