New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-11-09
THE NEW VOTJN(t L1V

Twice this year has the Australian system of
voting been put into operation in an American
election under circumstances which have fully
tested its efficiency as a means of procuring
from the voters full and fair expression of
their will. These great experiments obviate
the necessity, in judging of the SYSTEMS value
to honest government, of any further reference
to the minor ones in Connecticut, Tennessee
and Kentucky. The system has now been test
ed in two great State contests where public
interest was profoundly stirred, and under
every possible social condition. Massachusetts
is an old State, Montana new one. Massa-
chusetts is small State Montana very large
one. Massachusetts contains two and half
millions of people confined within $500 square
miles. Montana contains only 100000 people
scattered over 146, 600 square miles, The peo-
pie of Massachusetts are settled, steady and
undergoing only the ordinary changes incident
to birth, death and human progress. The pop-
uation Of Montana is shifting with every wind
of adventure, growing enormously with each
incoming train. Certainly, none could ask that
the system should be more hardly tried.
AS system it has only one motive. 1t aims
to enable the voter TO cast his ballot in the fear
Of nothing and no one, save only his own judg-
ment and conscience. It's opponents have tired
of denying that it accOmplishes its object That
il does, as matter Of fact render the ballot
absolutely secret is impossible of further de-
NAL. The voter enters a polling place which
contains no one except the judges of election
and their clerks. He receives from them a
printed slip upon which are printed all the
names Of all the candidates in nomination. With
it he retires into a stall and marks an Y oppo-
site the names of all those for whom he wishes
TO vote. He folds his ballot comes out from the
stall and drops his folded ticket into the box.
1t is a physical impossibility that any eve but
his own should see, or any hand but his own
should touch, the slip of paper on which his
will as freeman is recorded, and this much. at
last, the enemies of the reform concede
But they still pretend to believe that il is
cumbersome and complexities that it requires
too much Of a mental operation upon the mart
of the voter and too long time for the de-
posting of the vote of given precinct. All
this pretence must now be abandoned. In
Massachusetts and in Montana both, it has been
found upon the first trial to be simple. plain
easy and quick of operation, inexpensive and
satisfactory TO every honest voter Nobody
objects to it but those who desire to cheat In
Montana the system received the severcst test
imaginable 1t was coupled with registration
law that applied to the whole State-to country
and city alike. Every voter had to be regis
tered, and many, to complete their act Of
suffrage, were obliged twice to travel from five
to hundred miles. The system was the same in
the cities of Helena and Butte, with their pop
ulations of $4,000, as in counties like Choteau
and Dawson, each larger than the State of
New-Jersey with scarcely / 900 voters through
out their whole expanse.
And yet, the testimony of everybody every
where in these two States is that the system in
practice was all that could be desired. 1t is
true that cbaIges OF fraud areheard from Nom