Elector (politics)

“ Equality of representation and the parity of the electors must be maintained or everything that is valuable in our system of government is lost. The qualifications of an elector must be sought in the law, not in the opinions, prejudices, or fears of any class, however powerful. The path of the elector to the ballot box must be free from the ambush of fear and the enticements of fraud ”

“ It will of course be objected that these arguments' derive all their weight from the supposition of an unjust state of the suffrage: that if the opinion of the non-electors is likely to make the elector vote more honestly or more beneficially than he would vote if left to himself, they are more fit to be electors than he is, and ought to have the franchise; that whoever is fit to influence electors is fit to be an elector ”

“ It was then the custom for the candidates in all elections personally to visit every house, whether occupied by a voter or not, to solicit the elector for his vote and the non-elector for his or her influence. ”

“ At every election the votes are more and more the voter's own. It is their minds, far more than their personal circumstances, that now require to be emancipated. They are no longer passive instruments of other men's will—mere organs for putting power into the hands of a controlling oligarchy. The electors themselves are becoming the oligarchy.
"Exactly in proportion as the vote of the elector is determined by his own will, and not by that of somebody who is his master, his position is similar to that of a member of Parliament, and publicity is indispensable. ”

“ They have confounded democratic government with representative government; they have confounded the rights of the people with the qualifications of an elector, which society dispenses for its well understood interest. Where the government is representative, where there exists an intermediary degree of electors, society, which elects them, has essentially the right to determine the conditions of their eligibility. There in one right existing in our Constitution, that of the active citizen, but the function of an elector is not a right. ”

“ Thus the States may determine the qualifications of electors. They may require the elector to be of a certain age—to have had a fixed residence—to be of sane mind and unconvicted of crime,—because these are qualifications or conditions that all citizens, sooner or later, may attain. But to go beyond this, and say to one-half the citizens of the State, notwithstanding you possess all of these qualifications, you shall never vote, is of the very essence of despotism. It is a bill of attainder of the most odious character. ”

“ An American political canvass, when we look through the noise and tinsel that accompanies it, presents a scene of profound interest to the student of government. The theory upon which our Government is builded is that every qualified elector shall have an equal influence at the ballot-box with every other. Our Constitutions do not recognize fractional votes; they do not recognize the right of one man to count one and a half in the determination of public questions. ”

“ Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the Confederate States, shall be appointed an elector. ”

“ The presidents took their seats at a table on which stood a ballot-box and an urn. The secretaries gave to every elector a slip of paper, upon which each one wrote the name of the man whom he proposed as Doge. The forty-one slips of paper were then placed in the urn, and one was drawn out at hazard. If the noble, whose name was written upon the slip, chanced to be an elector, he was required to withdraw. Then each of the electors was at liberty to attack the candidate, to point out defects and recal misdeeds. ”

“ But if any prince elector should be at enmity with any one of his co-electors, and any contention, controversy, or dissension should be going on between them;—notwithstanding this, one shall be bound, under penalty of perjury and loss, for this one time, of his vote in the election, as has been stated above, to escort in said manner the other, or the envoys of the other who shall be sent in said manner to such election. ”

“ The constitution of the country rests on the freely expressed wish of each election. It intends that each elector shall cast his vote freely and willingly as he deems best. If the greatest number of the electors of a country are actually of an opinion, and that, owing to the influence exercised upon them by one or more men, or owing to words they have heard or writings they have read, their opinion changes, there is nothing in the circumstance but what is perfectly legitimate. ”

“ There is nothing in the Constitution to compel an elector to vote for any particular candidate, yet custom is often stronger than law, and the elector who would frustrate the wishes of the people who elected him would be guilty of the basest of political treachery, although no law could punish him. ”

“ Thus our President is chosen by ourselves, directly in practice, for we vote for A as elector only on the condition he will vote for B, our representatives by ourselves immediately, our Senate and judges of law through electors chosen by ourselves. ”

“ Further, in respect of representation, since votes, save those of ignorant and corrupt electors, are given more and more on political grounds, an elector can derive but little consolation from the fact that he is "represented" in Parliament by the candidate whom he did his best to defeat, nor does such an elector, should he take a considerable interest in political work, care to approach the member in any cause; he prefers to seek help of a member of his own party who is the representative of another constituency. ”

“ They must, during these ten days, appear every day at the place of election, that their electors may have an opportunity of forming some judgment from the lineaments and prognostics of their countenance. A few days before the election, a little white ball, and as many black ones as with the white one will equal the number of candidates, are given to each elector. ”

“ By the plan I propose, every elector would have the option of voting for the one British subject who best represented his opinions, and to whom he was most willing to entrust the power of judging for him on subjects on which his opinions were not yet formed. ”

“ Who are to be the electors of the representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor; not the learned, more than the ignorant; not the heirs of distinguished families, more than the children of obscurity and unpropitious fortune. [188] The electors are to be the body of the people of the United States, jealous of their rights, and accustomed to the exercise of their power. ”

