Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-12-21
FIGHTING HONEST ELECTIONS.

It can be shown with perfect ease that tn
! Australian system affords the most favorabl
opportunity that can be offered for selling vote
! and for assuring the purchaser that the selle
has complied with his contract, and that is
! thing that cannot be done under our law. 70
| the .vest-pOcket" ticket will defeat the shrewd
! est manipulation that ever undertook TO eX
change gold or silver for mems consciences.
The quotation is from the San Francisco
Chronicle. It is an assertion that canno
be maintained in either of its counts. The
reform ballot system proposed by the last
Legislature of California, which is some
times called the Australian system, but i:
not so in fact, since it is an Improvement
upon it, cannot be defeated, as the Chron.
icle charges. If that paper viii point out
any method by which the secresy of the
ballot the reform system insures can be
violated that we cannot prove to be erro-
neous, we will abandon the advocacy Of
the system and no more speak word in
It's favor
II the Chronicle does not, it should know
that where the State prints and delivers a
ballot and detaches it on delivery from a
stub-book bearing a number corresponding
to number on a corner of the ballot, but
separated by line of perforation, that in
yasion of the secresy of such ballot is
impossible. The reason is, that on receiv-
ing it the elector goes to his voting shelf
and alone prepares his ballot, and before
mingling again with the outside crowd de-
posts the ballot or returns it unused.
When it is about to be cast, he or the
Inspector of Election tears off the corner
marked by the perforated line and bearing
the number corresponding to that in the
stub-book and on the poll list, and thus the
identity of the ballot is also destroyed, and
it is impossible for any one to ascertain its
contents, except the voter reveals them.
Under such system no official ballot can
be carried out of the voting booth to be
used as a dummy along whole line of
purchased voters. On the contrary, if a
boss buys vote under the reform system,
he has for security for the delivery of the
goods only the faith he reposes in the
hireling, and he very well knows that the
man who viii sell his vote will lie about it.
But under the California system, the
''yest-pocket" order of ballots, which our
contemporary defends, the purchased
voter is accompanied to the polls by
lieutenant of the boss who never, not for
an instant, loses sight of the prepared bal
lot in the hirelings hand, and most fire.
quently keeps close grip upon the man.
The striker usually rushes his purchase to
the polls with a good deal of show of
kindly assisting a timid and unso-
phisticated voter The henchmen of the
bosses close in upon the polling space and
crowd out those who might be of aid to
the challengers; there is a rush and
push, and howl, and whoop, and the
purchased ballot goes in at railroad speed.
Or, if quiet tactics are in some cases pre-
ferred, an equally successful scheme Of
watching the hireling elector is carried
out. The boss never trusts the man he
buys He knows that if the rascal is
given an opportunity he viii sell to the
opposition also, and drive double bar
gain. The vest-pocket ticket is myth.
1t has no reality except for those indie
pendent men so conditioned as to worldly
affairs that they cannot be punished or
pursued by those who have an interest in
controlling their votes.