The Hartford herald., 1880-12-08
state Election Bays.

An amendment To the state Consti-
tuition has been introduced in the Ver-
mont Legislature, declaring that here
after the state election shall be held
ON the Tuesday after the first Monday
in November; that is to say on the day
appointed for the choice Of Presidential
electors once in four years
This project il significant. During
the present autumn the whole country
was busy watching couple Of Septem-
Der elections in Vermont and Maine,
and then Il couple of October elections
in Indiana and Ohio. The spectacle
was sufficiently prepOsterous in theory,
and yet the result proved serious enough
to show that the country might well
have waited breathlessly for them. The
great body Of States hold local elections
on the day appointed for the national
election of President, merging the two, in
convenient and business-like way.
But half dozen States, more or less,
hold out against this uniform arrange
ment, and accordingly We see every
four years the anomalous condition of
affairs with them that has existed this
present autstmn. We find the local
privilege of sclf-government encroaeh-
ed upon seriously in these sep
tember voting and October voting
states; and that, too, by the voluntary
action and consent of their people
They are over,un with orators and
wire-pullers from other States, their
canvasses are largely managed by na-
tional committees and other exterior
bodies; they are made the subject of
bargain and sale, the spoil of corruption
funds; their polling places are i'm some
cases infested with roughs and repeat
ers, imported from other States for the /
purpose of changing the results of the I
honest vote east by the legal voters.
Were there anything to be gained as
an offset to these disadvantages, the |
persistence with which some States !
cling to them might he understood. ,
But there are no equivalent advantages. |
Ohio, Inuiana. West Virginia, Maine
and Vermont are forced to hold two I
elections i'm every Presidential year. In /
three weeks from the time the three I
former vote for State officers, they must /
again vote for Presidential electors. To
begin with, the election expenses, the
pay of various election officers and 80
ON, are doubled. Then the States are
kept i'm IA whirl of excitement, with its
injury To business. In this respect the
September voting States are still worse
off than Ohio, Indiana and West Vir-
ginia, for their canvasses begin earlier.
Maine began her political meetings last
July, and no sooner was her State elec-
ton over than the clOseness of the vote
gave her two months more of an expe-
rience which had already been prolOng-
eel to exhaustion.
Not only Is there waste of public
money and double burden upon OIdi-
nary business affairs i'm these two-fold
elections, but they take upa valuable
part OF the farming year. The Presi-
DENTAL election day, which is also the
State election day for most States, is
exceedingly well chosen. 1t comes early
in November, when winter has not yet
set i'm to prevent easy travelling in the
rural regions, and yet after the years
work with the crops and the urgent
for the next season are
over. But the earlier State elections
set the whole machinery of election
eering at work i'm midsummer; and it
must he remembered that the custom ,
of making these early voting States the {
arena of national contests, by reason of