Elections & Election Law

Washington's Electioneering

Colonial Williamsburg 


SC Election Laws

The parish, as we have seen, was the basis of the civil as well as the religious organization of the government under which these new-comers had entered : all elections were held by the church wardens, and those for municipal offices on Easter Monday along with those for officers of the church ; all notices, legal and other, were posted at the church door; there caucuses were held of a Sunday morning before the service commenced ; the church was the place of meeting of the various public boards, and political discussions and orations were had in the churches themselves ; the representation in the Commons was by parishes; the masters of the free schools were to "be of the religion of the Church of England and to conform to the same; " and the vestries assessed and levied taxes for the relief of the poor, of whom the church wardens were the overseers.

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tive and elective system. In England the two systems, the parish and the town ship, have existed from the most ancient times side by side ; usually, but not always, coincident in area, yet separate in character and machinery. The township, which preceded the parish, was the unit of civil, and the parish the unit of ecclesiastical, administration.

The nonconformists of New England, disaffected to the church, adopted the township system to the exclusion of the parochial. The churchmen, who settled Barbadoes about the same time, on the other hand, established parishes, and from time to time adding civil to the ecclesiastical duties of parochial offices, contented them selves with that organization as the basis alike of civil as of ecclesiastical affairs. The parish thus became the unit alike of Church and State, and the election precinct of members of the Commons House of Assembly.

The Church act of 1706, as we have seen, adopted in Carolina the names of the parishes in Barbadoes, and in 1712, the care of the poor, which under Archdale's act of 1695 had been committed to overseers, was put under the charge of the vestries and churchwardens — a legitimate charge in their ecclesiastical capacity. The Assembly of this year went further and adopted the parish electoral system of Barbadoes as the model of the government of this colony. The act which accomplished this was entitled " An act to keep inviolate and preserve the freedom of Elections and appoint who shall be deemed and adjudged capable of choosing or being chosen Members of the Commons House of Assembly."

The reasons assigned in the preamble for its enactment were that the greatest part of the inhabitants lived at considerable distance from the stated places of election, whereby they were at great expense of time and money, besides other hazards, in choosing members of the Commons House of Assembly ; and as the counties of the province were now divided into distinct parishes, elections might be managed in them so as, in a great measure, to avoid these evils. Its principal features were as follows : — Elections were to be held in each parish to continue for but two days, beginning at sunrise each day and ending at sunset.

These elections were to be managed by the churchwardens, who were to make publication of the writs, and, at the closing of the polls, were to put all the votes, which were to be " delivered in and rolled up by the electors, into some box, glass or paper, sealed with the seals of any two or more of the electors present," and, upon the opening of the polls the second day, were to be unsealed, in order to proceed to the election. To prevent persons voting twice at the same election, electors were to be enrolled ; their names were to be fairly entered in a book or roll provided by the church wardens ; and if in voting two or more papers were found rolled up together, or more persons' names found written on any paper than ought to be voted for, such papers were not to be counted.

It was especially provided that the elector should not be obliged to subscribe his name to the voting paper or ballot, which seems to intimate that some such custom had previously existed ; but of this we have no other information. The church wardens, managers of elections, were, within seven days, to give public notice at the church door, or some other public place in the parish, of the result of the election ; and every one chosen was required under a penalty of £100 currency to serve.

The members of the House of Commons were thus ap portioned to the parishes : to St. Philip's, Charles Town, four ; Christ Church two ; St. John's three ; St. An drew's four ; St. James, Goose Creek, three ; and as, said the act, the limits of the parishes of St. Thomas and St. Dennis were not yet clearly ascertained, " the said parish of St. Dennis lying in the midst of the bounds, and designed only for the use of the French settlements, which at present are mixed with the English," to the parishes of St. Thomas and St. Dennis were allotted three ; to St. Paul's four ; St. Bartholomew's three ; to St. Helena three ; to St. James, on Santee, in Craven County, one. 

Writs of election were to be issued by the Governor and Council, and to be tested forty days before the meet ing of a new House, of which elections public notice was to be given two Sundays before at the door of each parish church or at some other public place in the parish. In case churchwardens should be wanting, the Governor and Council might appoint' other persons to manage an election. The managers of election, churchwardens, or other persons appointed were required to be sworn by a Justice of the Peace faithfully to execute the writ of election. This clause was to be the subject of one of the first differences between the people and the Royal Government forty-six years after. The qualifications of voters prescribed in the act of 1704 were modified.

It was now enacted that every white man, and no other, professing the Christian religion, of the age of twenty-one years, who had been in the province for the space of six months before the date of the writ of election, instead of three, as was sufficient under the act of 1704, and who was worth £30 current money of the province, should be entitled to vote for members of the Commons House of Assembly for the parish wherein he was actually resident. The freehold qualification of 1704 was abolished, but the money qualification increased from £10 to £30. For members of the House the qualifications were that the person should be worth £500 current money in goods and chattels, or possessed of 500 acres of land in the parish wherein he was chosen.

Penalties were presented against those who should violate the freedom of election by menaces, threats, or bribery. A quorum of the House was fixed at sixteen members, nine of whom must concur in the passage of any law ; but seven might meet, " make a house " as it was termed, elect a chairman (in the absence of the Speaker), and adjourn or summon by their Messenger the absent members.