1819 Sept. 18

Parl. Reform Bill

Reasons

§.9. Election Process

Suffrage secret why.

7

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.