Election day

“ Everybody knows that Election day anywhere creates an unusual excitement; but it is in the large cities where partisan feeling runs the highest, where strongest and strangest influences are brought into requisition to influence the election of favorite candidates; where the people are made to act as blind confederates in a skilful scheme of party trickery and political legerdemain, which places one man into office, and defeats the expectations of another, whom they fully expected to see invested with the imaginary robes of municipal power. ”

“ We're coming off of an election week in which millions of American exercised one of the most important rights that we possess, the right to vote. As in every election, I hope all eligible Americans went to the polls. But, after looking at what happened over the last two presidential elections, I have some other hopes for Election Day. I hope all voters who got to the polls found voting machines that worked, that there were nonpartisan poll workers who understood the law and enforced it without bias. ”

“ But what does election day do for him? On that day he is as good as anybody. He goes to the polls side by side with the first man in the land, and he rides in a carriage there, if he is too drunk to walk, and he can vote the first man in the line, if he chooses. The richest man in the country must walk behind him and wait for his turn. He drops his ballot and he is cooled off. ”

“ And I shall never forget the lively scene that I witnessed on the election day! The whole town had been placarded by bills for the one candidate or the other, throngs of people crowded the streets, absorbed with that one great topic, bevies of fair ladies drove about, canvassing for Mr. Evelyn or Mr. Ghose, and the conservative and the liberal head offices were crowded with men, busy from morn to dewy eve! The candidates themselves, who had been canvassing since a few days before, drove about the streets the best part of this eventful day. ”

“ The campaigns increase in intensity week after week and expire, or explode, in a blaze of glory the night before election, at which time the committees of the leading parties set forth the reasons that make each side certain of success. On election day a hush spreads over the land and the voters wend their way to the polling places, where each voter is permitted to register a sovereign's will. ”

“ Voting is a precious right that for two centuries Americans have fought and died to protect. Let's all honor that sacrifice this election day. Whether you're Republican, Democrat, or Independent, circle November 4th on your calendar and then show that you care about America's future and get out and vote. ”

“ The United States was founded on the belief that all men are created equal. Every election day, millions of Americans of all races, religions, and backgrounds step into voting booths throughout the Nation. Whether they are rich or poor, old or young, each of them has an equal share in choosing the path that our country will take. And every ballot they cast is a reminder that our founding principles are alive and well. ”

“ The Presidential election, which takes place every fourth year, is the most feverish phase of the feverish American life. The whole nation becomes delirious. Several months before the day fixed, every mind is preoccupied with but one thing, the election. The newspapers are full of it; conversation has no other subject. Passions are let loose; intrigues are on foot; the most odious calumnies are circulated; men stop at nothing that may give the victory to their party. ”

“ Tomorrow is the day of the yearly election of the Well-Doer. Tomorrow we shall again hand over to our Well-Doer the keys to the impregnable fortress of our happiness. Certainly this in no way resembles the disorderly, unorganized election days of the ancients, on which (it seems so funny!) they did not even know in advance the result of the election. To build a state on some non-discountable contingencies, to build blindly—what could be more nonsensical? Yet centuries had to pass before this was understood! ”

“ With which injunction the candidate departed to address the Mohawks, an independent political organization in the Second Ward, which was made up of thinking men who never indorsed a candidate without knowing why, and rarely before three o'clock of the afternoon of election day at that, by whom he was received with cheers and back-slapping and button-holings which convinced him that he was the most popular man on earth, though on election day—but election day has yet to be described. ”

“ The General Elections are dreadful times; nothing but canvassing goes on night after night for weeks beforehand. Conversation is entirely [34] restricted to the coming event—if you mention a word about anything apart from it, you are considered absolutely profane, and are treated as a pariah for the next few days.
It is interesting, I admit, and the election day itself is positively exciting. You cannot help catching the malady at times. I remember once, when I was very little, and walking out with my governess, tearing down a Liberal bill, in spite of all she said to the contrary. ”

“ It was supposed that the electors in their December meeting would calmly discuss the merits of the ablest men in the country and make an intelligent selection for the presidency. The electors were to use their own judgment, and it was not necessary that all the electors chosen in one state should vote for the same candidate. The people on election day were not supposed to be voting for a president but for presidential electors. ”

“ A hundred years ago a contested election might last in any constituency for three or four weeks of excitement and horseplay, during which the voters were every day further removed from the state of mind in which serious thought on the probable results of their votes was possible. Now no election may last more than one day, and we may soon enact that all the polling for a general election shall take place on the same day. ”

