Dear Editor,

I hope y’all are voting, and also, I hope most of you are voting for the candidate I want to win this election. But I hope you’re doing it for your reasons, not mine. We’ll never know, will we? Did you know that in times long past, voting was not by secret ballot?

This is a story I picked up from Bob Judd, whom I never met, but whose legacy is significant to the formation of the Pontiac Historical Society. His granddaughter was part of the Historical Record project in 1973, and through their sound recordings and photographs, we can travel back in time and hear him and about 60 others tell of olden times and the quaint ways of those who lived and worked here. The recordings are on file at the Pontiac Archives.

As he tells it, political parties would take turns buying votes with money and whiskey, and voting was a public affair where the male landowner would stand on a chair and loudly declare his vote before the assembled public. The party leaders would then know if their bribes had been well-invested or not. Apparently, the election scrutineers would sometimes “mis-hear” the declaration, and the vote would be registered to the preference of the scrutineer.

Nowadays, elections are much more straightforward and fair. But that’s only true if you vote.

Robert Wills, Thorne and Shawville