The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-09
Danger Height Of
ONE MACHINE IN FAVOR.


There is one kind of political machine
that we very much need in all parts of
this country. 1t is the voting machine,
and the necessity for its general adop-
ton was never so clear as it has been
made within the last week The adop-
ton of the Australian ballot system
was the greatest political reform ever
accomplished in this country. Our
people would not give it up now for
anything short Of a revolution. Yet
the Australian ballot has just this one
drawback. that the business of count
Ing the returns is immensely slow. The
difficulty is one that grows, rather than
lessons. The perfect secrecy of the
ballot has encouraged Independent vot-
ing. The growth of independent voting
tends to the multiplication of candi-
dates. There are pretty nearly twice
as many people running for different
offices in every election now as there
would have been twenty years ago. All
these names must go On the ballot, and
e 1t has grown now to be, in most states,
q cumhrous affair, whose canvassing
consumes one or two days of labor if
the judges and clerks of election are
at all uneducated or inexperienced
men.
This delay in itself is not the worst.
RI Delay tends to other things. 1t opens
a way to fraud and encourages that at
tack upon the sanctity of the ballot
after it is cast which used to be made
upon it beforehand in the old evil
days of tissue ballots and repeating.
before the Australian ballot came in.
Let us suppose that the result of the
election in the nation depended. for
instance, on the vote Of Kentucky
Kentucky being almost evenly hal
aneed, there would certainly be a ire
mendous struggle for control of the
returns in the missing precincts. They
would be held back, and fine work
would be done on both sides TO control
the count. If this great delay in getting
at the returns which now stretches
over three or four days, or perhaps q.
week, cannot be remedied, the Aus
traiian system is admittedly defective
But it can be remedied The remedy
consists in the voting machine, which
has all the advantages of the Austral-
ian system without any of its obiec-
tlonable qualities. The machine rough
~ resembles in essential features a.
~ ch ncyic
candidates are placed upon the knobs
or buttons to be pressed. You push in
a knob labeled with the name of YOUR
candidate and it marks a vote 1non q
slip of paper on the inside. at the sana
time locking all the other knobs that
bear the names of candidates for the
same office, so that they cannot be
pushed in. The voter can onlv nress
the knob for one candidate for each
office. When he has finished and leaves
the room the opening of the door Of
exit unlocks the entire machine and
leaves it ready for the next conner. This
makes the machine exactly as yaIu-
able in the way of secrecy as the paper
ballot.
But it has the enormous advantage
OF counting the vote as it is cast. Each
knob pressed records the total vote for
that candidate, counting in the vote
just cast. Thus the moment that the
polls are closed and the voting machine
is unlocked the total vote Of each can
didate. will be found inscribed upon
the rolls OF paper that it contains. The
clerical work Of counting the ballots
is entirely abolished 1t is impossible
to inValidate the count 1t is impossi-
Bile to stuff the box. It is Impossible
to delay the returns. Within five min
utes Of the time when the polls are
closed by law the result is known and
ready for transmission to committees
and to the public. The voting machine
has been tried on large scale through
out New York. and, in this election, in
Worcester, Mass, and everywhere it
has proved practical success It
ought to be in general Use before an
other election comes about. It makes
the Australian system simply perfect.