Municipal election

“ Popular initiative in legislation is made possible upon the demand by petition of 15 per cent of the voters, estimated upon the total vote for mayor at the preceding municipal election; referendum in ordinary legislation is required upon a petition of 7 per cent of the voters; a recall election must be ordered upon the demand of 25 per cent of the voters concerned in the filling of the office. The official whom the petition seeks to remove is made a candidate for reflection without other nomination, unless in writing he notifies the city clerk that he is not a candidate. ”

“ Municipal elections shall be held in the house of the municipality, and shall be presided over by a board of election judges consisting of three qualified electors not holding municipal office nor being candidates therefor, who, together with two tellers, possessing like qualifications, shall be designated in writing prior to the day of election, by a majority vote of a Board consisting of those members of the Municipal Council who have the longest unexpired terms of office. ”

“ Municipal elections are far removed from those of the state, being held in odd-numbered years in April. In cities of the first class the state law requires the election of a mayor, city clerk, city treasurer, police judge and councilmen; in those of the second class it requires the election of a mayor, police judge, city treasurer, councilmen, board of education, justices of the peace and constables; and in those of the third class it requires the election of a mayor, police judge and councilmen. Several other offices provided for in each class are filled by the appointment of the mayor. ”

“ All members of the city council will be elected at large, and there will be no ward members of the body. By the abolition of party designations no primary elections or caucuses for municipal offices will be held. "All candidates for mayor, city council and school board must be nominated by papers of not less than 5000 registered voters. No voter may sign more than one paper for mayor, not more than nine for council for the first election and for three candidates thereafter, and not more than two papers for the school board when there are two members to be elected. ”

“ Every municipal election is determined by party spirit, and candidates are recommended because they are Conservatives or Liberals—not because they are fitted by character and intelligence to govern a town righteously. ”

“ If a municipal election in a London borough is not held on the appointed day or within the appointed time or becomes void, the municipal corporation shall not thereby be dissolved or be disabled from acting.
45.— (1) Schedule 6 to this Act shall have effect for the purpose of amending and otherwise modifying the operation of the Representation of the People Acts and other enactments relating to parliamentary and local government elections, being amendments and modifications necessary or expedient in consequence of other provisions of this Act. ”

“ Each petty political unit having a municipal government of its own comprises a voting precinct. If at the first ballot no candidate in the district receives a majority of all the votes cast, a second ballot is taken, when a simple plurality is decisive. A noteworthy feature of the system is the fact that voters who on account of illness, military service, or other valid reason, are unable to appear at the polls are permitted to transmit their votes in writing to the proper election officials. ”

“ The conduct of a campaign, before an election, for the purpose of exerting an influence upon the voters, is not the exercise of an authorized municipal function and hence is not a corporate purpose of the municipality. ”

“ The statutes define strictly the duties of officials; their terms are made short, and through the multitude of offices, important and petty, it is clear that one purpose runs to make each directly answerable to the voters. In every quadrennial cycle the voters of New York City engage in the election of over five hundred incumbents of offices, state and municipal. ”

“ Each has its advantages and disadvantages. The wieldy geographical district has the advantage of presenting an issue of extreme simplicity to the voter and inducing interest in it by the dramatic element of personal contest. The field in which the candidates contest being limited, there is more concentrated work upon the education of the [Pg 158] electorate and the electorate focuses its attention. It is not so clearly the fact that in a municipal election a large minority may be wholly unrepresented as it might be in elections to a national legislative body. ”

“ What reason is there, in the face of all this, for saying that non-partisan municipal government is impossible because people generally will always be controlled in municipal elections by party politics? The non-partisan principle for municipal affairs having been adopted by so many citizens in a state of mind of normal coolness, why should we despair of seeing it adopted by a great many more, and at last by a large majority? ”

“ The time when public office was held by the grace of God and the majority of votes has become almost a thing of the past. The official’s worth now is not measured by his good-fellowship and vote-getting capacity, but rather by his ability to produce results—not at the polls on Election Day, but in the City Hall every day. ”

“ That is, the city was divided into municipal districts, and each district chose its own alderman. In that where Emil lived the workingman's candidate, so called, was almost invariably successful against the representative of the more conservative element of the two wards concerned, and a nomination was regarded as equivalent to election. Now there were two factions of voters belonging to the dominant party in the district, one in each ward, and for three successive years the alderman had come from the ward other than that in which Emil dwelt. ”

“ Civil service reform principles cover the entire municipal administration. The city’s work is done under an eight-hour law.
An analysis of city election returns for the decade 1890-1899 showed that the interest of the citizens was greatest in the choice of a president; then, successively, in the choice of a mayor, a governor, the determination of liquor-license questions by referendum, and the settlement of other referenda. ”

“ The purity of municipal legislation is assured by the election of a number of aldermen whose records as citizens warrant the prediction that they, joining with an already trusty minority, for the ensuing year at least, will conserve public rather than private interests, guided by the promptings of each individual conscience. There will be no opportunity to filch from them for party ends, or for personal advancement, due public acknowledgment of their integrity and ability. But the enforcement of the laws governing municipal administration in its several departments ”

