2. Irish Catholics and Protestant Scottish. Many of the newcomers were Irish (but they still remained a minority). Prots and Catholics were enemies.
3. Open voting (done verbally) in front of representatives of the candidates. A running count of results was available.
Voting done on two days to allow election officials to travel to various polls across the Island. The benefit to the candidate is that at the end of the first day, if they were down, they could put a concerted effort into drumming up support.
4. Election brawl of 1846: Little and MacDougall were declared winners John Roach Bourke was charged instigating disturbances at the election and he failed to do his duty of prevented breaches of the peace and intimidation. Bourke had his denial published in the Royal Gazette.
In Jan. 1847 Grand Jury brought a presentment (written notice) against Bourke and others for riot and assault at the polls.
Little and MacDougall were sworn in as members 2 days later Douse and MacLean asked that the election be declared void (matter was considered for 10 days).
Feb. 13th, committee brought forth its report declaring the election void b/c violence and intimidation were used to influence the vote, but found Little and MacDougall not to be guilty of influencing the happenings.
Suspicious activity: a returning officer allowed 76 votes to be cast for someone who was not a running candidate.
Outcome: election was voided by-election was called for March 1, 1847
5. It usually took weeks-months for government related events to appear in the newspaper b/c political reporting consisted mainly of verbatim debates all speeches had to be typed (took a long time).
6. Election riot of 1847: see History Frame
7. The events may be biased, as the eyewitness accounts are primarily from the Scots’ point of view and there are no known Irish documents (which would give a more balanced view).
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