Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1894-11-23
AUSTRALIAN BALLOT LAW.

day and age of the world.
AUSTRALIAN BALLOT LAW.
During the last session Of the legisla-
ture the Australian ballot system was
amended in several important particu-
lars, and we have now had a chance to
test the value of the amendments as we'll
as the law. In our opinion the law is, in
many respects, bad, and as amended it
is no improvement over the original bill.
In fact, the amendments we're so care
lessly drawn that they repealed a part of
the law never intended to be repealed by
the person who offered the amendments.
For instance, the amendment to Sec. l6
made no provision for the appointment
of inspectors OF election, and repealed
the provision existing before that time
for their appointment by tie county
board in townships not authorized as
civil townships.
The Bismarck TRIBUNE believes that
that feature of the law which provides
that no person should be present on cleo
ton day at or near the polls electioneer-
ing, and that the voter should 20 into
the booth and mark or select the ticket
he desires to vote is q good one, and
would suggest that the coming legisla-
ture should so amend the law that the
names of all the candidates nominated
by any party may be placed upon sepa-
rate ballots, and all parties who are can
didates 10y petition or by paper nomina-
ton, be placed upon another ballot.
That these ballots, one containing all the
candidates on the republican ticket, an
other on the democratic ticket, and an
other on the populist ticket, should be
placed in the booths, and the voter be
allowed to go into the booth and select
whichever ticket he might see fit.
In case he sees fit to vote for a demo-
GRAFT, but in the main desires to vote the
republican ticket, he could then write
the names of the candidates he desires
to vote for beneath the name of the re-
publican nominee for that particular
office, erasing the nam on the repub-
lican ticket. After having prepared his
ballot in this manner, it should be pre-
sented by him to the judges of election,
who should then and there put on it the
official stamp, initiated, as the law now
directs should be done when the ballot
is given to the voter, and put the ballot
in the box.
The large number of votes cast at this
election, and which were so marked as
to disfranchise the voter, is a serious
menace to the best interests of the peo-
pie. The system of voting should be SO
plain that the common, ordinary mind
may grasp it and understand It's details,
so that he would intelligently cast his
ballot for the persons for whom he de-
sired to vote, and any system which is so
complex that it cannot be thoroughly
understood by the ordinary voter, ought
not to prevail.
The Australian ballot law, as it now
stands upon our statute books, is no I'M
provement over the old law. Another
thing which should be done in connec-
ton with the law, is to provide an easier
method of prosecuting judges of election
who seek to influence voters who can
neither read nor write, and who in mark
ing the ballot would mark it SO as to dis
franchise the voter, and the most severe
penalty should be prescribed for the
offense. In some Of the precincts of
Burleigh county there we're as many as
nine voters DISTINGUISHED because they
had not marked their ballot as the law
prescribed, and yet they had voted with
the best intentions, and thought they
knew exactly for whom they were voting.
The subject is one that it would be we'll
for every me1nber-elect to give consider
alton between now and the meeting of
the next session.