IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR TAKING AND REGISTERING VOTES
Year: 1870

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Coope Haddan, of 41, Treherne Road,
Brixton, in the County of Surrey, Civil Engineer, for the Invention
of “IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR TAKING AND REGISTERING VOTES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Coope Haddan
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 28th January 1870.
I, JOHN COOPE HADDAN, of 41, Treherne Road, Brixton, in the County
of Surrey, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR TAKING AND REGISTERING
VOTES," to be as follows:-
The Invention embraces and consists of a chainber or chambers into
and out of which the voter is required to pass, provided with two or
more places or passage ways, into, or through, or over, or upon which he
is also required to go or pass, affording him a choice accordingly as he
may desire to vote, but arranged with mechanical or other contrivances
for registering, whether secretly or openly, the result of the choice or
vote he has so made.

page_text: Also the Invention embraces and consists of a chamber or chambers
into and out of which the voter is required to pass, provided with two
or more mechanical or other contrivances for registering the result of
their having been handled, or touched, or acted upon by the voter
accordingly as he has elected to vote.
And the manner in which the Invention is to be performed is to
arrange in the places or passages referred to moving turnstiles, striking
bars, floor plates, or other equivalents that shall become moved by the
mere going into or passing through or over them of the voter without
further effort on his part, the movement so produced in any particular
case causing by connecting apparatus or otherwise the accumulated
registration of each movement or vote; or mechanical or other con
trivances requiring to be handled, touched, or acted upon by the voter
may be substituted. And in any case may be added catches, checks,
stops, bars, bells. or other substitute for preventive or other purposes,
that is to say, for preventing more than the proper total number of
votes to be registered by the voter, or more than one vote, or any definite
number of votes at any individual one of the said places, passages, or
mechanical contrivances. And for summing up the total number of votes
jointly recorded by the several voters, and the result of which may if
desired be continually open to general inspection, although the result of
the distribution of the votes may be concealed till required to be read
under particular or official inspection. And electric or telegraphic
apparatus may be employed in either the registering or the preventive
purposes of the Invention.
2.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said John Coope Haddan in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 28th July 1870.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
COOPE HADDAN, of No. 41, Treherne Road, Brixton, in the County of 3
Surrey, Civil Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-eighth day of January, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy, in the thirty-

page_text: .
third year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto the said John Coope Haddan, Her special
licence that I, the said John Coope Haddan, my executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said John Coope Haddan,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with,
and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during
the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
APPARATUS FOR TAKING AND REGISTERING VOTES," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said John Coope Haddan, my executors or adminis
trators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their
hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of
the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed,
and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within
six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said John Coope Haddan, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement, that is to say :-
The Invention embraces and consists of a chamber or chambers into
and out of which the voter is required to pass, provided with two or
more places or passage ways, into, or through, or over, or upon which he
is also required to go or pass affording him a choice accordingly as he
may desire to vote, but arranged with mechanical or other contrivances
for registering, whether secretly or openly, the result of the choice he
has so made..
Also the Invention embraces and consists of a chamber or chambers,
into and out of which the voter is required to pass, provided with two
or more mechanical or other contrivances for registering the result. of
their having been handled or touched or acted upon by the voter
accordingly as he has elected to vote.
And the manner in which the Invention is to be performed is to arrange
in the places or passages referred to moving turustiles, striking bars,
floor plates, or other equivalents that shall become moved by the mere
"

page_text: going into or passing through or over them of the voter without further
effort on his part, the movement so produced in any particular case
causing by counting apparatus or otherwise the accumulated regis- ·
tration of each movement or vote. Or mechanical or other contrivances
requiring to be handled, touched, or acted upon by the voter may be
substituted. And in any case may be added catches, checks, stops,
bars, bells, or other substitute for preventitive or other purposes, that is
to say, for preventing more than the proper total number of votes to be
registered by the voter, or more than one vote or any definite number
of votes at any individual one of the said places, passages, or mechanical
contrivances. And for summing up the total number of votes jointly
recorded by the several voters, and the result of which may if desired
be continually open to general inspection, although the result of the
distribution of the votes may be concealed till required to be read under
particular or official inspection.
In further explanation and for the more completely describing the
manner in which the Invention is to be performed, I have appended
hereto a Drawing illustrating some of the improvements above referred
to.
Figure 1 is a transverse section across a wooden house box or voting
chamber fitted with the apparatus about to be described with its voting
levers unlocked or in position ready for voting. Figure 2 is a diagram
longitudinal section (on a reduced scale,) and Figure 3 a diagram
plan (on a reduced scale) of the general arrangements of the voting
From these.
chamber, omitting the working parts in the division A.
it will be seen that a longitudinal partition a screens, off the working
apparatus cliamber A from a passage B through which the voters
are to pass one at a time, entering by the door 6 and quitting..by
the door c. Also that the cross partitions d extend. partly across
the passage
B and divide it into separate bays, into each of which,
projects a voting lever or handle through and from the chamber
A, which is common to the enclosed portions of the several voting
leverse and the various concealed parts with which each is fur-
nished. Five levers are represented, but any number
may be
provided for, and the voter in passing through is to depress the one
special handle or voting lever which tallies with the candidate for whom
he votes as marked opposite to the several voting levers respectively.

page_text: f in Figure 1 denotes one or more frames supporting a fixed shaft g'
and a rocking or moving shaft h. The levers e turn loosely on y and
have each a load or counterweight ex at their back ends, and a back
pin or stud e³, and a front pin or stude". Corresponding with cach
voting lever is a bell-crank lever i, all of which are keyed on to and turn
simultaneously with the shaft h, and each has a counterweight i* and a
pin 2, and also a rod : passing to, and when moved registering a vote by
the tell-tale or counting apparatus (one to each voting lever) denoted by
the parts 1, and which may be of any ordinary and approved descrip-
tion and be concealed under lock and key or be open to inspection, both
plans being represented in the Figure 2. Common to. each pair of
levers e and i is a strut with links at the ends passing over the pins e
and, so that the depression of the handle of any lever e by the voter
will raise its strut n, and this again will act on its lever, which will
turn the rocking shaft h and with it all the remaining levers i. The
effect will be to bring the parts into the locked position shewn by
Figures 4 and 5. The particular lever e which has been depressed will
be kept depressed by the hook of the corresponding lever bearing
on the upper surface of the pin e, as in Figure 4, and the remainin g
levers will be prevented from surreptitiously or improperly being
depressed by the voter by corresponding hooks falling underneath the
pins e and holding them up as in Figure 5. And until released as
herein-after described this locked position of the levers will be main-
tained by a spring pallo (see Figure 1) acting against the rack p,
which is fixed on to one end of the shaft h. On the voter quitting the
voting chamber by the door c the lever 2 hinged to the door will act
on the bell-crank levers and release the spring pall o (which it carries)
from the teeth of the retaining rack p, when the counterweights e* and
will bring the several parts into the position shewn in Figure 1
ready for another voter's use. It is to be noted that electric or tele-
graphic apparatus may be employed for either the registering or the
preventive purposes of the Invention, and these either in any con-
venient manner or definitely as follows, that is to say, the registering
may be effected entirely away and at a distance from the place of voting
and the preventive purpose may be accomplished by specially denoting
by an electric alarum any improper or surreptitious use of the voting
apparatus, or the locking the exit door against the egress of the voter,
all or some of which arrangements (it is to be understood) may if

page_text: contrivances.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Coope Haddan, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-eighth day of July, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy.
J. C. HADDAN. (L.S.)