“ Each member of this truly popular assembly will be chosen by about six thousand electors, by the poor as well as the rich. No decayed or venal borough will have an unjust share in their determinations—no old Sarum will send thither a representative by the voice of a single elector.35 As we shall have no royal ministers to purchase votes, so we shall have no votes for sale; for the suffrages of six thousand enlightened and independent freemen are above all price. ”

“ For the elector, being held politically responsible for the conduct of the candidate for whom his vote was cast, and for all the evils resulting from mal-administration, would soon learn that to be faithful is not less important than to be wise, and that his political interest was identified with the well-being of the country. ”

“ The ballot will of course prevent me or any other man from knowing how an elector may vote;—but I beg to assure the electors generally that should they think fit to return a member pledged to oppose the Government of which I form a part, it would not in any way change my cordial feelings towards the town. I may perhaps be allowed to add that, in my opinion, no elector can do his duty except by voting for the candidate whom he thinks best qualified to serve the country. ”

“ We have now arrived at a point when another step is due in the evolution of the people's liberties, when an individual elector should obtain a greater freedom of choice and therefore a more intimate relation to national affairs. [13] Further, the smooth working of democratic institutions requires that no section of the electors should be permanently divorced from the governing body. ”

“ The electors were meant to exercise a perfect freedom of choice, and there are instances in early years of electors voting for personal friends of the opposite party. It was originally provided that each elector was to name two persons, without specifying which was to be president or vice-president. When the votes were counted, the highest name on the list, if it had a majority of all the votes, obtained the presidency, and the next highest became vice-president. ”

“ The Second Censor;
this list or schedule consists of six magistracies, and to every magistracy there are to be four competitors; that is, in all four-and-twenty competitors proposed to the house. They that are to propose the competitors are called electors, and no elector can propose above one competitor: wherefore for the proposing of four-and-twenty competitors you must have four-and-twenty electors; and whereas the ballot consists of a lot and of a suffrage, the lot is for no other use than for the designation of electors; and he that draws a gold ball at the middle urn is an elector. ”

“ New electors, who had never known the responsibility of voting, would not soon acquire the sense of it Mr. Mill thought it conduced to manliness for an elector to act in despite of his interest or resentment of his neighbours, his employer, his landlord, or his priest, when his vote became known. At every election there were martyrs on both sides ”

“ The Elector of the Palatinate might come and wait on both their Majesties; these might visit the electors; the last electoral sitting might be attended for the despatch of business in arrear, and the renewal of the electoral union,—nothing could call me forth from my passionate solitude. I let the bells ring for the rejoicings, the emperor repair to the Capuchin Church, the electors and emperor depart, without on that account moving one step from my chamber. ”

“ The elector, in practice, is a mere agent or scribe. He records and executes the will of the nominating convention of the party to which he belongs, in which the real power of selection is in fact lodged. In these conventions members of Congress, and holders of National office, take frequently an active and influential share. It is remarkable, however, how often the nominating conventions have discarded the candidates who were favored by the holders of executive office or the two Houses of Congress. ”

“ One single elector, who is not troubled by too tender a conscience, may even now vitiate a whole election; to say nothing of the painful position in which an elector is placed, if he has to vote against a personal friend or a member of his own college, particularly when the feeling that it is dishonourable to disclose the vote of each elector is no longer strong enough to protect the best interests of the University. ”

“ Can they, without a most manifest violation of the Constitution, alter the qualifications of the electors? The power over the manner of elections does not include that of saying who shall vote:—the Constitution expressly says that the qualifications which entitle a man to vote for a state representative. It is, then, clearly and indubitably fixed and determined who shall be the electors; and the power over the manner only enables them to determine how these electors shall elect—whether by ballot, or by vote, or by any other way. ”

“ But when an unknown person, not certified in unmistakable terms by some high authority, is elected for the first time, the elector can not be expected not to make conformity to his own sentiments the primary requisite. ”

“ The objection is that the intermediate electors are generally too few to span the interval between voters and candidates, and that they choose representatives not of better quality, but of different politics. ”

“ All who are fit to influence electors are not, for that reason, fit to be themselves electors. This last is a much greater power than the former, and those may be ripe for the minor political function who could not as yet be safely trusted with the superior. ”

“ By voting for men, as electors, who are pledged to principle, and not to this or that individual, the design of the Constitution will be answered. It is certainly as safe for the country to rely on the discretion and judgment of electors, acting under the responsibility of a Constitutional obligation, as it is to rely on the members of a Convention to nominate a candidate, and, therefore, I am willing to rely on the honesty and discretion of the electors, if any should be elected on the Union ticket, so to act and vote, if they can, to defeat Lincoln. ”

“ The framers of the Constitution, bewildered by many proposals and unable to agree on any single plan, had committed the choice of presidential electors to the discretion of the state legislatures. The legislatures, in turn, greedy of power, early adopted the practice of choosing the electors themselves ”

“ But each state shall have at least one representative. The electors will reside, widely dispersed, over an extensive country. Cabal and corruption will be as impracticable, as, on such occasions, human institutions, can render them. The will of freemen, thus circumstanced, will give the fiat. The purity of election thus obtained, will amply compensate for the supposed defect of representation; and the members, thus chosen, will be most apt to harmonize in their proceedings, with the general interests, feelings, and sentiments of the people. ”