[1] The phrase had its origins in the United States in the mid-19th century, and had an early appearance in Great Britain when a newspaper reprinted correspondence from an American solicitor.
The tactics proved effective in dissuading most ordinary Germans from opposing Adolf Hitler's regime via the electoral process.
In East Germany the elections for the Volkskammer had ballots with only one name, and these were deposited in public view; the possibility existed to cross out the name, but no privacy was afforded and serious consequences could result.
Historian James Morgan, in a 1926 publication, identified John Van Buren as the originator of the phrase, an identification supported by Laurence Urdang and Janet Braunstein.
[5] The British newspaper The Times of 27 August 1859 printed a letter about the use of the ballot for voting in the United States, written by Richard Henry Dana Jr. to his friend Lord Radstock.
In the letter, Dana reports:[6] Our experience has shown us that in the excitement of great popular elections, deciding the policy of the country, and its vast patronage, frauds will be committed, if a chance is given for them.
and the familiar problem, "how to cast the greatest number of votes with the smallest number of voters", indicate the direction in which the dangers lie.The phrase is also noted as the "much vaunted maxim" of the Tammany Hall political machine of the 1860s: they used "repeaters", who were given five dollars and free liquor to go and vote for recently deceased voters.
[7] This process was depicted in the Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York (2002), where drunkards are forcibly shaved (to alter their appearance) and turned back toward polling stations to vote again.
[8] In 1933 in Dáil Éireann (the Irish lower house), Thomas Kelly of Fianna Fáil said, If a poor man is sick in hospital and not able to get out, surely it is a good turn to see that his vote is registered.