Direct Primaries in Missouri

Missourians have been conservative in their political ideas, and have been slow to adopt innovations in their political institutions The first Constitution of 1820 incorporated those political ideas and institutions which had been tested by the older states, and excluded the new democratic doctrines of popular election and rotation in office, which were being agitated, and were just beginning to secure recognition in some of the states. The heads of the state administrative departments did not become elective until 1851, while the judiciary held during good behavior until 1849, and were not chosen by popular election until 1851. While the system of voting by ballot was introduced during the Territorial Period, it was abandoned in 1822 in favor of the viva voce system, which continued to be the general method until 1863, though the ballot system had been introduced in a number of counties by special acts beginning in 1845. Even to this day there is retained the provision for numbering a ballot to correspond with the number opposite the name of the voter in the poll book, so that it is impossible to have perfect secrecy of the ballot

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