The Indianapolis journal., 1903-04-10
INDIANA,s ELECTION LAWS.

editorial article from the Washington Post
defending Indiana against defamatory
charges made by Democratic paper in
this city. The local paper stated that every
State in the Union was entitled to express
contempt for Indiana because she alone of
all the States makes vote-buying legal"
and 1t declared that To-day Indiana re-
in which vote-buying is a lawful occupa-
tion" Like many other statements made by
the same paper for partisan purposes, this
one Is grossly misleading. That 1t has proved
so in some quarters is shown by state
ment of the Boston Herald, which says:
Indiana is State that has profited in be-
ing doubtful. Perhaps this is the reason
that Indiana has bribery law The In
dianapolis Sentinel says that Indiana is the
only civilized State in the world in which
vote-buying is a lawful occupation" Such
filings at former conditions in this State
have little application to present ones
as do references to the loose divorce laws
which prevailed here forty years ago. At
present there is scarcely State in the
Union that has better divorce laws.
In as far as the statements above quoted
convey the impression that Indiana has no
laws for the purity of elections or punish
ing bribery. it is libel the State. The
Constitution itself says Every person
shall be disqualified for holding office dur
ing the term for which he may have been
elected who shall have given or offered
bribe to secure his election The State has
offense for any person to sell or offer to
sell his vote, or who shall accept money or
anything of value for his vote or for re-
framing from voting, and it has such law
now. 1t is true the State has no law pun
ishing the vote-buyer the briber as well as
the person bribed, as it ought to have, but
this does not weaken our election system
nor justify a charge that bribery is open
and rampant here. Our election laws are so
guarded in other respects and the secret
ballot is so well maintained by the Aus
tralian ballot law that bribery is very diff
cult. and probably there is not a State in
the Union that has purer elections than In
diana. No State that has not the Aus
tralian ballot law has as pure elections as
this State has. Connecticut has not that
law, and has no law Furnishing bribe-tak-
ers as Indiana has. There is not another
State in the Union that imposes severer
penalties for selling ones vote than In
diana does, and a large majority of them
do not impose any at all. Many of the
States do not require as long previous resi-
dence in the State and township and pre-
cinct Indiana does. In short, the only
weak point in the election laws of the State,
If that is one, is that we have no law pun
ishing the bribe-giver well the bribe-
taker. 1t is true, as the Post says, that
there is no State in which it would be
more difficult to get fraudulent votes into
the ballot boxes perpetrate a fraud in
the returns" and there is not another State
in the Union that has fairer elections or
more honest counts. The concluding para
graph of the Posts article deserves to be
emphasized:
As to pointing the finger of scorn'' at
or expressing contempt for Indiana, we
do not know of any State that is entitled
to do so. Her laws as whole compare
favorably with those of the most progress
sive and enlightened of the New England
OK the middle groups. If she had such an
out-of-date, anti-democratic, unequal and
altogether unfair and indefensible Consti-
tuition as Connecticut or Rhode Island, her
sons might well blush at her, although it
might not occur to them that duty re-
quired them to invoke for her the contempt
of any or all the other States. But looking
at her as she stands in the family of States,
debiting her with her faults and giving her
due credit for her good achievements her
absent sons may well feel that they have
no cause for shame and much reason for
honest, modest pride.