“ It will seem to be true so long as municipal elections are handed over to professional politicians and "ward-bummers for management. But let the prominent and influential gentlemen in all political parties unite in an effort to elect only the best men to municipal positions; let them present only candidates of recognized ability and character; let the people be made to realize that there is absolutely no political principle involved in the contest, and the voters can not then be controlled by professional political leaders. ”

“ They alleged that the requirements at the 1969 elections differed from those in effect on November 1, 1964, and at the last mayoral and aldermanic elections in 1965 because of (1) changes in locations of the polling places, (2) changes in the municipal boundaries through annexations of adjacent areas which enlarged the number of eligible voters, [4] and (3) a change from ward to at-large election of aldermen. The city of Canton, they alleged, sought to enforce these changes without first submitting them to the Attorney General or obtaining a declaratory judgment under § 5. ”

“ These constitutions also allow a prescribed number of voters to demand that a law passed by the state legislature, or an ordinance passed by the municipal authority, be submitted to all the voters for their approval. If rejected by them, it falls to the ground. This is the Referendum. Some cities also provide in their charters that an official, including the mayor or a member of the council, may be displaced from office if, at a special election held on the demand of a prescribed number of the city voters, he does not receive the largest number of votes cast. ”

“ And as it is to be appropriated to this use with the consent of the State ceding it; as the State will no doubt provide in the compact for the rights and the consent of the citizens inhabiting it; as the inhabitants will find sufficient inducements of interest to become willing parties to the cession; as they will have had their voice in the election of the Government, which is to exercise authority over them; as a municipal Legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed them; ”

“ There is no Democratic way of cleaning a street, and no Republican method of fighting a fire. Thus the same citizen who may be under a moral obligation to support some party in National and state politics, may be under a similar obligation to make his choice of local candidates independent of party. A desirable development, in this regard, is the recent tendency for some municipal elections to be decided regardless of the party affiliations of the candidates. ”

“ In the United States the same thing, in anything like the same degree, would be impossible, because between the periods of the general elections (which themselves come every four years) come the State and municipal elections for the purposes of which the local party organisations are kept in continuous and more or less active existence. A State or a city may, of course, be so confirmedly Republican or Democratic that, even though elections be frequent, the ruling party organisation will become, in a measure, soft and careless, but it can never sink altogether out of fighting condition. ”

“ Jeffries, and Messrs. Burroughs, W. J. Mason, B. Cobb, Grave, R. Hammond, T. Lettis, and S. Robinson took part in this entertainment.
p. 461836.
Jan. 2nd.—The following is the account of the first election of Town Councillors under the Municipal Reform Act:—
“The election of Town Councillors took place here on Saturday last. The polling commenced at nine o’clock in the morning, and finished at four in the afternoon. The return was published on Monday by the Mayor, as follows:—
It is a matter of great congratulation that 34 out of the 36 Councillors are Reformers. ”

“ Suppose, however, that the municipality be large enough to be readily divided into as many wieldy districts as there are commissioners to the number of from five to nine. For instance, let us assume a city of to exceed 25,000 male voters and a population exceeding 150,000. Here the district is too unwieldy for the election at large of those candidates receiving the highest votes at a single election. It may be doubted whether the double election will produce satisfactory results in the way of securing a really intelligent vote. ”

“ In terms of dilution of voting power, there is no difference between a change from district to at-large election and an annexation that changes both the boundaries and ward lines of a city to include more voters. ”

“ This is the most extraordinary campaign I ever witnessed; a struggle for good municipal government, in which we have to choose between two candidates for the Mayoralty who, both honorable men, profess to aim at the same ideals of municipal administration. ”

“ The chief function of the governor is really a negative one, that of affixing his veto from time to time on an utterly impossible law. The mayor, on the other hand, can shape things and leave the stamp of his personality on his city. In the state, as in the city, it often happens that the head of the executive and a majority of the legislative belong to opposite parties, and this not because the party issues are forgotten in the local elections, but because the methods of election are different. ”

“ The extension of the power of appointment is significant because it diminishes the number of officials elected by popular vote, as well as the number chosen by the council, and combined with the power of removal, which is coming to be generally granted, enables the mayor to shape municipal policy and to direct the manner in which that policy is carried out. ”

“ There are city elections, county elections, and district or borough elections, and those city and county and district elections are held under some law of the State in which the city or county or district or borough may be, and in those elections, according to the laws of the States, certain qualifications are prescribed, residence within the limits of the locality and a property qualification in some. Now, is it proposed to say that, if every man in a State is not at liberty to vote at a city or a country or a borough election that is to affect the basis of representation? ”

“ Not only are those small boroughs altogether too email for independence, but if we come to your large county constituencies, we find that from the peculiar circumstances and the relations which exist between the voter and the owner of the land, there is scarcely any freedom of election. ”