The laws providing that no pre-election promises shall be made, Financial and that no one may give or receive money for personal assistance protection. in the campaign, have a salutary effect. It is a great protection to the candidate to say that he cannot give money or make promises for any assistance. It relieves him of the incubus of the ward heeler and the political grafter. . . . chosen on the non The ability and character of the men who are finally successful Able men in the election is very good. Only men of superior ability and fair repute, who are able to contend before 20,000 voters and undergo partisan their scrutiny, can be successful. . . . 1 ballot. To secure the adequate representation of the majority, the preferential voting 207. Adequate representation of the majority 1 How can we make certain that an individual nominated or elected represents a majority of those voting? When there are only two candidates, the one receiving the larger number of votes receives both a plurality and a majority, but when there are several candidates, the victor may have received the sanction of only a small minority of those voting. This means that the chosen official represents a minority, and that the majority are not adequately repre- forward. sented. To remedy this defect, several devices have been suggested, among them the preferential ballot. How one type of preferential voting works is explained by Mr. Reginald Mott Hull in the following passage: device has been put proposed plan in Cambridge cluded provision for a short and In the method of voting proposed in Cambridge [Mass.,] any The fifty voters could secure a place on the final ballot for the name of their nominee for any elective office. Election is by the city at large, to a highly paid, conspicuous position for a three year term, with no party designation, no primary, and, after the first year, with never more than two offices in the city council to be filled annually. non-partisan Every candidate stands on his own feet, no boss dictates who shall, or shall not run. The man who can survive this test must win on his own merit, and not merely drift into office on a party label unknown to most of his fellow citizens. The preferential ballot enables the voters of the city in one elec 1 From the National Municipal Review, Vol. 1, No. 3, July, 1912. Reginald Mott Hull, "Preferential Voting and How It Works"; pp. 387-388. ballot. The preferential ballot makes possible a ma jority choice, or at least a legitimate plurality choice. How the preferential ballot is arranged. How the successful candidate is ascertained. Evils of the present system. tion to arrive at a majority choice irrespective of the number of candidates, provided there is anyone in the list of candidates acceptable to a majority. If there is none such in the list, it is obviously not the fault of the preferential ballot. Besides, we get the next best thing and the only thing possible with such a list of nominees, a legitimate plurality election; i.e. a plurality election based on a full and free expression of choice by the voters in place of the customary one in which a voter with only one choice must vote against all the candidates but one, though there may be several excellent names in the list. The modern preferential ballot is arranged like the ordinary Australian ballot, except that instead of one column for crosses there are three provided, headed “first choice," "second choice," and "other choices" respectively. The voter places a cross in the first column after the name of his first choice for that office, and in the second column after the name of his second choice. If there are others acceptable, and still others quite undesirable, the voter will place a cross after all the other acceptable men in the third column. This means that he not only has the opportunity to vote for all the good men, but also thus against all the undesirable ones. If some candidate polls a majority of all the votes in the first column, he is elected. Failing that, the first and second choice votes are added together. The candidate, now highest, wins, if he has a majority. If no man can command a majority of the firsts and seconds, meaning that there are a number of nearly equally desirable candidates, the choices in the third column are now added in. The highest man then wins whether he has a majority or not - for he is the man on the list behind whom the greatest number of voters are found to have gathered after each has specified all whom he cares to support. This will always result in a majority election, unless the list of candidates happens to contain no one on whom the majority can freely and automatically unite. . . Under our present system the voter can vote for but one man whatever the number of good or bad candidates, and the chances are that the undesirable man will win, because the machine can prevent the scattering of its vote among a lot of nominees, whereas, if the citizens had a real opportunity for free expression, a large majority might have gotten together behind some independent candidate. For instance, one man was elected mayor of a Massachusetts An example. city about a year ago by 1800 votes out of 7200; the 5400 other votes being divided nearly equally among four other candidates. The primary partisan system to prevent such mishaps has to choke off, in the interest of harmony, desirable candidates, in order not to risk a party defeat through a split ticket. . . . erential voting improves upon the present The present system necessitates the expenditure of large sums How prefof money and a great deal of time and energy to be nominated or elected. Under the preferential system no money or time need be expended in campaigns. A man can be elected on his reputation as is shown by the fact that the president of the Chamber of Commerce was elected to the Spokane city council during his absence from the city. ... 