Arizona republican., 1910-02-08

be regarded with any degree of com placency."
 | The cunning Yording of the objec- tionable paragraph which defines the
 voters qualification will not escape ' the most casual reader. It will be
 observed that the applying voter must show that he is
 | Able to read the constitution of the
 United States"
 { and so forth. Not that he must 1, read certain number of words. a certain number of lines, certain para | graphs, or whole or part of it. He ! must merely satisfy the registering of-
 ficer and the election board that he ! is able" to do as required
 1 Let us see how this might work in practice. The ward workers tip
 off to their registering officer that
 a voter in question is "all right he will vote the ticket No matter how illiterate this voter may be. no
 matter. indeed. whether he submits to
 any test at all. the registering off
 cer will say. You are all right. old man: I know you are able to read the constitution-down your name goes. Coming to a voter of the opposition party. the registering officer says:
 ''Here-I am in doubt whether you .l,o ( the United States without being prompted or depending upon your
 memory. Here's the whole document. Read her to me- If the voters read
 ing is not faultless in the judgment"
 of the officer. he will say: Sorry.
 but you won't do. You would need
 prompting before you could read that
 correctly" MT. Opposition Voter is
 left off the great register. But let us
 suppose he succeeds in satisfying the
 registering officer. he must run the
 gauntlet of the election board. as we
 shall see later Returning for mo-
 ment to the friendly" voter previous
 ly passed by the registering officer.
 let us see how he fares with the
 friendly election board. He may be challenged. to be sure. by bystander of the opposing party. and he is put to the test. He falls down utterly.
 But the friendly members of the cleo ton board say. Hes merely excited.
 He is able to read all right, all right. Sure. he can vote" Along comes voter of the opposite party who has passed muster with the registering officer Put to the reading test he may read in way to satisfy the most exacting school teacher. or the most exacting teacher of elocution. but the board members are dissatisfied. They decide, if he reads remarkably well. that he was reciting from memory. If he stumbles. they decide that he is not able to read without prompting. and so he is excluded
 Let us grant that these are extreme cases. But what of a law that per mits such a farce? But there is an- other, and a very probable. way in which hundreds of voters might be in a precinct by an un- fair election board. in the following manner Let us suppose that the ward workers operating with the cleo tion board have rounded up and voted most of their party. and are chiefly with shutting out opposition votes As opposition voters appear they are challenged and required to road the constitution in it's entirety. To quote the governors veto message again:
 "The average number of voters at each precinct in the territory is about | one hundred. In many cases there I are as many as four or. five hundred. I But assuming there are but hundred. | how easy it would be to block the | progress of the election for partisan purposes by the application of this law. The polls are open at the ut | most nine hours, which is five hun fred and forty minutes. It will take | Inc average reader fifteen minutes to read the constitution, and a partisan | board may require the full reading by such challenged voter: and it will not | 10 to say that this is the extreme to | anticipate Just such things have not l 1nly been attempted, but done to the | exclusion of honest voters. It would {! -equire the challenging of only thirty six voters to consume the entire cleo | ion day to the exclusion of the .vot- srs''
 And by this process an election board could -''save it's face and throw Ill the blame on the chaliengers. But we guess that the senators of the-i United States i'll be able" to read his cunningly passisan law and are able" to see it's blow holes.