Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1917 — ELECTION EXPENSES DOUBLED [ARTICLE]

ELECTION EXPENSES DOUBLED

By the New Woman’s Suffrage Law in Indiana. The new woman’s suffrage law is going to more than double the expense of elections hereafter in Indiana. It will make necessary the doubling of the election precincts in every county and, as the law provides for separate ballots, separate ballot boxes and a separate count for the women’s vote, the cost of election supplies will be practically doubled. In Jasper county there are naw but twenty precincts and there are but two townships in the county— Hanging Grove and Milroy—in which it will not be necessary to double the number if in the rearrangement of precincts the future is provided for some years at least, as it should be. This would mean thirty-eight election boards in Jasper county, where for the past twenty years we have gotten along with but twenty.

Marion township now has four precincts, but if the law had been complied with we should have had six precincts for the past ten years. However, it is difficult to see how we can possibly get along now with less than eight precincts and allow any leeway for an increase of voters in the future. It would appear, also, that Carpenter with three precincts, Barkley and Union with two each, Gillam, Jordan, Kankakee, Keener, Newton, Walker and Wheatfield, with one each, would now require itwo precincts. While this law will add greatly to the expense of holding elections, it will provide that many more jobs for “the faithful’’ and we presume the ladies will also be eligible to sit on election boards. It will make quite long hours for them, however, although few of them will object to drawing the |2 per for the two days service members of the board are paid for in general elections.