The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-02-11
F. H. DILLON & co.

A ~ to the practical working law, provided 1t may be lawfully made, and accord ingly recommend it, but call the at tention of the General Assembly te the legal question involved without ex. pressing an opinion upon it.
 p 1t should affect the governor anG eqtenant-governor, but not the other state officers. Their nomination may for the present be left for the state convention as in some of the othel states.
 (3.) It should affect representatives il Congress, and United States senators to the extent provided in the act here with submitted.
 4) It should affect sheriffs, state senators and representatives, and representatives, and judges of probate so long as the last named are elective.
 (5.) It should affect all elective city and borough officers large as the list of, such officers now is, for that is certain soon to be materially abridged
 6) Candidates for nomination should be placed upon the ballot after filing a petition therefor signed by 9 fixed proportion of electors. G.) The primary ballot should be prepared by public officials after pub lication in the newspapers and oppor- tunity for inspection by the interested parties.
 (S) There may be either one blanket ballot for all parties or a separate bal lot for each party with resort to party voting lists. Provision for the former plan is contained in the law proposed by our first report Provision for the latter plan is contained in the law at tached to this report.
 9) The primaries for all but city t<>>.< -t> T. l. ~, the first Monday in October, and for city and borough officers two weeks before the city or borough election.
 Q0) Primary elections should be held under the same rules and safe guards and officers as ordinary cleo tions, mutatis mutandis, and paid for except as to ballots, in the same way.
 Q1.) Delegates to state conventions should be chosen at these primaries These conventions should meet soon after the primaries and formulate the party platform -and nominate candi dates for state offices not included in the primaries, and for any included office no candidate for which was there nominated.
 Q2.} Pluralities should govern ex- cept that provision ought to be made that no plurality less than certain percentage of the party primary vote could nominate state officers or repre- sentatives at large. This is the law in "a few other states. Fear of the pOssi- bility that nominations might some times be made by small minorities, if pluralities governed, has often been ex- pressed. Such results where the plan has been in operation are too infre- quent to merit consideration. A scheme for indicating first and second choices has been tried but is some what perplexing and the plan for a second election adopted by certain of the Southern states is said to be un- satisfactory. Choice by plurality for offices great and small has become the practically universal rule, both in the nation and in the states, and if so for election, why not for nomination?
 QS) Nominations by petition should be provided for to appear on a sepa- rate ballot on election day the nom inees not to include any person whose name has been printed on an official ballot as a candidate for the same of flee.
 Z Q4.) The general election law should be amended so far as may be found necessary to permit the new primary act to have full effect at elections.
 A bill embodying these features has been prepared by us and will be found in Appendix A. In so far as it diff fers from the law originally recom- mended the change IS pr1nclpally que to our desire to propose a method which will make interference in the of one party by the vot- CTS of another impossible instead of improbable and negligible as we believe would have been the case un- der the other law. The fear of the danger referred to is so strong that in many minds it overcomes the desire to provide a secret method of express ing the voters preferences such as the plan recommended by us two years ago provided.
 We still believe entire secrecy to be desirable and thought we had made it safe, but in deference to widely held desire for an absolutely assured parti- san nomination we have prepared the present bill. The two bills can be easily compared and the most satis- factory features of each adopted. In connection with the matters embraced in this report, our services are, as freely and constantly at your disposal Our only desire is that Connecticut should have a direct pri- mary law as advanced in merit as is possible. If the new system does not accomplish a perfect work, if it is only a step in the journey, that step will make the next one easier, and is it not worth while to take this first step away from acknowledged evils on the road to that goal which should com. mend itself to every honest, thinking citizen.