Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1881 — Viva Voce Voting. [ARTICLE]

Viva Voce Voting.

To establish a system is a service not more distinguished than to prevent its subversion. “ I desire no more illustrious fame,” said Tully, “than to have inscribed on the tablets of the republio that Cicero preserved it” When the subversion of a political fabric is threatened by practices repugnant to the theory of its existence and incorrigible without superseding the agencies which make them possible, is it not wise to consider the possibility of averting the peril by £be substitution of agencies less capable of such perversion? The political system of the Constitution is theoretically founded in popular consent, whence its vitality and vigor arc supposed to be drawn through the free and fairly ascertained expression of public opinion. The agency employed for collecting this expression is the ballot box. The facilities which experience has shown it to furnish for thwarting and defeating the electoral will are multifarious. Among them are the following: The seizure and destruction of ballots prepared for the use of voters; false ballots printed in the similitude of genuine; the stuffing of ballot boxes; the fraudulent exchanging and substitution of ballots after they have lieen cast; colonization and repeating; the destruction of ballot boxes; the objections of ballots and returns on purely technical grounds; the fraudulent counting of ballots and false returns—these are some of the methods incident to the ballot which are employed to defeat the popular judgment. They are not all common to, yet some of them are possible, in every locality. The opportunity is greater in some than in others.. The disposition to practice is commensurate with the disregard of right. . „ , , Statutory restraints are ineffectual. Rejecting false ballots only disfranchises the elector, which but half corrects the wrong. The crimes against and frauds upon the ballot box may be detected and punished, but their consequences are generally without remedy. They can rarely be corrected, except upon the testimony of the perpetrators, which is, as unreliable as the crime is flagrant. Hie possibility and unrestrained continuance of these practices must sooner or later bring elective government into merited contempt or terminate its existence in violence. With a view to elicit popular discussion, the inquiry is suggested whether in national elections an approximate, if not a complete, remedy for these practices may not be furnished by the substitution of viva voce voting for the ballot. Hoary custom is obstinate, innovation regarded with disfavor. The wisdom that shall devise and the courage that shall give effect to elective methods free from the possibility of these subversive practices will merit the distinction which Tully deemed illustrious.— Cincinnati Gazette.