The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1903-07-16
THE EFFECTIVE BALLOT
Being the EhhiT.a; sSsss.ineas g ~. Wake
fields Discussion of This Needed
Reform


automatic voting machines that re-
cord and display in sight Of each
voter the full vote of every candidate
up to the time he reaches the polls.
Suppose populist voter at the polls
late in the afternoon and he sees
there can be no hope OF electlng any
one on his own ticket, but that re-
lublicans and democrats are running
very close, what will he do! II rankiy
partisan. he will under present sys-
ten disfranchise himself by voting an
already beaten ticket, but under the
effective ballot he "can stand up ana
ne counted" for his principles without
danger of Acknowledgement, by max
ing the populist candidates his hrst
choices and the democratic ones MS
second choices, his second choices IN
such case being as effectual as II ~
had been his first, yet the po!l VIII
show the full number of populIst vot-
ers who went to the polls.
Let us suppose such voting machines
in use in 1904 at the presidential cleo
ton and the candidates are: Roose-
welt. plutocratic republican,; Tom
johnson, radical democrat: Tom Wat
son, peoples party, and cleveland,
boiling plutocratic democrat; and the
voter sees (the consolidated result OF
vote in all other states and precincts
Icing telegraphed and displayed on
bulletin boards hourly or oftener) that
Roosevelt and Johnson are neck and
neck and the others nowhere, what
would an honest, intelligent voter do?
He knows that Watson and Johnson
have substantially the same principles
and are equally honest; that Cleveland
is only running to help Roosevelt, that
Watson cannot be elected, but that
Johnson probably can be, and he votes
for Johnson, either as his first or
second choice, either being effective.
This is precisely what the effective
ballot enables the voter to do in the
absence of such voting machines and
hourly record on bulletin boards.
Fusion is an attempt to reach this
same end by clumsy, difficult, less
effectual method.
Fusion has prevented republicans
from controlling some state govern
ments by minority plurality and en-
abled the majority of the people to
elect state officers, county and city
officers, judges, etc., hence the deadly
hatred Of plutocracy for fusion and
the criminal election law OF Kansas
that prevented fusion and gave the re-
publicans control of the state through
minority plurality. Had the pop
ulists, when in full control in Kan
sas, enacted the effective ballot, as
the writer of this earnestly urged
them to do, republicans could have
regained the state only through ma
;ority of the total vote, and then would
have had only their proportion OF leg
islatOrS, senators, ETC., proportion
that could never have become large
enough to give them control, even
though they had the state officers.
AS will be seen by those who have
read thus far, in counting the vote
where but one candidate is to be
elected, all but the two highest in first
count to start on, and while their
humber of first choice ballots is re-
corded and published for the peoples
information, their second choices are
transferred to that one of the two
highest candidates for which they were
given and counted for such candidate
exactly as they would be if given to
him as first choice ballots.
In England, France, Germany and
Sweden this same result is reached by
q second election between the two
highest candidates when no candidate
has a majority of total vote at first
election. Is it not shame that we
let these "effete monarchies of Eu-
rope" so far surpass us in registering
the peoples will?
RELATIONS TO THE REFERENDUM
The effective ballot is not intended
to take the place of the initiative and
the referendum (direct voting) but
to do what direct voting cannot do
that is, give the people control of their
and executive officers,
the ones who must frame and submit
laws to be voted on at the referen-
DUN. Twelve years experience in the
Swiss cantons that have adopted the
effective ballot shows that so perfect
ly is the collective will represented
by it that scarcely any demand is made
for the referendum.