817.00 Woodward Electoral Mission/171: Telegram
The Minister in Nicaragua (Hanna) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 21—7 a.m.]
178. From Admiral Woodward.
“With regard to third paragraph of State Department’s 93 of September 17, 5 p.m., the following information is submitted:
First, the Nicaraguan Constitution, articles 21 and 22 (latter erroneously cited as 28 in your despatch), provide ‘the active vote is personal and cannot be delegated. The suffrage shall be direct and public. The elections shall be held at the time and in the manner prescribed by law.’ The extra electoral law, by article 55, provides that the elections shall be free and direct. To preserve the freedom of electoral and to enable the electors to vote without being subjected to duress and the influence of employers, party workers and others and to apply the provisions of the electoral law, the National Board of Elections on 6 September adopted a resolution providing as follows:
‘No officer of election shall disclose to any person the name of any candidate for whom any elector has voted; no person shall show his ballot after it is marked to any person in such a way as to reveal the contents thereof, or the party, or the names of the candidate or candidates for whom he has marked his ballot; no person, except a member of the electoral directorio, shall receive from any voter a ballot prepared by such voter, or examine such ballot, or solicit the voter to show the same; no person shall ask another at the polling place for whom he intends to vote; no voter shall place any mark upon his ballot by which it may afterwards be identified as the one voted by him; and no person in a polling place shall observe the marking of a ballot by a voter, except in the cases contemplated in and pursuant to the manner specified in article 61, section C, of the electoral law.’
This last provision relates to the marking of a ballot for an elector by a watcher when the elector cannot read and write or is unable to mark his ballot. The resolution further made an exception where there is a challenge based on auto de prision in order that the ballot may be temporarily identified pending determination of challenge. These regulations by which the secrecy of the ballot is preserved are, in my opinion, entirely constitutional and are in line with the similar views of General McCoy in 1928 as shown in his report, second section, page 12, wherein he says ‘the voter is, in turn, afforded due security for the marking of his ballot without interference and without such disclosure of his individual vote as might subject him [Page 825] to being called to account by party workers or others desirous of limiting his exercise of the fullest electoral freedom.’
In my opinion, the elector should not be required to disclose his vote involuntarily. There is nothing in the resolution of the National Board which prohibits the voter from stating who he has or will vote for or the questioning of the voter in that regard at places away from polls. But the ballot itself is secret.
Second, both the Liberal and Conservative members of the National Board voted for the adoption of this resolution and neither have filed any protest since its adoption. No person in Nicaragua, officially or otherwise, has notified me or the National Board that he objects to or questions the legality of the provisions of the resolution adopted by said board. Comments of Government controlled press show either bias or misconception of the meaning of the resolution. They confuse public suffrage and the secrecy of the ballot. The conduct of the proceedings at a polling place is entirely open and public but the ballot is private to the elector. (Signed) Woodward.”