History of Registration and the Secret Ballot

From an article written by John Fund How to Steal an Election

As the century closed, however, fraud gradually began to diminish, as popular disgust with vote rigging spurred reforms. States began to require voters to register before Election Day. In Massachusetts, Richard Henry Dana III, son of the author of the classic Two Years Before the Mast, persuaded the Massachusetts legislature to adopt the "Australian" ballot—a government-printed ballot that would list all candidates and that voters would cast in secret in a booth. It became a model for reformers elsewhere. As changes spread to other states, voter "turnout" fell precipitously. Historians Gary Cox and Morgan Krause point out that turnout in New York State elections dropped some 15 percent after the anti-fraud measures took effect.