Historical Context | ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐ป๐ฑ๐๐จ๐ฟ๐ ๐๐ฑ๐๐ป๐ฏ๐ฟ๐ ๐ป
In the late nineteenth century it was common for political parties to print tickets and distribute these at polling places. These tickets served as a reminder of the candidates for whom partisans should vote. Such tickets were printed by Utahโs People Party in Salt Lake City elections of 1874 and 1876. Curiously, the tickets included text in the Deseret Alphabet. On the 1874 ticket, the Deseret text is simply ๐น๐จ๐น๐โ๐ ๐ป๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฏ๐ป โPeople's Ticketโ. On the two 1876 tickets (February and August), however, the ticket contains baffling sequences of Deseret characters that do not, on their face, add up to meaningful words of English.
The text was viewed with suspicion by Gentile members of the community. They believed that the tickets contained hidden messages for voters relayed by the Mormon hierarchy. It is hard to discern how much of this concern was genuine and how much was manufactured (or even seriously believed) by the local anti-Mormon press. In any event, it seems unlikely that the tickets contained an actual message, even a ciphered one.
