Litchfield enquirer., 1877-02-01
fFrom the Hartfe1d Courant,l Minority Representation on Town
 Boards
LITcHFIELD. Jan. 9, 1877

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 Minority Representation on Town
 Boardsd r s
 LITcHFIELD, Jan. 9, 1877. 10 Hle EdstT efthe COstront:-- @7
 A meas1ke of great practical importance came before the legislature, last week, in the bill providing for the representation of minorities on town boards, which I see was referred to the judiciary committee. No party in the majority in any Iegisla- tive body, state or Pnational, is ever so Odiously unfair as to Eefuse the party in the minority. Representation on its com mittees. Yet precisely that unfairness characterizes the constitution of nearly all the boards which administer town affairs throughout the state; boards of relief, seleetmen, assessors, ,censtables and grand jurdts. Naiofitiess only find representa- tion among these thousands of town off, cers, whose duties are not political but municipal. The unwisdom as well as the unfairness of this practice has come to be 50 geneall ooncsa6 that. at recent ses. slons of our legislature, bills have passed the Senate, and have been received with favor even m the House of Represents tives, where town mlnorities naturally have but feeble influence. In fact it seems only necessary to offer some good plan of minority representation on town boards to be reasonably sure of it's adop- tlon; and, m this connection, deslre to call the attention of your readers to some of the various projects that have been devised.
 @ THE LIMITED VOTE.
 The simplest expedient for giving mi norities representation is what is termed fo6 &ho from placing upon his ballot more than half the names required to fill any board having an even number of members, or more than a bare majority of an odd number The present plan of voting restricts success to a single party, what ever may be the number of officers to be choseQ the limited vote restricts success to two parties Real minority represen- tation recognizes the possibility of as. many parties as there are members of the board to be elected. Hence the limited vote may fail to do large majorities and small minorities justice. The minority can always contest one place on the board with the majority, but their members are unassailable unless the majority can cast more than double the vote of the minor ity. Then, by making two nominations, and dividing their vote into halves, they can deprive the minority of any represen- tation. wsGIr1 Ssas-fHr~-: The limited vote is already in use in this state for the election of registrars of voters and schootVisitors.- -.a -. '--,E ] THE CUMULATIVE AND THE FREE VOTE.
 The cumulative vote gives the voter as many votes as there are officers to be chosen, and then allows him to t'cumu- late these votes on one or more candi. dates by. repeating their names on his tickets But a voter may desire to divide his votes equally among a lesser number of candidates and cannot do so without the use of ffactions. The free vote! an improvement upon the cumulative vote, permits to use fractions. For instance: a voter wishing to divide five votes equally between three candidates, does it accu- rately as follows:--
 IA B-.......... votes.
 g G-DD-..................... .....1s5 votes.
 -F-......................1s5 votes.
 Total. .5 votes.
 This arrangement is effectuaI, but, for it's intelligent use, it pre-supposes a knowledge of arithmetic the voter may not possess. .e
 THE FRACTIONAL VOTE.
 
 number of votes equally among such can- dldates as he may prefer, unavoidably involves some dealings with fractions; and it is further desirable that the busi- ness of computing fractions should, as far as possible, be thrown off the individ- ual voter, and upon the counters of votes who are supposed to be competent for the easy calculations required. The frac- tional vote is modification of the free vote which itis believed will accomplish this object; and lnasmuch as the bill referred in our legislature, last week, was of this kind, would ask careful con- sideration of the method proposed.
 Under this plan the vote for each board is a unit, and each of the names thereon, if more than one, takes only such fraction as results from the equal division of the vote between the names upon it If the voter places two pames on his ballot for any board of officers, each of those names is credited with half vote; if three, with j third of vote; if four, with fourth. The fewer the names on the ballot, the more is it's value to each of them. Hence voter acting with large majority places on his vote large majority of the list of officers to be chosen. If he acts with small majority. he will only insert a bare majority of that list. Acting with small minority, or in case of bolt from the regular nominations, he places but sin gle narne.on his ticket and thus gives it it's greatest possible value to that name In this way large and small minorities and large and small maiorities can have representation in proportion to their re- spective strength, Small minorities must concentrate on single names, while large majoritfes may venture to nearly fill the list.
 The bill provides form for the tabu. lation and report of votes, Tn accordance withswhich have prepared the following specimen of returns, based on last springs vote in ethe town of New Milford A board of five selectmen is to be chosen, of which the democrats Casting 440 votes) nominate three; the republicans (casting 296 svotesl nominate two. The result would be something like the following:
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