In the 1860 USA election, why was Lincoln absent from the ballot in ten slave states? Why was this allowed? Was this vote suppression?

This “broadside” or handbill showed the the Southern Democratic ticket of 1860 in Virginia — note the list of electors, who were prominent men in their communities. On the other hand, there were no Republican electors in ten of eleven Southern states, Virginia being the only exception. (But I can’t find a handbill for them!)

The Republican Party was quite new, having been founded only six years before, in 1854. It was specifically an anti-slavery party. The 1860 platform rather grudgingly acknowledged the legality of slavery in the states where it existed. But it strongly opposed any extension of slavery into the territories, and furiously denounced enforcement of the fugitive slave laws.

This was not a platform calculated to win support in the South.

The Republican Party essentially did not exist in the South. No committee, no followers, no nothing, in the Southern states.

Keep in mind that, then and now, you don’t vote for the party nominees, but for their electors in your state. In 1860, there were no Republican committees in southern states to nominate electors for the nominee. There was no one to vote for.

Also, the voting process was different. The secret ballot lay In the future. In many areas, you would step up to the clerk’s table and announce loudly whom you wanted to vote for. Or, you handed in a ballot provided by a political party. Everyone knew whom you voted for. In the Deep South, it would have been a brave man who voted for the Lincoln ticket.

Among the 11 states that later seceded to form the Confederacy, Lincoln received votes only in Virginia, where he got one percent of the total vote. Most of these were cast in the western counties that later became West Virginia. In the great majority of counties in the state, Lincoln got no votes at all. (See the tabulation at https://archive.wvculture.org/history/statehood/1860presidentialvote.html)

The ballot access question is the same today with fringe parties. You might want to vote for the Green Party candidate for president, but if the party didn’t qualify for the ballot in your state, you’re out of luck. All you can do is write in the name of the nominee and hope it gets counted.

In the South in 1860, the Republicans were a fringe party. The Republican Party wasn’t suppressed — it just didn’t exist.