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Proposed Methods of Ballot Simplification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2018

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Extract

You have been hearing about the need for a simplification of the ballot by a reduction in the number of elective offices, and the general argument for “the short ballot” is fresh in your minds. The part which has been assigned to me, as I take it, is to suggest an answer to the first question which the practical man invariably asks: “ How are you going to put this principle into operation? Just which offices will you take off the ballot and which will you leave on.”

Now I need hardly spend much time explaining that to attempt to answer this question satisfactorily I shall have to go rather far afield and discuss some things which at first sight have little to do with ballot reform. The actual shortening of the ballot in any state will require more or less extensive statutory and constitutional changes.

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Papers
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1910

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References

1 The Government of Municipalities, p. 460.

2 Civic Problems—Address delivered March 9, 1909, at the Annual Meeting of the Civic League of St. Louis, pp. 3 and 8.

3 The Governance of England, passim.

4 Cf. Young, J. T., The Relations of the Executive to the Legislative Power; Proceedings of the American Political Science Association, 1904, pp. 4951 Google Scholar.

5 Cf. Lincoln, Constitutional History of New York, vol. ii.

6 Consolidated Laws of 1909, ch. 18, art. 6, sees. 62 and 67.

7 Cf. Fairlie, The National Administration of the United States, pp. 120-1; II- C. Gauss, The American Government, pp. 442-4.

8 Introductory Letter, Additional Explanation, Bill for a Law and Suggested Amendments to the Constitution of Oregon; published by William S. U'Ren, Oregon City, Oregon; C. H. Chapman, Oregonian Bldg., Portland, Oregon; and others.

9 The Government of Municipalities, p. 444, ff.

10 Croswell and Sutton's Debates of the New York Constitutional Convention of 1846, p. 390.

11 Cf. Fairlie, Local Government in Counties, Towns and Villages (American State Series), p. 79, and the authorities there cited. See also Professor Fairlie's conclusions as to the election of various county officers, pp. 115, 117 and 131.

12 The Government of Municipalities, p. 455.

13 Politics and Administration, chap. v.

14 On this whole question cf. C. M. L. Sites, Centralized Administration of Liquor Laws, Columbia Univ. Studies in History, Econ., and Pub. Law, vol. x, no. 3, 1899.

15 Cf. the Oregon plan; constitutional amendments, art. v, sec. 5.

16 Croswell and Sutton's Debates, etc., pp. 102-3.

17 Proceedings and Debates of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1837-8, reported by John Agg; vol. ii, p. 312.

18 Local Government, etc., p. 50.

19 Cf. Sites, op. cit., pp. 77-8.