Electorate

“ This electorate has in its keeping the welfare and the happiness of the American people. When, therefore, the voter takes his place in this governing body, that is, when he enters the polling-booth and presumes to participate in the business of government, he assumes serious responsibilities. ”

“ But those upheavals in representation, those violent swings of the pendulum which have often been so pronounced a feature of elections, give an instability to the composition of our supreme legislative chamber that must still further undermine its authority. Many, indeed, imagining that this dangerous instability is the reflection of an equally unstable electorate, begin to question whether a popular franchise is in any circumstances a satisfactory basis for government. ”

“ The constituency behind these representative leaders lacked the necessary intelligence, knowledge, and business experience. By such an electorate men may be chosen to power, but they cannot long be held in power. ”

“ The system of second ballots not only deprives large sections of the electorate of representation, but the very coalitions which produce this result bring parliamentary institutions into still further disrepute. ”

“ By providing for the election of single legislators from wieldy districts or by wieldy “quotas” we have brought the voter as near the candidates as possible. By stimulating the number of candidates we have given the voter as wide a range of choice as possible. These devices all have a tendency to eliminate the politically ignorant vote. The actual intelligence of the electorate is given the fullest possible play, and even stimulated to unusual efforts of comprehension. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Appeal must be to an informed, civically militant electorate. ”

“ If you try to control government wholly at the source, you inevitably make all the vital decisions invisible. For since there is no instinct which automatically makes political decisions that produce a good life, the men who actually exercise power not only fail to express the will of the people, because on most questions no will exists, but they exercise power according to opinions which are hidden from the electorate. ”

“ The eyes of the community have desired certain things, have offered them to the slow digestive organs, and they have been rejected. Are the digestive organs, then, sovereign, and not the initiative parts, the eyes and the reason? Is it sovereign to stomach a thing, and not sovereign to purpose a thing?
But turn the chase in another direction, if peradventure we may yet run the sovereign people to cover. The more absolute democratic theorists decline to restrict the sovereign body to the electorate, to those who have formal votes. Voters are simply the agents of the community, they say. ”

“ Few men could explain why they enlisted, and if they attempted they might only prove that they had done as a politician said the electorate does, the right thing from the wrong motive. ”

“ The politician who once had to learn how to flatter Kings has now to learn how to fascinate, amuse, coax, humbug, frighten, or otherwise strike the fancy of the electorate; ”

“ Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor; not the learned, more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. They are to be the same who exercise the right in every State of electing the corresponding branch of the legislature of the State. Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country. ”

“ I wanted to give the people serving in government in the contested States the opportunity to do whatever they felt they needed to do to make sure that their election was properly reflected. I spent an enormous amount of time reaching out to State government officials in those States, but in none of the contested States—no, not even one—did I discover any indication that there was any chance that any State legislature or secretary of state or Governor or Lieutenant Governor had any intention to alter the slate of electors. That being the case, our job is a very simple one. ”

“ 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. That those to whom voters ought to be responsible, should be themselves voters; and, being such, should have the safeguard of the ballot, to shield them from the undue influence of powerful individuals or classes to whom they ought not to be responsible. ”

“ Ought the election to the central Legislature by the people to be direct or indirect; in other words, ought the members of the central Legislature to be elected by the constituencies at large, as they are now in England and other countries under parliamentary government, or by the members of local assemblies elected in their turn by the people? The writer of this paper is a hearty democrat, and profoundly convinced that the people, with all their passions and defects, will on the whole vote right whenever they see their way. ”

“ The additional power given by the colored population of the South in the Electoral College and in Congress was more than enough to turn the last election for President, and more than enough to reverse—yes, largely more than reverse—the present Democratic majority of the House of Representatives. Have we not the spirit to insist that everywhere north and south in this country of ours no man shall be deprived of his ballot by reason of his politics? ”

“ 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. ”

“ However wrong, therefore, or however foolish, we may think it in the electors to convert their representative into a delegate, that stretch of the electoral privilege being a natural and not improbable one, the same precautions ought to be taken as if it were certain. We may hope that the electors will not act on this notion of the use of the suffrage; but a representative government needs to be so framed that even if they do, they shall not be able to effect what ought not to be in the power of any body of persons—class legislation for their own benefit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If this is accomplished, we shall then have the three great departments of the Government in the grasp of the "gerrymander," the legislative and executive directly and the judiciary indirectly through the power of appointment.
An election implies a body of electors having prescribed qualifications, each one of whom has an equal value and influence in determining the result. ”

