The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-04-12

the candidate marked as second choice thereon by the voters. If some other candidate should reach the quota therby, no more ballots would go to him; instead, they would go to the next high choice marked on each ballot by the voters themselves.
 After the first choices have been distributed, the lowest standing can- didate is declared defeated, and his ballots are taken up one at'a time, and are credited to the next high choice on each, as marked by the voters. Ballots are not wasted on defeated candidates, as under the present system. Then the next low candidate is defeated, and his bal- lots are redistributed, and so forth, until all seven councilmen or schoolboard members have been elected.
 Simplified
 Because of the simplified nomin- ating process, and the method of election whereby ballots are made effective; and because it is necessary for each candidate to win the sup port of only one seventh of the voters, thereby relieving him of the necessity of making promises to all groups, it is possible to procure and to elect the very best candidates possible. That is no idle fancy, based merely on hope, but is proven fact from the results of many P. R. elections in this country and abroad.
 In Cincinnati, under the old system, the Republican organization regularly elected thirty one of the thirty two members of the council, with less than seventy per cent of the votes cast. Under P. R., the Re- publican organization lost strength to the non-partisan Charter Com mittee, and has never elected more than four of the nine members of the new council, with approximately 45% of the vote.
 In New York City, under the old system, Tammany regularly elected sixty two of the sixty five aldermen, with sixty five per cent of the vote. Under P. R., Tammany elected thirteen out of twenty six council men, with fifty per cent of the vote. Can there be any doubt that P. R. truly reflects the will of the people?
 New York probably has the most heterogenious population of any city in the country. If P. R. is hard to understand, New York would be the most likely proving ground. But 100000 more people cast ballots under P. R. in New York City than under the old system, and 500,000 more ballots were effective in actually helping to determine the results of the P. R. election than had ever been effective under the old system.
 Cannot Control
 There will be considerable op- position to the proposed charter as the campaign goes forward, and most of the opposition will be cen- tered on P. R. The reason for this opposition will be that the profess ional politicians cannot control P R. elections, and they will leave no stone unturned to defeat it. That has been the experience everywhere that P. R. has been proposed; it has been the experience of every cty which has actually used P. R., for the politicians make regular at tempts to have P. R. repealed. An example is the attempt made in the 1888 New York State Constitutional Convention. On the last day of the convention, after many delegates had gone home, with the assurance that nothing further was to be presented, the politicians steam- rollered through proposal to abolish P. R. in New York State. That the people of New York re- jected it by more than two to one in every county is ample evidence that it has worked well in New York City.
 The advantages of the preferential ballot under the P. R. system, whereby the voter may express his first, second, third and other choices is well summed up by Hallett in his excellent short book, "P. R., The Key To Democracy (available at the Bronson Library), as follows: When you go to the market you dare to ask for what you really pre- fer-let us say veal cutlet-even though you think it is probably not available, Why? Because if there is no veal outlet you can at once ask for beefsteak, your second choice: and if there is no beefsteak either, for your third choice, and SO on. If you were limited by law to the ex- pression of only one choice of meats. you might ask for bologna sausage, not because you preferred it, but because you thought it most likely to be in stock. In our elections we get political bologna ad nauseam because we vote for it; and we vote for 1t, in spite of the fact that we do not want it, because we are made helpless by the limitations of the ballot. Until we have sense enough to give ourselves the same freedom on the ballot that we have in or- dering meat at the butchers we deserve to eat political bologna in- definitely" X. The proposed char ter, with P. R., is Waterbury's chance to do away with political bologna in Waterbury.
 The next article in this series will deal with the merit system under the proposed Cincinnati plan city charter.