Year: 1878

A Washington correspondent says that the House Committee on the Revision of the Laws regulating the counting of the electoral vote for President and Vice President has under consideration sev- eral plans for preventing the occurrence of controversy like that which pre- ceded the inauguration of President Hayes.

 One of them, which seems to meet with some favor, proposes to provide by constitutional amendment that all dis putes as to which of two or more persons or sets of persons has been legally chosen to the Electoral College ill any State, or which involves the eligibility of an elector, shall be passed upon by the highest judicial tribunal in the State, the decision of which shall be sent to the President of the Senate, to be kept with the electoral votes and opened at the same time they are opened. Another section of the amendment proposes to make it necessary to have the concurrent vote of both Houses of Congress in order to reject the vote of any State un- less contest has taken place. In that case, if the highest tribunal ill the State has passed upon the question at issue, then 1t is proposed that the concurrent vote of both Houses of Congress shall be required to reverse it. But if no de- clsion has been made, and two or more returns are received from the same State, then, by this plan, the concurrent vote of both Houses will be required to au- thorize the counting of any vote of the State in question.

 The objection to this plan which im- mediately suggests itself is that it leaves open the door for just such dispute as that which it seeks to prevent, and with out supplying an adequate remedy The electoral controversy of 1876-1S77 disclosed how easy it is to get up dupli- cate electoral votes from State, or to raise questions touching the eligibility of electors and as the proposed amend ment seems to contemplate the possi- bility that these questions may not be  they will be brought to Washington and give rise to serious trouble. Suppose, for instance, that the State of Vermont should, as it did in 1876, choose an elector whose eligibility should be dis puted, and the question whether he was eligible or not should not be passed upon by the State Courts. The very fact that question was raised would enable one House of Congress to prevent his vote from being counted without any regard to the equities of the case. The man might be actually eligible, and yet be- cause this was questioned his vote might be rejected and the scale of 8 Presiden- tial election turned from one side to the other. The same trouble might arise from the existence of contesting Elec- toral College. What is needed is ma- chinery that will make it impossible to raise troublesome questions here in Washington after the counting of the votes begin. This proposed amendment does not do it. When the subject comes to be discussed by the full committee, however, amendments may be proposed that will supply these deticiencles.

 Another plan that has been talked of somewhat, is to divide the electoral vote of each State among the Presidential candidates in proportion to the respec. tive popular votes they received in the State, carrying the division into decimal | froo of Vo1o details of this plan are similar to those of the well-known systems which have for their object minority representations