Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1872-10-29
CUMULATIVE VOTING.

In orderto give the minority voice in the
iegislatiops the Constitution of Illinois has
the following provision:
The House of Representatives snail con-
SYST OF three times the number of the mem beers
OF the Senate l5l land the term of Office shall
De two years. Three representatives shall be
elected in each Senatorial district at the gen.
eral election in the year of our Lord 1872
and every two years thereafter In all cleo
lions of representatives aforesaid each quail
ned voter may cast as many votes for one can
didate as there are representatives to be elect
ed, or may distribute the same, or equal parts
thereof, among the candidates as he shall see
tit, and the candidates highest in votes shall
be declared elected
To carry out the above provision of the Con.
stitution, the Legislature passed an act the
substance of which is thus given by the Chi
caeo Tribune: --.-
In voting for representatives to the Leeis-
iature, it the voter intends to give more than
one vote to any candidate, he shall exnress
that intention on the ballot in figures, in either
OF the following forms:
John Smith John Smith 7,
John Jones' John -Jonas i
John Brown.
g Il
John Smith. .....2 John Brown 8
John Jones'.
The first form will be county as one vote for
each candidate. If more persons are desig>
nased on ballot for any Office than there are
persons to be elected to that Office, or if more
votes OF parts OF votes are designated on a bal
lot tor representatives, than the voter is entitled
nnrf 1f t1a,
counted for any candidate. Thus if voter
desires to vote three votes for one candidate
for representative he must erase the names of
all other candidates from his ballot. and must
bear in mind that he can only vote three votes.
and must apportion the same on the ballot be.
fore voting.
We can certainly imagine verv embarrass.
ing cases that might arise under the above
system. If there were 1900 Republican votes
in any given district and 1900 Democrats, and
each of the Republican voters were to cast
one OF his three votes for each one of the
three Republican candidates-john Smith.
John Jones and John Brown-each of those
candidates would receive 1900 votes. If in
that case the Democracy being in the minority.
and wishing to have representative in the
Legislature, should concentrate its vote upon
billy Patterson, each voter having three votes,
Billy would receive 5000 votes. But the
other three candidates each received an equal
number of votes. Only three can be elected
Who else besides Billy Patterson would in the
above case be considered elected Or still
supposing the relative strength of the two
parties to be as above, if the Democracy were.
Imagine that it could so distribute its vote rs
to elect two out of the three candidates to be
elected, and each Democrat were to cast ]
votes for Billy Patterson and ! } for Dick Snv.
der, Billy and Dick would each receive 1900
votes. So that in the latter case we would
have five candidutes-Smith, Jones. Brown.
Patterson and Snyder-each receiving 1900
votes. Only three can he elected. Which
three out of the five would be sent t, the
Icrsl.turc