“ When the voters go to the polls on election day to vote for President and Vice President every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November they really cast their ballots for the electors who were nominated at the state convention. The names of the state electors of each party are printed on the ballots under the party name. The ones receiving the most votes are elected, and are morally bound to vote for the candidate of the party that elected them. ”

“ Election day was one of continuous whiskey drinking and brawling so that decent citizens were forced to remain within doors. The returns from the different wards were announced as fast as the votes were counted. It was therefore the custom to hold open certain wards until the votes of all the others were known. Then whatever tickets were lacking to secure the proper election were counted from the packed ballot box in the sure ward. In this manner five hundred votes were once returned from Crystal Springs precinct where there dwelt not over thirty voters. ”

“ The American people paid but little attention to the details of the real Presidential election, and for a very significant reason: although you and all the members of the Electoral Colleges had absolute constitutional and technical right to vote for any body you chose, and although no written law directed or suggested your choice, yet every American knew that the august sovereign of this Republic—the 9,000,000 of voters—on an early day in November had pronounced the omnipotent fiat of choice ”

“ There is no shouting; there is no fighting; at eight o’clock in the morning an office is thrown open; a policeman stands outside to direct the voters; almost everybody in the electoral district records his vote. He receives a paper with the names of the candidates upon it; he marks the name for which he votes, folds the paper, and gives it to a clerk, who in his presence drops the paper into a box. At the close of the day the voting papers are opened and counted. The election is over. There has been no bribery, nobody knows how any man has voted, and the whole business is complete in one day. ”

“ The ballot itself is a standing protest against inquiry into motives. It enjoins and protects the secret of the hand; much more should it enjoin and protect the secret of the heart. And as for adding [Pg 15] votes, on the supposition that they might or would have been cast but for untoward circumstances, no plausible reason can be given for it which would not apply to any case of disappointment in the fullness of the vote. A rainy day of election costs one of the parties thousands of ballots. If it happen to rain on that day, why not order a new election in better weather ”

“ When it is remembered that at no period in the country's history has the long political contest which customarily precedes the day of the national election been waged with greater fervor and intensity, it is a subject of general congratulation that after the controversy at the polls was over, and while the slight preponderance by which the issue had been determined was as yet unascertained, the public peace suffered no disturbance, but the people everywhere patiently and quietly awaited the result. ”

“ Polling is completed within an individual constituency during the course of a single day, the hours being from eight o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock in the evening, but under the arrangements that have been described it falls out that a national election is extended invariably through a period of more than two weeks. The system operates, of course, to the advantage of the plural voter, who is enabled to present himself at the polls from day to day in widely separated constituencies. For the convenience of voters constituencies are divided regularly into districts, or precincts. ”

“ There is a glorious and detailed account of the slow progress of an election before the Reform Bill began to cut the rottenness from the heart of the Parliamentary borough; when polling extended beyond one day, and alternate applications of threats and spirits brought the free and independent electors one by one to the presence of the polling clerk, when the ladies openly assisted their candidates with polite bribery and the scene closed in universal intoxication. ”

“ In this, there is no mincing of the matter in the least,—the suffrage is openly asked, and as openly promised or refused; but it is only among the more respectable class, that this ceremonial is sufficient,—the others "thank their God they have a vote to sell." On the third day, the election commenced. Two temporary covered buildings had been erected near each other in the principal part of the town, in one of which were the hustings and the polls, and the other was employed for the sittings of a species of court, where the qualifications of suspected voters were tried. ”

“ An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood: a mud bath for every soul concerned in it. ”

“ That Congress and the states understood that this election by the people was entirely distinct from legislative action is shown by the provision of the amendment giving the Legislature of any state the power to authorize the executive to make temporary appointments until the people shall fill the vacancies by election. It was never suggested, so far as we are aware, that the purpose of making the office of Senator elective by the people could be accomplished by a referendum vote. ”

“ The electoral count law provides that if a contest or challenge in a state to the election or appointment of presidential electors is resolved in that state by an established procedure before the sixth day prior to the meeting of the electors, that such determination shall be “conclusive” and shall “govern” when Congress counts the electoral votes as directed in the Twelfth Amendment. ”

“ Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. ”

“ For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle, as we did in the O.J. trial; or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina; or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day, and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. ”

“ If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser, in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people. ”

“ Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters. ”