“ If, for example, a few States, having a majority of electoral votes, should refuse to appoint electors of president and vice president, there would be no constitutional executive, and the whole machinery of the government would stop. ”

“ When the highest dignity in the state is to be conferred by popular election once in every few years, the whole intervening time is spent in what is virtually a canvass. President, ministers, chiefs of parties, and their followers, are all electioneerers: the whole community is kept intent on the mere personalities of politics, and every public question is discussed and decided with less reference to its merits than to its expected bearing on the presidential election. ”

“ The candidates having the majority of all the votes are chosen. The electors of a majority of States may have given their votes for one candidate, and yet another may be chosen. The people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive branch. ”

“ Must it not mean that the judgment of each house shall not only go to the forms, but also to what I might call the essence, of an election? Has not each house to judge whether that which pretends to be an election is in truth and reality an election or not? ”

“ To completely establish this significant fact, the attention of the people is called to the immense minorities in the several States, and the relations which they sustain to a Presidential election, wherein the sum total of all the citizens of all the States who are permitted to cast their ballots, and who do so cast their ballots, for the electors who vote for the defeated candidate, exceed the sum total of all the citizens of all the States who are permitted to cast their ballots and who do so cast their ballots for the electors who vote for and elect their candidate. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The election of the President and Vice-President of the Nation, shall be made in the following manner:-The capital and each of the Provinces shall by direct vote nominate a board of electors, double the number of Deputies and Senators which they send to Congress, with the same qualifications and under the same form as those prescribed for the election of Deputies. Deputies or Senators, or officers in the pay of the Federal Government cannot be electors. ”

“ Then a majority of the remaining fifty-four per cent, or, say, twenty-eight per cent of one third of the population of the Nation in a little more than one third of the States, might exercise seventy-two per cent of the electoral power necessary to choose a President, and a like proportion of the legislative power necessary to enact laws. ”

“ More intriguing, bargaining, and bribery in a hundred forms, more or less subtle, to secure election and appointment to positions within the gift of the legislature. Little or no heed is given to the primary question of capacity and public interests. Political considerations—that is, ability to help or to harm some one—control all elections and appointments. What is the next thing done? It is the preparation, introduction, discussion, and passage of the measures thought to be essential to the preservation of civilization. ”

“ We hold the free and honest popular ballot and the just and equal representation of all the people to be the foundation of our republican government, and demand effective legislation to secure the integrity and purity of elections, which are the fountains of all public authority. ”

“ That State until the Civil War continued to choose its electors by a vote of the legislature, but after the war changed its method and conformed to the practice of the other States. For nearly sixty years all the States save one have appointed their electors by a popular vote upon a general ticket, and for nearly thirty years this method was universal. ”

“ So we have demands for extended terms of office; we have opposition to the election of President and senators by popular vote; we have opposition to the selection of Federal judges other than by appointment of the President and Senate; we have, above all, opposition to direct popular voting upon questions of public policy, upon granting public franchises. ”

“ The introduction of two degrees in the electoral act, namely, original electors and electors simply, is nothing but an ingenious method purposely introduced with the object of falsifying as far as possible the will of the people by means of the electoral act.
It is true that even universal and direct suffrage is no magic wand, gentlemen, which is able to protect you from temporary mistakes. ”

“ Inquiries will be made, by the voters, into the characters of the candidates. Greater talents, and a more extensive reputation, will be necessary to procure an election for the federal than for the state representation. ”

“ A disputed election is now tried with the same scrupulousness and solemnity, as any other title. The candidate that has deserved well of his neighbours, may now be certain of enjoying the effect of their approbation; and the elector, who has voted honestly for known merit, may be certain, that he has not voted in vain. ”

“ To obtain your election, even though you may have the support of an active and ardent party, you must also have a somewhat extended political notoriety, or, at any rate, some provincial backing of family or fortune. ”

“ There are two points in the process of election, the nomination and the voting. The second point only has engaged the serious attention of statesmen, whose minds have been occupied entirely with problems as to the qualifications for the franchise, the distribution of seats, and the question of the ballot. It is in the first part of the process that direct election has broken down. The people, if left to themselves, will choose rightly between two candidates; but who is to choose the candidates? The people at large can not select from any extensive area ”