Voters now use electronic means to cast their paper ballots on election day, but in past years paper ballots, wooden boxes and sealing wax served the same purpose.
A remnant of those earlier days remains as an old ballot box was found this week at the Forest County Historical Society. The box contained filled-out ballots from the 1976 Democratic primary in Pennsylvania.
The battered box was used for many years in Forest County.
The instruction are dated from the April 27, 1976, Democratic primary.
There were eight candidates for president on the Democrat ballot that year in Pennsylvania – winner Jimmy Carter, George Wallace, Ellen McCormack, Morris Udall, Fred Harris, Birch Bayh, Henry Jackson and Milton Shapp.
Carter went on to earn the Democratic nomination that summer, and he defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford in the November general election to become president.
The official ballots for the Democratic primary in 1976 that are in the old box are from the Jenks Township precinct.
Jean Ann Hitchcock, the Forest County director of elections, said she was sure the ballots would have been counted for the election at that time and weren’t lost.