Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-23

objections raised by the REcoRD-UNIoN to
Section Is, requiring the ballots and their
stubs to be numbered. We are gratifed to
thus learn that other minds have discov-
cred in that provision the danger we had
pointed out. Denial may be confidently
challenged of the fact that there are scores
of men in every community whose memo
ries are so trained in retentiveness, that in
delivering the 200 numbered ballots pro-
vided for from bound stubs, they will be
able to remember with precision and recall
the names of from twenty-five to fifty
electors and the numbers of the ballots
they cast. Any good whist player would
be able to easily recall the numbers of
dozen numbered ballots out of the 200 and
who voted them. 1t is improbable that
the bosses desire knowledge of how more
than from twelve to fifty electors out Of
each group of 200 vote. That knowledge
could easily be conveyed to them despite
any penal provisions intended to insure
secrecy. In short, the numbering provis-
ion is not at all necessary to prevent lille
gal voting. A device can be originated
that will enable the inspector to identify
the ballot offered as genuine, which will
not fix the identity of the voter upon the
ballot, and that is all that is necessary.
Precisely the same objections attach to
the proposition in Section q, requiring
the ballot clerk, as he hands the elector
ballot when entering the voting booth, to
write his name upon the ballot. But our
League" correspondent thinks that there
is very little if any danger in that, or of
invasion of the sacredness of the secrecy of
the ballot, trespass upon which strikes at the
root of our liberties; he insists that one
cannot easily change his signature as to
make it a means of identification. As
opposed to this official of the League bank
clerk of long standing, to whom that propo-
sition was submitted, replies that nothing
is easier; that any man competent to be a
ballot clerk can, for one class of voters or
more, finish his signature in such man
ner or write it in such a positi on. with
perfect facility, as to identify all ballots
of that or of several classes. Very rarely,
indeed, does any man write his name six
or seven times consecutively exactly alike
There is nothing In the bill under discus
sion to require the signature to be uniform
or to appear in precisely the same position
on each ballot and each stub. An old
actuary accustomed to all the niceties of
penmanship; declares to us that ballot
clerk could easily be taught methods of
signing that would enable him to readily
identify fifty out of every hundred ballots
if it was to his interest to do SO.
"Put," says our San Francisco CORE
spondent. "the clerks name or initial
marks are on the back of the ballot, and
as counting goes on rapidly DO opportunity
is given for Identification" The obvious
reply to this ingenious argument is, that
the ballot is handled deliberately when
taken from the box and opened; it is
passed to another, who occupies from one
to three minutes in reading it, and most
frequently holds it so that its back may be
seen; is is then passed to "stringer,"
who always takes his time in
stringing the ballots next go into the
possession of officials, who may or
may not examine them, as interest prompts
they are next liable to the process of re-
counting in open Court where lawyers may
examine them deliberately and a full in
spection of them be had-in short. the
opportunities to identify ballot with the
voter are as numerous as the ways of a
political corruptionist are dark, devious
and ingenious. The bosses do not desire so
frequently to identify the individual, as
they do classes Of voters, and under the
proposed system they could very easily
accomplish that end.
The secrecy of the ballot can be secure
and the stuffing of the ballot-boxes
or their invasion prevented, by omission of
the numbering and indorsing, as efectually
as with those processes. Let the ballots
| issue only from Governmental offices, and
be bound in stub books as proposed by the
Jill. Let them be so printed and with
such design that severance will leave a
part of the design upon the stub; let no
other ballot be voted than that handed to
the elector by the election board, and
torn from the stub book; let the ballot be
SO printed-aS may easily be done-that
counterfeiting will be next to impossible.
With such precautions, clean precinct
| registers, small group of voters in
each precinct, the private booth for the
elector in which to mark his ballot to indi-
cate his preference, and it will be imposs-
bic to stuff the ballot-box or defeat the
free will of the voter except by collision
of officials along the whole line from the
Secretary of State down to the ballot clerk.
Whatever is .done-and the need for re-
formatory activity is grest-let it not be
said that the laws of California have taken
from any elector his sacred right to alone
be possessed of the knowledge of how he
votes and repose the knowledge in another
without the voters consent
SOCIAL AND PERSONAL.