The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1877-04-23
THE DISTRICT System.

The New York assembly has passed a
bill providing that two presidential electors
shall be elected by the people of the state
at large, and that one elector shall be
chosen in each congressional district by
the people thereof. This would seem, at
first sight, to be fair and equitable man.
ner of appointing electors, as at the last
presidential election the republicans with
over forty-eight per cent of the popular
vote were without voice in the electoral
college, while the democracy had less than
fifty-two per cent. of the popular vote and
yet had the whole electoral vote of the
state. If this proposed law had been in
force, the two electors at large and sixteen
of the district electors would have been
democratic, and the remainder republican,
so that the electoral vote of New York
would have been eighteen for Tilden, and
seventeen for Hayes, instead of thirty-five
for Tiden.
1t is little curious, however, that such
system would have made no difference
with the forty electoral votes of New Eng
land. AS it was, the votes of Vermont,
five, Maine, seven, New Hampshire, five,
Massachusetts, thirteen. and Rhode Island,
; four, were all given for Rutherford B.
Hayes; while the elk votes of Connecticut
were for Governor Tilden. If elected by
districts, as under the proposed New York
law, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire
and Rhode Island would still have voted
solid for Mr.. Hayes, while one of the
votes of Massachusetts would have been
for Governor Tilden, and one of the Con-
necticut votes for Governor Hayes. The
result would have been that one-third of
the voters of Vermont and Rhode Island,
and nearly one-half of those of Maine and
New Hampshire would have been utterly
without representation; while two-fifths of
the voters of Massachusetts would have had
only one vote, to twelve votes for the re
naming three-tifths and about one-half of
the voters of Connecticut would have had
but one vote to five votes for the other
half.
Such law, as that proposed, would
have been very fair so far as New York
and, perhaps, one or two other states were
concerned, yet when applied to the New
England states and, in fact, to nearly ev-
cry other state in the Union, it would
have proved to be as unfair and inequitable
as the present system. For absolute fair
ness, the proposition of Mr.. Maish of
Pennsylvania-modified as we suggested
at the time in order to maintain the rela-
tDe power of the smaller states-seems to
us to commend itself to popular favor. The
proposition as modified was that each state
should be entitled to the same number of
electoral votes as at present, two votes to
be given as majority Of the whole people
of the state should determine, and the re-
naming votes-equal to the number Of
representatives in congress--to be divided
in the proportion that the number of votes
cast by each party bore to the whole num-
Der. Thus the two votes at large of Yer
mont would have been given to Governor
Hayes, while the remaining three votes
there having been, in round numbers, forty
five thousand republican, and twenty-one
thousand democratic votes at the general
election-would have been divided in that
proportion, giving two votes to Hayes and
one TO Tilden, 30 that the whole electoral
vote Of the state would have been four for
Hayes and one for Tilden. In New York
the result would have been precisely as