The voting system implemented in Australia, and increasingly popular in America by 1890, promised to clean up this system. It would make voting secret and limit participation to men who could read, those citizens who, reformers presumed, would vote intelligently rather than at the behest of a party machine. Under the new program, government officials rather than political bosses would prepare a single ballot, which would be used by all voters. Men would mark the ballots in private voting booths, in a polling place designed solely for that purpose, rather than in a saloon or other public
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