Although the expense of providing ballots and their distribution, and other legitimate demands were heavy, they constituted only a small part of the actual expense of the campaign. Making the necessary expenditures the excuse for raising money, large sums were collected, much of which was spent in political debauchery.
While these contributions came from various sources, a heavy assessment was laid on the candidates. According to Mr. Ivins, candidates for Congress were called upon to pay from fifteen to twenty dollars per election district, while the average contributions for the superior and common pleas benches was from $10,000 to $15,000.[1] This was simply bargain and sale. It practically meant that only the rich or those willing to use their positions for partisan purposes were able to obtain offices. The honest citizen of moderate wealth was excluded; and independent and non-partisan movements in politics were prevented because of the prohibitory expenses of conducting a campaign.
4. A fourth defect of the old régime was its failure to supply any adequate method of acquainting the public with the names of the men they would be called upon to vote for sufficiently in advance of the election to secure an examination into their qualifications. Nominations of corrupt or inefficient men were many times made too late for a public exposure, so the electorate went to the polls relying only on the honesty of their party, which many times betrayed them.
5. A serious drawback to elections in the old days was the noise, violence, and confusion about the polls. Four years after the passage of the famous reform act of 1832, the Westminster Review gave the following picture of elections in England:
The experience of being endowed with ears and eyes, who has lived in the scene of a contest, be it in town or country, can bear witness to the terrors of this visitation. If some return could be made of the number of families ruined at the last election on account of obnoxious votes, and of those who, to avoid ruin, were compelled to sacrifice their integrity; of the number of divisions among friends, occasioned by difference of partisanship; of the panes of glass, and heads, that were broken by the glorious mob; in short of every injustice, outrage, or crime committed within that short period--we should be able to appreciate the blessings of our present electoral system.[2]
As a general rule the elections in America were not so riotous as those just described, although our contests for elective office were very
