Electoral system

“ But under the new system it has never happened that the leader of a party has lost his seat at any election, as he may seek his election at the safest district. To men of independent mind and character the new system offers the greater opportunity to maintain their position in the House, for in the election they may, in spite of the opposition of parties, draw their votes from all parts within a large electoral district. It may be said that the larger electoral district we have, the greater opportunity we afford to independent candidates. ”

“ It is, however, sufficient for the purpose of the political organizer to know that a number of the electors will succumb to such influences. The votes of this small section of the electorate can turn the scale at an election, and so long as we adhere to a system under which the whole of the representation allotted to any given constituency is awarded to the party which can secure a bare majority of votes, we must expect to see a progressive degradation of electoral contests. ”

“ The Webbites do not deny the broad facts of the case. Our present electoral system, with our big modern constituencies of thousands of voters, leads to huge turnovers of political power with a relatively small shifting of public opinion. ”

“ If the electoral machinery be adapted to give effect to those principles of organization and leadership which lie at the root of representation, then the character of public opinion will be improved. Representation, in fact, is not only a means of expressing public opinion, but also of guiding, informing, educating, and organizing it. Therefore, the method of election is an all-important factor.
The first and greatest necessity is to counteract the tendency of the people to split up into factions. ”

“ The electoral method has not been chosen to suit the convenience of party organizations; parties have had to adapt themselves to the system of voting. The single transferable vote in accordance with these traditions bases representation upon electors, and preserves to them freedom to vote as they please. ”

“ Each State sends a number of representatives to Congress proportional to its population, and the division into electorates is left to the State. By manipulating the electoral boundaries the party which has a majority in each State is enabled to arrange that the injustice done to itself is a minimum, and that the injustice done to the opposing party is a maximum. ”

“ The district system would be agreeable to the intention of our present constitution, which, in giving to each elector a separate vote, instead of giving to each State a consolidated vote, composed of all its electoral suffrages, clearly intended that each mass of persons entitled to one elector, should have the right of giving one vote, according to their own sense of their own interest. ”

“ The problem of representation in the fourteenth century was to keep the people together in one united party, and to allow them to select their most popular leaders. Surely the problem is different in the nineteenth century. The requirements now are to organize the people into two great parties, and to allow each party separately to elect its most popular leaders. And yet we are still using the same method of election as our forefathers used six centuries ago. Although the conditions have entirely changed, we have not adapted the electoral machinery to the change. ”

“ Such a simple franchise is to be found in manhood suffrage, which would admit of the easy transfer of electors' names from the register of one electoral division to another. The chief objection to this solution, which arises from the fear that the most numerous class in the country may monopolise representation, may be met by linking the adoption of a simple franchise with a system of election which shall give due representation to minorities. ”

“ Moreover, it renders strict party organization even more necessary, since each party must arrange to use its voting resources to the best advantage. Consider the three-seat electorate, for instance. The minority will, if it is wise, nominate two candidates only; and the majority may nominate either two or three. But if the majority does divide its votes among three candidates it runs the risk of securing one only. ”

“ A Change in Electoral Machinery the Key to Reform.—The great mistake made by all writers on electoral reform is that they have failed to recognize that the character of public opinion depends upon the way it is expressed. ”

“ The movement has gone too far to be checked, and the electoral unrest which is so common all over the world will eventually find expression in the best of all electoral systems, which I claim to be effective voting. ”

“ It has been found that to require the electors to designate the persons for whom they vote as the President and Vice-President, respectively, has a tendency to secure a choice by the electoral votes, and therefore to prevent the election from being thrown into the House of Representatives; and it has also been deemed expedient, when the election has devolved on the House of Representatives, to confine the choice of the States to the three highest candidates on the list returned by the electors. ”

“ In addition, population shifts had caused a dated apportionment of seats in the lower house to yield substantial numerical inequality of political influence, even among qualified voters. The towns felt themselves underrepresented, and agitation began for electoral reform. When the charter government failed to respond, popular meetings of those who favored the broader suffrage were held and delegates elected to a convention which met and drafted a state constitution. ”

“ If the independence of the legislature was to be maintained, some form of indirect popular choice was favored. But if the people were to elect, the larger States would have a decided advantage. Here was the old question in another form. The electoral scheme finally adopted was essentially a compromise. In most instances—Mason, of Virginia, said nineteen out of twenty times—it was believed that the electors would so scatter their votes [Pg 35] that no candidate would have a majority; consequently the Senate would make a choice from among the five candidates having the highest votes. ”

“ The indirect election prescribed by the Constitution has therefore become to all intents and purposes a direct one, and the whole machinery of electors is really superfluous. It may, indeed, be said to have become contradictory in itself.
Since the original intention to make an electoral college of the best citizens has been frustrated by the popular spirit of self-determination, the electoral apparatus can have to-day no other significance than to give expression to the voice of the majority. ”

