The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-10-23
NEA Service Writer

Washington.--News of a plot matching in tie west to throw the next election into the house of rep- resentatiyes leaves the capital ur- disturbed but reminded again that you can do a lot of tricks with the electoral college.
 The idea is to elect slates of fn- dependent electors in various states who would vote neither for the re- publican nor the democratic candi- date but would have enough eiec- toral vote sto prevent either from obtaining the majority essential for election. Then, according to the promoters of the rantastic scheme, 25 western states. each with sin gle presidential vote in the house. could elect a president who would be friendly to western interests and not subservient to the financially and industrially dominant east.
 A fizzle for this can be predicted and considerable assurance. The possibility that some such trick might sometime work and cause all sorts of excitement and confusion is what makes the story interesting.
 It is quite possible to imagine the lack of a majority in the college and a subsequent election in the house. The prospect was widely inn agined, in fact, as recently as the year 1924 when the late Senator LaFolIette became a third party candidate. There is not now any discernible movement for a third party effort in 1882, but the cleo ton is likely to be so close that i! wouldn't take very many electoral votes to prevent a majority.
 once an election is thrown into the house there is likely to be q lot of fun. The republicans have q majority in the house delegations from 26 states, the democrats in 21 delegations. One delegation. that of Montana, is divided between ono republican and one democrat. Thus, a very few western republic can congressmen from only three states could block the election by the house of any republican candi- date not agreeable to them, holding a balance of power roughly corre- spending to that which a group of independent or third party electors might wield in the electoral col- lege.
 In order to avoid the almost un- thinkable mess which probably would result from failure of the house to choose president such . group of insurgents doubtless would eventually vote for one or the other of the two major party candidates Ii unable to jam through favorite and no choice by the house, how of it's own. In case of no majority ever, the duties of the president would be taken over by a vice president who meanwhile would have bene elected by the senate, The senate, if you must know, would only have to elect by a ma jority vote of its members and in- asmuch as the senate is propor- tionately much more insurgent than the house 1t might offer the most hope for those piotters who now think it's a grand idea 10 throw the election into the house.
 The electoral college system has been attacked because 1t provides faulty proportional representation, but an election by the house Is far worse from that standpoint. It is often complained, for instance, that Nevada has one elector for every 26,000 inhabitnts and New York only one for every 230,O0o. with similar inequalities between large and smal states caused by the fact that an eleetor is allotted for every