New Britain herald., 1917-03-02

This system does not in any sense revolutionize present methods of vot- ing, but simply makes it possible that the ballots may be counted almost simultaneously with the casting of them, with the result that the vote is known immediately upon the clos ing of the polls.
 The Kansas law provides that all general elections, the national and the state tickets shall be printed upon one ballot, and the district, county and township tickets shall be printed upon another ballot, and that at each voting precinct five separate ballot boxes shall be provided, two boxes in duplicate for the national and state ballots. and, that there shall he two boards of. election officers, one to be known as the receiving board-to re- .ceive ballots and guard their proper placement in: the boxesLand the other to be a counting board. . s. A few hours after the opening of the polls the national and state ballot boxes are removed from their desig mated places, and duplicate boxes placed in their stead, while the counting board retires under proper safeguards, empties the first set of boxes and counts the ballots. After another interval the boxes are ex- changed again, and the counting pro- ceeded with in this manner of simple relay throughout the day.
 The old method, which still obtains in all the states except Kansas and West Virginia, requires the casting of the ballot. before any counting is done, and this involved in some places from six to forty-eight hours, delay ing a still greater time the compila- tion of state or national vote.
 Planned by Newspaperman.
 The act of the West Virginia leg islature in following the Kansas ex- ample is called the Wier bill, after James w. Wier, a newspaperman who is a member of the West Virginia legislature and who deemed that some of the clerical and mechanical handicaps of election reporting be- longed to the days when folks depend ed upon the stage coach mail for their news, instead of the present era of the telephone and wireless tele- graph. In West Virginia, for example, at the last election it was a week be- fore it was known positively how the state had gone, and it was six weeks before the exact figures were compiled and published.
 What little opposition was met with in West Virginia in suggesting adoption of the Kansas method was to the effect that the double election board involved additional expense, but in the argument of the author of the bill, it is as inexpensive to work two sets of men one day as it is to work one set of men for two days.
 Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and several of the middle and western states have for many years been par ticularly slow in completing their re- turns, and it is such conditions that have handicapped the Associated Press in announcing the definite re- suits of presidential elections on the night of election day. The serious ness of such delays as were encoun- tered last November, when various newspapers announced the result be- fore it was known, has impressed it. self upon Governor Cox of Ohio. In an address before the members of the Associated Ohio Dailies at Columbus recently the governor suggested an adoption of law similar to that of Kansas so that the general result might be known early in the evening of election day, instead of, as he said about Christmas time.'
 In view of election experts, the uni- form adoption of the double board system in all the states would obvi- ate such doubt of the presidential vote as obtained at the last election. lsas sss ssss .sa ses ze