“ A State “goes” Republican or Democratic. The struggle is concentrated in a few doubtful States. To [Pg 68] win or lose them may mean to win or lose the election. It has happened that one candidate has actually received a larger popular vote than his opponent, and yet has not been elected, because the number of votes in the electoral college from the States that gave him a majority was smaller than the number of electoral votes from the other States. There is a movement toward the abolition of the electoral college and direct nomination and direct election of the President by the voters. ”

“ The election must be made by electors capable of choosing wisely, and must supply in those who are elected, men capable of thoroughly comprehending the interests upon which they will have to administrate. These are the two requirements, between which the limits of electoral boundaries should be sought, subject always to the condition of never determining these boundaries in an arbitrary way, so as to break through the habits, and destroy the natural and permanent state of society. ”

“ The primary electors, instead of losing by the change, would gain a real power of indirect election, whereas the apparent power of direct election which at present they possess is an illusion, the reality having been filched from them by the caucus, which is always in the hands of a ring. A wise arrangement of local institutions on the elective principle would of course be the basis of the system, as it is the indispensable training school of the people in self-government. ”

“ This device of prepledged and oath-bound electors imposes upon the party within the State an oath-bound regularity and loyalty to the controlling element in the national party. It centralizes party control and, instead of securing for the locality a share in the central management, it secures the central management in dominance of the local vote in the Electoral College. If we desire free elections, we should not add to the leverage over local party representatives always possessed by those who enjoy the prestige and dispense the patronage of a national administration. ”

“ It must be remembered, however, that it is quite possible for the candidate of one party to receive a popular majority throughout the whole country, and the candidate of the other to receive a majority of the electoral votes, simply because the popular vote is counted, in electing the electors, by "States" and not in the aggregate. ”

“ The men in charge, unwatched in their business, used it often for personal advantage, and were aided in this by the character of both the electoral machinery and the electorate. A multitude of offices had to be kept filled in every State and city by voters who could know little of the candidates and who accepted the recommendation implied in the party name. Control of the nominations meant control of the elections, and was within reach of those who were persistent in attending caucuses and conventions and were not too scrupulous in manipulating them. ”

“ Quite naturally, for the work of electing a candidate presupposes a state of mind very different from that of serene deliberation. In 1800 the electors acted simply as automata recording the victory of their party, and so it has been ever since. In our own time presidents and vice-presidents are nominated, not without elaborate intrigue, by special conventions quite unknown to the Constitution; the people cast their votes for the two or three pairs of candidates thus presented, and the electoral college simply registers the results. ”

“ Electoral rights have been isolated from other rights, and separately constituted; electoral assemblies have been in no way connected with other public affairs, with local administration, or with common and permanent interests. ”

“ This would so far give reality to the electoral rights of the otherwise virtually disfranchised minority. But it is important that not those alone who refuse to vote for any of the local candidates, but those also who vote for one of them and are defeated, should be enabled to find elsewhere the representation which they have not succeeded in obtaining in their own district. It is therefore provided that an elector may deliver a voting paper containing other names in addition to the one which stands foremost in his preference. His vote would only be counted for one candidate ”

“ Always united in the purpose of regulating the affairs of the whole Union by the standard of the slave-holding interest, their disproportionate numbers in the electoral colleges have enabled them, in ten out of twelve quadrennial elections, to confer the Chief Magistracy upon one of their own citizens.—Their suffrages at every election, without exception, have been almost exclusively confined to a candidate of their own caste. ”

“ Each class votes apart, and for a third of the secondary electors. These classes may be divided into several voting sections, none of which, however, must include more than 500 primary voters. The secondary voters are elected in each class from the number of the primary voters in their district, without regard to the classes. Article 72. The deputies are elected by the secondary voters. Details will be regulated by an electoral law, which must also make the necessary provision for those cities where flour and slaughter duties are levied instead of direct taxes. ”

“ After such an example, it can not be said that indirect popular election is never advantageous. Under certain conditions it is the very best system that can be adopted. But those conditions are hardly to be obtained in practice except in a federal government like that of the United States, where the election can be intrusted to local bodies whose other functions extend to the most important concerns of the nation. ”

“ My personal observation in the United States and Canada had impressed me with the dangers inseparable from the election of Federal Legislatures by local majorities—sometimes by minorities—where money and influence could be employed, particularly where a line in a tariff spelt a fortune to a section of the people, in the manipulation of the floating vote. Parties may boast of their voting strength and their compactness, but their voting strength under the present system of voting is only as strong as its weakest link, discordant or discontented minorities, will permit it to be. ”

“ In a per curiam opinion—meaning all nine Justices, that it was unanimous—they noted strict adherence to the provisions of the Electoral Count Act may create “a ‘safe harbor’ for a State insofar as congressional consideration of its electoral votes is concerned.” ”

“ That government can appoint military, or even provisional governors, who may designate the time and place of holding the convention of the electoral people of the disorganized State, as also the time and place of holding the elections of delegates to it, and superintend the elections so far as to see the polls are opened, and that none but qualified electors vote, but nothing more. All the rest is the work of the territorial electoral people themselves, for the State within its own sphere must, as one of the United States, be a self-governing community. ”