IMPROVEMENTS IN MECHANISM, APPARATUS, AND ARRANGEMENTS FOR VOTING BY BALLOT
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John McFarlane Gray at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
8th June 1872.
I, JOHN MCFARLANE GRAY, Engineer, of 130, Princes St., Edin-
burgh, in the County of Mid Lothian, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MECHANISM, APPARATUS, AND
ARRANGEMENTS FOR VOTING BY BALLOT," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in mechanism,
apparatus, and arrangements for voting by ballot. For this purpose
I employ a voting cabinet with non-return entrance and exit turnstiles.
At the entrance an attendant receives the voter's register ticket,
examines it, and if correct he passes it through a letter slit into a
receiving box, and allows the voter to go through the turnstile and into
the cabinet. The turnstile operates an open counter index shewing the
number of voters who have passed in. Within the cabinet the voter
finds a series of lever handles, a handle for each candidate, the names
being prominently exhibited at each handle, and shewn by distinguishing

page_text: colours to enable those who cannot read to vote by taking notice of the
colors only. These are the voting levers. The voter is alone while
in the cabinet, and being free from observation can vote in secrecy.
He votes by moving one at a time the handles or levers corresponding
to the candidates for whom he wishes to vote.
At the upper end the spindle of the turnstile carries a toothed pinion
gearing into a wheel on a second spindle. On the further end of this
spindle there is a stop clutch gearing with a fellow clutch on a third
spindle. This third spindle carrics the voting lovers. Between the
claws of this pair of clutches there is just sufficient space to allow the
turnstile to move the first or turnstile clutch through a certain fixed
portion of a revolution without moving the third or voting spindle.
This advance permits the voter to move any one of the voting levers
from one position to another and back again. According to the con-
ditions of the election the voter may have only one, or more than one
vote, and each vote he gives advances the voting spindle a certain
portion of its revolution corresponding to one vote, and when he has
given to the candidates chosen by him the number of votes allowed the
voting spindle clutch is stopped by the turnstile clutch, and prevents
any further voting by that elector. The turnstile clutch, has also a
following tooth to prevent the voting spindle from being left behind
more than the allotted space. Should any elector not give all his votes
the following elector will not be able to take advantage of that omission;
these lost votes will be blanks.
•
Only one of the voting handles can be operated at one time. The
space to be traversed by the voting handles is filled by a series of guards,
which have altogether play to the extent of one-half the thickness of
one lever each way. At each end of the series of guards there is a rigid
abutment, so that when one of the levers has entered the guarded space
these guards are closed upon each other and upon those abutments, in
this way preventing any other lever from entering until this lever has
been removed. Fixed on the voting spindle there is one toothed ratchet
wheel for each of the voting levers, and each lever carries a pall bit
or catch to operate upon the ratchet wheel when the lever is moved
away from its original position, and to slip over the ratchet when the
lever is moving towards its original position. The voting spindle has
also a non-return ratchet and a fixed pall fitted to prevent its being
moved backwards.

page_text: To each voting lever there is fitted a counter index numerating the
votes given to each candidate. The faces of these counter indexes are
placed outside the cabinet, and they are covered by a shutter. This
shutter may be removed at the end of certain intervals to shew the state
of the poll, and so prevent to some extent unnecessary over-voting for
any candidate. Voting would cease while the shutter was open.
The elector after voting leaves the cabinet by the exit turnstile, which
can move only in one direction. But if he has not restored the voting
handles to their proper position the turnstile will not open for him. A
detent operated by the lever guards is projected while there is a lever
in the guard space, and the lever must be returned to its original
position before the turnstile will allow the voter to pass out.
When the election is over the state of the poll is declared at once by
opening the shutter.
When the election allows of more than one vote to each elector there
can be a separate lever for blanks. In that case there would be a
counter index for the lever spindle in addition to the one for the
turnstile, and the faces of both would be continuously exposed to view.
The elector would be requested not to leave the cabinet until he had
given all his votes either to the handles for candidates or to that for
blanks, and the counter index of the lever spindle would enable the
attendant outside to note whether this was attended to.
The public would thus also see that only the proper number of votes
were given by each 'elector, and when the shutter is removed the votes
given to the different candidates and the blanks could be added up and
would agree with the totals shewn on the index of the voting spindle,
and with the number of tickets found in the receiving box. In this way
the working of the mechanism would be shewn to be reliable. The
mechanism is all under cover except the lever handles, so that it cannot
be tampered with by any elector.