Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1915 — SOME PROVISIONS OF NEW PRIMARY LAW [ARTICLE]

SOME PROVISIONS OF NEW PRIMARY LAW

Only One Primary in Election Years For Purpose of Organization and Nominations. Probably the most important law passed by the Indiana general assembly, which adjourned Monday, March Bth, was the Jones primary election law. It will do away with all organization and nominating conventions except the state convention, the delegates to which are also chosen by the primary elections. To publish the full law would take two pages or more of The Republican unless it was in very fine print, and we shall not print it all at this time but hope to briefly inform our readers of a number of the provisions. The first primary will be held in March, 1916, on 'the first Tuesday after the first Monday. No township officers will be nominated that year, but county officers, state representatives, state senators, U. S. congressmen and all state officers except governor and U. S. senator will be nominated at primary elections; also precinct committeemen.

The candidates for governor, U. S. senator, president and vice-president, will be on the ticket, also candidates for delegates to the state and national conventions, and the electoral college. The vote for governor, U. S. senator, president and vice-president is only decisive when one of the candidates of a party receives a majority of all votes cast. If there are only two candidates one will receive a majority, but where there are three or more the primary as regards these four offices is regarded preferential and state and national delegates are only bound by the result in cases of majority. In all township, county, legislative and congressional primaries; also in the state primary for all offices but governor and U. S. senator a plurality over the next highest decides who the candidate will be, taking into consideration also the second choice feature. This is aimed to prevent a small and compact body of voters, naming a candidate in face of a divided opposition. Nominations can be made in no other manner than through primaries except in case a vacancy occurs later by resignation, removal, death, etc. To get on a ballot an aspirant for office must file his declaration not less than thirty noir more than sixty days before the primary. It is filed with the secretary of state if a state office, with the county clerk if a county or township office, and with the city clerk if a city office. At the same time he must pay for the privilege of being an office aspirant, one per cent of the salary of the office he seeks. If the salary of the office is SI,OOO, he must pay $lO. In no case less than sl. If there are no candidates for office on a ticket the chairman of the party affected may call a meeting of the proper committee and fill the vacancy.*. To have one’s name printed on the ballot as a delegate to the state convention one must file a petition twenty days before the election signed by ten voters of the party, one of whom must make affidavit that he supported the majority of the candidates of that party at the last general election and intends to support a majority of the candidates at the coming election. He must also swear that to the best of his knowledge this is true of the others on the petition. A candidate for state Relegate can withdraw within ten days before the primary and the signer of the affidavit shall have a right to substitute a name. The ballots of the different parties are on different color paper, all of the same quality. The primary of all parties is held the same day. The voter must state what ticket he wishes to vote. He may be challenged. In such case the citizen desiring to vote must make affidavit that he is a legal voter of the precinct, that he supported a majority of the candidates of the party with which he seeks to vote at the last general election and that he intends to vote for the nominees of the party at the coming election.

This will operate to prevent progressives who voted the ticket last fall taking part in the primaries with either the democratic or republican and apparently is the democratic joker of the measure, as, it is proposed to forestall the progressive movement toward tiie republican party. If any member of the progressive party desires to vote with that party and his vote is challenged he must make affidavit pledging him to support the nominees of the party that fall and then he could not vote for a candidate of one of the other parties without perjuring himself. At the succeeding primary he would again be in the same fix unless he had declined to make the affidavit and had lost his vote in the previous primary. If not challenged the voter can claim the right to vote with, any party he chooses. » 7 The names of all candidates must be published in local newspapers and the county commissioners or city council, as the case may be, must give ten days’ notice of the location of the voting precincts by newspaper publicatiri. The polls are open from 6 a. m. until 6 p. m. The provisions, of the law will be further discussed in a later issue. The time for holding the first primary is less than a year away, the time far filing your name as a candidate is less than eleven months away.

If you contemplate being a candidate it is time to begin studying the provisions of the law and laying your plans fcr the first primary campaign. One of the’ provisions of the law and a good one except for the printer, provides that the names of candidates shall be located on the ballot, thus permitting one name being at the top in all cases. „ ‘ Thus: For Sheriff — Brown Jones Smith For Sheriff — Jones Smith ' Brown For Sheriff — Smith Brown Jones If the names were not rotated the one candidate first named would have a distinct advantage.