The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1898-11-24
TIE VOTING MACHINE.

The adoption of machine labor in
places Of manual labor in many pur.
suits and industries where It's use has
long been deemed impossible or i'm.
practicable ia anothe. evidence that
the world is fast n ring what may be
termed the machine age when no trade,
art, industry, or work now done by
hand, will be exempt from its domina-
tion. Many failures extending through
many years seemed to forbid its use in
setting type and TO prove that this
most difficult of tasks would never be
successfully accomplished. But it has
been, and in all the large newspaper
and job Offices of the country the type
setting machine is at work.
Voting machines are the latest sue
ceSsful achievement IN mechanism and
without much doubt their use will in
time be universally adopted. Their
use in Rochester at recent election
was most satisfactory. Twenty min
utes after the polls closed the full re-
suit of the voting was known in that
city. Fraud was made impossible in
the casting and counting of the ballots
and voters had not the least difficulty
in casting their ballots.
This promises reform of the most
practical value. There is no doubt
the time is coming when inventive
genius will minimize the work of the
ward heeler. 1t seems that it has
come now, and New York has made
the experiment on very large scale
by testing voting machines in a large
and important city. The ballot law
of Pennsylvania is 2 cumbersome
piece of lnsincere patchwork, costly
and disappointing. A machine in it.
self cannot lie or cheat. 1t is auto
matte, and it records without feeling
and reports without bribe or remorse.
1t will be interesting to read the final
result of machine ballot boxes in
noted city of great state.
The machine and the method of
using it are described as follows:
The voting machine does all the
work of canvassers and tally clerks.
All the voter has to do is to move a
handle over 4 face that looks like the
switchboard of telephone central Of
flee, and when he leaves the booth the
apparatus clicks and his vote is not
only rec orded but is added on to the
total. When the machine is locked
at the end of the day it has automatl-
cally added up the vote of every can
didate.
The machines in Rochester worked
perfectly, and there will be bill in
troduced into the Legislature direct
ing the use of the machine all over the
state, In Rochester, which is city
of $4,000 people, there were 73 stand
ard voting machines employed, and the
result was that the total vote of Ro-
chester was known in just 81 minutes
after the polls closed This time was
required to get the totals of the 73
machines together and add them. In
Syracuse, which has 10000 less pop
ulation than Rochester, the return was
not complete until midnight
There are as many stupid men in
Rochester as anywhere else, but with
the voting machine the dullest voter
could not get mixed up. The voter
cannot lose his vote by voting for two
candidates for the same off the
most frequent blunder noticed when
ordinary ballots are counted.
There are no springs in the mechan-
ism, so there is nothing likely to get
out of order; not one of the 70 ma
chimes used at Rochester failed to do
the work expected oft.
There is little lever before each
name on the face of the machine, and
the voter picks out his ticket by shift.
ing these from perpendicular to horl-
zontal. If he chooses to vote a straight
ticket he merely moves handle over