This painting by George Caleb Bingham is the only depiction we have of an American election being conducted viva voce (by voice). Like almost all elections before the adoption of the secret ballot in the 1890s, it was conducted out-of-doors, in public, with citizens voting, one by one, standing before family, neighbors and spectators. The County Election brings alive that process from the vantage point of Bingham, artist-politician who stood for election to the Missouri state legislature in exactly this type of election in 1846 and 1848. The setting of these actual events was the Saline County Courthouse in Arrow Rock, not far from the small Bingham family farm.

 

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