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Poll books
Linked with electoral
registers, poll books list the individuals who voted in elections and identify the the
candidate for whom they voted. They are available for Halifax
from the 1830s until the 1872 Secret Ballot Act. In addition,
the Local Studies Collection located in the Central Library,
Halifax, West Yorkshire, holds a few a few pre 1832 poll books
for Yorkshire.
Layout
The details supplied and the layout of poll
books vary from election to election. At their most detailed,
however, they include:
- The full names of voters (often in alphabetical
order)
- Their occupation/status.
- Their place of residence.
- The number of the candidate for whom
they voted.
Use and limitations
As well as supplying the sort of information
provided by electoral registers, poll books enable the researcher to:
- plot the voting patterns (e.g. in occupational
and geographical terms)
- work out the economic structure of
the town by looking at the occupations of 'principal inhabitants'.
The main limitations are that:
- They exclude many individuals because
they are not eligible to vote.
- They sometimes exclude occupations.
Nevertheless, poll books, especially when used in conjunction
with each other, are enormously useful and supplement manuscript
and other printed sources.
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