The Cordova daily times., 1919-03-11
WOULDOBVIATE
 LONG SUSPENSE IN ELECTIONS

to the public has quickened interest in efforts to enact similar legislation both in California and Washington. Meas ures along these lines now are pend- ing before the California and Washing ton state legislatures. In the Califor- mia legislature the bill was introduced ;r skeleton form by Senator Frank M. Carr of Oakland, while the measure was submitted by Representative John D. Bassett of Spokane, in Washington.
 The measure is hailed as one that will be appreciated by the general public to greater extent than is real ized by those not familiar with the present membranes which surround ballot-counting. The success of the experiment in Kansas should attract attention in other states as possible relief from such uncertainty as the whole country labored under for sev- eral days after the last presidential election.
 Kansas, considering it's difference in time as compared with the Eastern states, was the first of all states to begin to return figures on the last presidential election. This was sur prise generally to other states until it was discovered that the secret of Kansas promptness was a system known as the double election board.
 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 sim- ultaneously with the casting of them, with the result that the vote is known immediately upon the closing of the polls.
 The Kansas law provides that at all general elections the national and state tickets shall be printed upon one ballot and the district county and township tickets shall be printed upon another ballot, and that at leach voting precinct five separate ballot boxes shall be provided, two boxes Tn duplicate for the national and state paIlots, and that there shall be two boards of election officers. one to he known as the receiving board-to re- ce1ve ballots and guard their proper placement in the boxes-and the other to be a counting board.
 A lew hours after the openfnp of the polls the national and state hal lot boxes are removed from their des. lenated places, and duplicate boxes placed in their stead, while the count- Ing board retires under proper safo- guards, empties the first set of boxes ana counts the ballots. After anotber interval the boxes are exchanged again ana the counting is proceeded with m this manner of simple relay throughout the day
 The old method, which still obta;ns Ill all the states except Kansas and west Virginia, requires the casting oeiore any counting is done, and this ih'olVes in some places from six +o 1orty-eight hours, delayine e+;n greater time the compilation of state or national vote.
 The act of the West Virginia ,oa;, iature in following the Kansas exam pc IS called the Wier bill, after .James w. "ler' newspaper man who is :. member of the West Virginia 1oo;,,o ture' and who deemed some of tho clerlcal and mechanical handicans of eiec'lon reporting belonged to the uays when folks depended unon +ho stage coach mail for their news in s.eao or the present era of the te,o pnone and wireless telegram Tn vest Virginia, for example a+ tho 1916 election, it was week before it was Known positively how the stoto nao gone, and it was six weeks bo lore the exact figures were comn;,oa and published. p''eu
 What llttie opposition was met with m west Virginia in suggesting adon .lon or the Kansas method wac to "AA1I Iu0 double a1oot{o~ board involved additional expense hut ,n the argument of the author of tha Diil' IL IS as inexpensive to work two se's or men one day as it is to worI one set of men for two days.
 California, Ohio, Pennsylvania. New Jersey and several of the Middle and Western states have for many years been particularly slow in completing their returns, and it is such condi- tions. that have handicapped the As sociated Press in announcing the defl- mite results in the presidential cleo tions on the night of election day. The seriousness of such delays as were encountered in 1916. when various newspapers announced the result be- fore 1t was known, impressed itself upon Governor Cox of Ohio. In an address before the members of the