A Bold Vote for Privacy

Is the secret ballot a constitutional myth? A University of Michigan pre-law student, Susan R. Van Hattum, 21 , has put the issue to a test by refusing a judge's order to identify the candidate for whom she voted in last April's mayoral election in Ann Arbor. Van Hattum was among 20 men and wom en who, unknown to them, lived just outside city limits and should not have voted at all. Any one of those 20 votes could have proved decisive, since Democrat James Wheeler defeated Republican Louis Belcher by a margin of one (10,660 to 10,659). County Judge James Kelley thought he could establish the winner of the election simply by asking the 20 illegal voters how they cast their ballots. The first 15 called before him dutifully answered, but when Van Hattum appeared she tartly replied: "I have been told all my life that my vote was a private thing and that I'd never have to tell anybody how I voted." The judge then told her she would have to go to jail for contempt, and a bailiff handcuffed her and held her in a waiting room for the rest of the session. When another illegal voter, Diane Lazinsky, 27, also refused to disclose how she had voted, the judge postponed the case and threatened to jail both women. Michigan's court of appeals last week ordered Judge Kelley to wait while it pondered an American Civil Liberties Union brief defending Van Hattum's position as a "fundamental right." The trouble is that the Constitution no where mentions the key phrase secret ballot.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.