Litchfield enquirer., 1877-01-18
Minority Representation on Town
 Boards. .A

1OPh0oCnS@biUu Ou town DOaFQss Au0 tuo many advantages to be derived from it.
 are so fully conceded by the intelligent
 men of both parties. and have come so
 near practical acknowledgment in sev.
 eral recent legislatures, that we look with
 confidence for the early passage of an act
 giving minorities right to elect their
 due proportion of the selectmen, and oth-
 CT town officers now selected from major
 ities alone.
 The resistance to just measures of this
 kind have arisen from the peculiar con-
 stitution of our House of Representatives,
 and the selfish interest so many of it's
 members have in the perpetuation of a
 confessedly unjust and evil system.
 These members are indeed of different
 political parties: but. in nearly every in-
 stance, they are only of the majority par
 ty in their respective towns-the very
 majority which now profits uniustly by
 that monopoly of town officers of which minority representation proposes to de- prive it. While, therefore. bills granting
 minorities representation on town boards have repeatedly passed the Senate, whose members are taken indiscriminately from town majorities and town minorities, the House has never concurred, but has gen. erally sent them to that place at the end of the session statutes which is so thickly paved with the "good resolutions" of a dying.legislature, and known as the ''Pro- posed Acts."
 Judging from Litchfeld county, how ever. this is just the year to look with peculiar confidence for justice to town minorities. The Republican party in this county is grievous sufferer from major ity rule. Our towns have lost so many ''sons of the soil'' by emigration, and have received so many Irish Catholics Democrats to a nan-by immigration, that town after town has been captured by that party; and, to-day, We hold scarcely fourth of the town officers in county which, twenty years ago, was stronghold of Republication. Whether or not Puritanism is dying ont of it's own New England, it is an undeniable fact that in rural towns like Cornwall and Co., shen, the Puritan of the Puritans, the son of the Whig selectmen, the grandson of the Federal assemblymen-dyed six gen. erations deep in Cor gregationalism-can reasonably aspire to but one elective of- fee that of deacon of the church of his fathers! That the wealthier and more in- telligent party should be practically dls- in so many of our towns-cast- ing no efectual vote for State officer, con- gressman, sheriff, senator, representative or town oficer-is one of the gravest evils of universal suffrage, unmitigated as it now is by any recognition of the rights of minorities. It is an injustice that manifestly hardens the heart of the Northern Republican against the South. ern Democrat. When the descendant of the Cavalier rages against Carpet Baggers and Returning Boards, the descendant of the Puritan grimly answers: "You forced the Irishman on us; we paid you off with the negro; we don't bull-doze your man; you shan't bull-doze ours.~-Why don't you take your medicine quietly as we do?" And while it is true that the North ern rural town suffers no such oppression from its Democrats as the Southern town suffers from it's Republicans, yet there is a violation of a fundamental rule of good
 -------- "VV". Au0 OLass,or party, which pays the most taxes cannot be ex- cluded from the administration of munich pal affairs without their suffering from that exclusion. Even at the best there are the dissatisfactions. irritations, and suspicious prevalent under any system of monopoly.
 The political revolution which gave the Republican party the legislature, this year, wrought more powerfully in this county than almost anywhere else. Last spring the Democratic state ticket had majorities in all but five of the 26 towns of this county. In November the Repub. licans carried ten of the towns for Hayes and twenty one out of the forty one Rep resentatives. At least half the Republi- can representatives from this county rep resent towns in which their party is gen. erally the minority, and they certainly oh ho 2 kl I. which the Republicans they represent will be especial gathers. Aside, however, from the selfish interest some may have in the measure, there is general feeling that every mode of mitigating the evils of universal suffrage within our reach should be adopted; and, of these. none promises 80 fairly and is 30 generally de- sired as that of minority representation on town boards.
 To the different methods of giving mi. norities representation we have space only for very brief reference. The most com- mon form is that of the Limited Vote, which only allows the voter to place bare majority of the names required to fill a board of officers upon his ballot. Thus, if five selectmen are to be chosen, no one is allowed to vote for more than three. This form of vote is now in use in the election of registrars of election and of school visitors.
 A more perfect form is the Fractional Vote, which gives the elector only .one vote for the entire board. If he puts more than one name on his ticket for any board, his vote is divided between the number of names upon it. A vote with three names counts one third to each name; with four, one fourth. In other words. the more names there are on a vote the more it's value is diluted among the several names upon it. The great value of this plan consists in it's recogni-