Before the imposition of the secret ballot and greater regulation of elections, alcohol played a part in the public festivals that were American election days, as George Caleb Bingham acknowledges in his famous painting. Some accounts of nineteenth-century elections focus only on public drunkenness.  Another painter, John Krimmel, chose as his subject an election conducted under the alternative “ticket” style: “Election Scene, State House in Philadelphia,” (1815). That painting overflows with illustrations of political irresponsibility arising from alcohol. George Caleb Bingham’s 1852 painting is far more even-handed, not ignoring the issue, but contrasting three depictions of alcoholic consumption, in this case hard cider, with a much greater number of earnestly conversing voters.