The Mid-Victorian Voter

Abstract

The Mid-Victorian Voter The attractions of voting studies for political scientists are well known, the reasons obvious. In most countries, the basic data are supplied in great profusion by government agencies; survey techniques in this area are sophisticated; above all, the problems readily lend themselves to quantification. In sum, the voting study brings the social scientist closer to the natural scientist than practically any other study, with all the advantages that that implies. The historian's contribution to voting studies is also well known. By their very nature such studies draw on historical data; for example, the longer the run of elections, the more material there is for testing hypotheses worked out initially on contemporary information. The use of historical data is, however, by no means exhausted, and in this article I hope to demonstrate that the advent of computer facilities has opened a rich vein which could well add new dimensions to the study of voting behavior. From the point of view of the political scientist qua political scientist, one of the major hindrances to voting studies is the fact that the ballot is now secret. To get information on individual voting behavior, historians today must use surveys, and these can, of course, be used only in the case of elections that have taken place in the recent past. Both the political scientist and the historian can, however, overcome this common obstacle if-so far as England is concerned-they study voting behavior before the passage of The Secret Ballot Act of 1872. Up to that time all voting in Parliamentary elections took place in public, and, since it was common for printers to publish lists of the actual votes recorded, access to the lists is relatively easy. The printed information commonly includes the name of the voter, his address, and the name or names of the candidates for whom he voted. Other kinds of nominative