208. Adequate representation of the minority 1 system. sentation Related to the question of making sure that successful candidates The aderepresent a majority of those voting, is the problem of the adequate quate reprerepresentation of the minority. To meet this last-named difficulty of the political reformers have put forth various plans for proportional minority. representation. These are designed to give minority parties representation in proportion to their voting strength. One of the earliest and best known forms of proportional representation is that applied in Illinois in 1870 in the effort to give minority parties adequate representation in the state legislature. The following passage describes the plan in use in Illinois: of the Illinois plan of proportional representation. [The law provides] that "in all elections of representatives afore- Framework said, each qualified voter may cast as many votes for one candidate as there are representatives to be elected, or may distribute the same, or equal parts thereof, among the candidates, as he shall see fit; and the candidates highest in votes shall be declared elected." Under this plan it is of course true that any party having more than one-fourth of the votes in a senatorial district may elect one of the 1 From the Illinois Legislative Reference Bureau, Constitutional Convention Bulletins. Springfield, Ill., 1920; pp. 538-542. Importance of each party gauging its own strength. The device secured proportional representation for the two principal parties as well as for the Progressive Party in 1912, three candidates to the House of Representatives, if all of the votes of that party are concentrated upon one such candidate. A party having less than three-fourths of the votes in a senatorial district cannot elect all three of the representatives from the district if any other party having at least one-fourth of the votes has concentrated upon a single candidate; and if a party having a distinct majority, but less than three-fourths of the votes in a senatorial district, scatters its votes among three candidates, a minority party may be able to elect two candidates by a concentration of its votes upon the two. The cumulative system therefore makes it necessary that each party gauge its strength in advance of the election, and concentrate its votes in the election upon the number of candidates it thinks possible to elect. A minority party able actually to elect but one candidate may lose that one if it places two or three candidates in the field. The majority party able to elect two may lose one of the two if it places three in the field, and there have been some instances of a party failing to obtain under the cumulative system a representation in proportion to its strength, because of its placing too many candidates in the field. On the other hand, a party may fail of obtaining representation of its strength under the cumulative system because of its failure to have as many candidates as it could actually elect. That is, a party which has been a minority party in a district may place but one candidate in the field for representative, and may as the result of the particular election become the majority party with a possibility of electing two members of the house, if it had nominated two candidates. With respect to the operation of the cumulative system, it may perhaps be said that the system has in the main obtained a representation for the two principal parties in the state in very close proportion to the actual votes cast by these parties, and also that the system obtained for the Progressive party in 1912 a strength in the House of Representatives proportionate to the vote cast by that party. However, the cumulative system has not obtained much of actual representation for weak minority parties, or for minority parties whose strength may be relatively great, but whose vote may be scattered somewhat evenly throughout all of the senatorial districts in the state. The Progressive party in 1912 cast a large vote, but its strength was much greater in some senatorial districts than in others. The Progressive party was, therefore, able in 1912 to elect a number of representatives proportional to the popular vote which was cast for representatives. In 1914, however, the actual vote cast for representatives by the Progressive party was much less than in 1912, and with this lesser vote the Progressive party obtained a strength in the House of Representatives disproportionately low as compared with the popular vote. parties have from lack tation. The same situation has presented itself with respect to other but small minority parties, which have not obtained such a strength as to be- minority come substantially the chief minority party in particular districts. continued The cumulative system in its operation has been in no way a scheme to suffer of proportional representation except as between the two principal of represenparties. . . . Perhaps the main purpose in the adoption of cumulative voting in 1870 was to do away with the distinctly sectional representation in the Illinois General Assembly, and this purpose has been accomplished. . . . However, small parties have as a rule suffered from lack of representation and the cumulative system has been of little or no aid to them. length of the ballot and the result. The wave of democracy which swept over the country in the last Increasing century had the effect of increasing the number of elective offices in American government. A greatly lengthened ballot, together with the great frequency of elections, has made it impossible for the average voter to exercise proper judgment at the polls. Fairly representative of conditions throughout the United States is the case of Ohio, in which the long ballot was formerly a great evil. In The case 1911 a Short Ballot Committee reported upon conditions in Ohio as follows: of Ohio: This unsatisfactory and undemocratic development of our election At first appliances has been one of gradual growth. The first constitution few officials of Ohio, adopted in 1802, incorporated the principle of comparatively elective, 1 From the Municipal Association of Cleveland for the Short Ballot Movement in Ohio, Report. Cleveland, Ohio, 1911; pp. 6-10, were |