1819 Oct. 3

Parl. Reform Bill

Reasons ult

§.5. Election Apparatus

§.8. Election how

Art | | Secrecy.

3

Be the mode of election pursued what it may, no man who has ever professed to approve of it, has ever professed to approve of it any further than in as far as the votes, by which, in the several instances, the Election has been determined, have been the genuine expression of the wishes of the several persons by whom they have been respectively delivered. No one has ever denied but that in so far as any vote has failed of being the genuine expression of the wish declared by it, evil has had place. Though an evil but in tendency still it is an evil: or neither Miselection to any extent, nor Misgovernment to any extent, are evils.

In the rude and inexperienced state of the public mind in early times, the open mode of voting, as being the most obvious, was the mode pursued. For secresy there no inducement presented itself, until by experience proof sufficiently conclusive had been afforded that under the open mode to an extent beyond all power of measurement the direction to /declared by/ men’s votes had by external causes been rendered opposite to that to which their wishes pointed: that in a word they had given their votes in favour of a Candidate, whose success was not among the objects of their wishes.