Reform
In the 19th century, there were moves toward reform, which broadly meant ending the over-representation of boroughs with few electors. This political movement had a major success in the Reform Act 1832, which disfranchised the 57 rotten boroughs listed below and redistributed representation in Parliament to new major population centres and to places with significant industries.
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The Ballot Act of 1872 introduced the secret ballot, which greatly hindered patrons from controlling elections by preventing them from knowing how an elector had voted. At the same time, the practice of paying or entertaining voters ("treating") was outlawed, and election expenses fell dramatically.
Read more about this topic: Rotten And Pocket Boroughs
Famous quotes containing the word reform:
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“He reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shot-gun, maybe, but he didn’t know no other way.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)