Partly printed state election return cover addressed to Clerk of the Court of Auglaize County, Ohio. With New Albany, [Ohio], cancel on [12 October] 1864. With two red three-cent stamps. 9 x 3 15/16 in. 

A return cover for the Ohio state election of 1864. This would have originally contained a tally-sheet of votes to be delivered to the Auglaize County Clerk of the Court.

The 1864 election was the first time citizens, primarily soldiers, could send in absentee votes. Union soldiers were mostly stationed in Atlanta, and while some were given leave to return home to vote, those who were unable to could mail theirs in. Since this was for the state election, men would have been voting for congressional representatives and the secretary of state. But for the presidential election the next month, according to the Smithsonian, of the one million soldiers in the Civil War, 150,000 opted to vote in absentia. And of those 150,000, 78% voted for Lincoln, greatly impacting his odds of returning for a second term. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs] [Postal History, Covers, Philately] [Abraham Lincoln, Politics, Mary Todd Lincoln, 1860 Election, Election of 1860, 1864 Election, Election of 1864,  Lincoln Assassination, John Wilkes Booth]

Sealed flap but sliced open on left side.