From This Is What Democracy Looked Like, which will be published in June by Princeton Architectural Press. The book is an illustrated history of the paper ballots used in U.S. elections dating back to the nineteenth century.
The Republican ticket from Connecticut for the 1884 general election. Courtesy the Division of Political and Military History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
A list of Democratic nominees, 1880, California. Courtesy the California Historical Society
A ticket from the 1876 election in the city of Boston. The Liberal Democratic ticket argues that a “law that deprives the citizen of his whiskey, rum, gin, or beer, deprives him of his liberty.”
A ticket from the 1876 election in the city of Boston. The Republican Temperance ticket (right) warns voters that “out of the grogshops come misery, woe, poverty and death.” Courtesy the American Antiquarian Society
A sample votingmachine ballot from Pennsylvania in 1972. The ballot contains options for voters to write in their “personal choice.” Courtesy of the Division of Political and Military History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
An envelope issued by the U.S. government during the 1864 election. The text praises President Abraham Lincoln and outlines the abolitionist platform of the National Union Party. Courtesy the American Antiquarian Society
Ibid.
The ballot for the New York State elections in 1895 (detail). The use of symbols to represent the political parties drew the ire of a critic, who wrote that the practice put citizens “in the ridiculous position of voting for birds, elephants, stars, etc.,” and that “there can be no improvement in government as long as voters cast their ballots for birds instead of men.” Courtesy the Rare Book Division, New York Public Library
All images from This Is What Democracy Looked Like, by Alicia Yin Cheng
© Alicia Yin Cheng. Courtesy Princeton Architectural Press
