The morning journal-courier., 1908-06-04
THE VOTING MACHINES.


 of the last election of mayor in that city. That interest need not center so much on whether the editor -politi- elan, Mir. Hearst, was deprived of what he should have had or not. New Haven has a system of balloting with "stickers" which is as inadequate as 1t is ancient; New York has been using the marked ballot with which the voter puts cross opposite his party or individual favorites. New Haven has found its election methods require a change With the use of ''stickers" 1t Is much too easy for the ignorant to be imposed upon and for the corruptible vote to be bought and controlled with a fair amount of cer- tainty that it will be cast as 1t has been bought.
 In looking about for q new system of balloting there are really only 1.-two methods that present themselves. One is the marked ballot way New York uses and the other is the system of voting by machine which has been favorably reported on to the board of aldermen by the committee which has been Investigating 1t. The pres ;t Nnpty fNvnih1,. presents the failures of the former system. There is a large proportion of the working classes that votes heavily and inteligently, for the most part but which but seldom has oc- casion to make use of pencil. It is no difficult thing for laboring man with his stiff muscles and tendons to mark in a small circle a well-formed and regular cross, such as the voting regulations require; and is usually much more difficult for the boards to decide in a consistent manner what crosses are according to Hoyle" and what ones are to be rejected. The result Is that the decisions in such cases are for the most part arbitrary | and 1t Is quite crtain that no two counts of the city's votes would re- suit in anywhere near the same fig ures. Controversies such as the pres ent one, brought on by MT. Hearst, are sure to follow wherever there has been very close vote. If there is not | the honest conviction that there was an illegal count, there may be one hope that enough of the ballots cast l for the man victorious on the first count may be thrown out to turn the tide. Another difficulty will be that trouble will breed trouble. That is with one recount ordered for Mir. l Hearst, the next time there is any uncertainty at all, another recount will be sought and granted on minor grounds; and all the while the secur- l ity of the ballot box, on which all matters of democracy rests, will be undermined.
 With the voting machines there cannot be the uncertainties of either the "sticker" system or of the mark ed ballot system. A thousand re- counts would result the same way, There can be no arbitrary decisions as to what 8 voter meant or whether his vote was legally cast or not. He must vote right or he cannot vote at all. There Is the element of finality combined with speed that should be the prime requisites in any voting system. The machines have given en- tire satisfaction where tried else where. Hartford cannot say too much for them. It may seem like a big outlay to create bonded indebted ness of over $25, 1000 but the machines will soon pay for themselves in eX- penses saved. Like the well known western railroad they are "the only way" And best of all 1t makes the dollars of the machine of no avail be- cause there is no way to detect how an individual voter cast his ballot,