The Portland daily press., 1892-09-19
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10.
DANGERS OF A RECOUNT.
FOE VICE PRESIDENT.

Mr.. William Fl. Looney suggests four
amendments to the Australian ballot
law as follows:
/. For the grouping of the candidates upon
the official ballot in alphabetical oTder, Wltd
the requirement that cross should be PACED
at the right of each candidate to be voted LOT.
This is the Massachusetts law, and mas peen
adopted by Rhode Island, Vermont and New
Hampshire.
g. Requiring the voting compartments to be
at least twelve feet from the guard rail- H
would then be impossible tor one assd 'ne
g. That any colluSive mark upon tne Dallot
should vitiate and throw it out. Such proyi-
sion is in the English law. .s
one year, and recount made II demanded.
The propriety of the first three
amendments is obvious enough, that of
the fourth is not so evident. On the
other hand there are some very weighty
objections to recounts.
In the first place it is of the highest.
Importance that an election contest
should be settled promptly. Many OF our
elections are attended with very strong
partisan feeling, and not unfrequently
this feeling is Bitter 1t is certain to
continue and to grow until the result of
the election is definitely settled. The
public peace and the public welfare de-
mand therefore that this settlement
should be speedy. If the ballots are pre-
served and provision made for reeounts
this feeling will not subside as it does
now generally the day after election but
will continue for days and weeks and
perhaps months, growing more intense
all the while. We had pretty good
chance to observe the bad effect of de-
Law in the settlement of an election con-
test in 1876 when public excitement was
kept up for weeks and months, to the
great detriment of business and the
great jeopardy of the public peace.
In the second place the preservation of
the ballots and provision for recount
offer constant temptation for somebody
to alter OF destroy some of the ballots and
thus change the result. And this temp
tation will begin as soon as the first
count is completed and the result known.
It will never be possible to so thoroughly
allegations of manipulation of them and
belief on the part of many that such ma
nipulation has taken place, when a re-
count shows different result from the
first count. If there has been suspicion
of dishonesty or inaccuracy in regard to
the first count, there will be the same
suspicion regarding the recount if it
changes the result. If the first count
failed to carry conviction recount will
not help it in this respect.
A first count superintendent by compe-
tent men of both parties is likely to be
just as accurate, and less open to suspi-
cion of dishonesty than second count.
When the first count is made there has
been no time or opportunity for the de-
struction or alteration of the ballots, and
Furthermore there is at that time no def
mite knowledge of just how much change
is needed to alter the result. If the men
who counted the vote in this town last
Monday night had known what they
knew the next day, and what the
change of less than fifty votes would
have changed the result on one of the
most important county offices, the virtue
of some of them would have been put to
q severe strain. We do not wish to in
sinrate that they would have yielded; on
the contrary we think that they would
moi, bnJ even if they had not a great
many men in the community would have
believed that they had and the count
would have been under suspicion.
Let the first count be surrounded with