Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1900 — Opposes The Primary Election Bill. [ARTICLE]

Opposes The Primary Election Bill.

His ft* asonß Why Primary |Reform Measurel* Detective. Henry W. Marshal) t representative from Tippecanoe and Warren counties, who achieved distinction in the last legislature by. a fight against the county reform bill, says he is .opposed to the primary election bill as drafted at the Commercial club conference the other evening says the Indianapolis Press. “The fatal defect of the bill as proposed,” he said at the Denison house, “is that it will not register the will of the people nearly as effectively or satisfactorily as a delegate convention, suoh as we now have. I call attention to the provision that primaries of all parties to be held at the same place This opens the door to a pian of fraud whereby members*' of the party that is numerically the weakest in the county will go into the polling places and cast enough votes’for the weakest candidate of the opposing party to nominate him, Jwith the fixed purpose of lioking him after he is nominated. For instance, suppose that the democrats in a certain county neverisucoeed in eleoting a man. Their leaders will instruct enough of their men to enter the polls and vote for the weakest candidate for the republican nomination, in order to nominate him, while the other democratic voters will nominate as the democratic candidate the strongest man in their party. Nothing can prevent this scheme being carried out when the primary elections are held at the same time and places. The 'result is that the better class of republicans will not vote for the republican candidate and the democrats will elect their nominee. A practical example was noticed in Milwaukee this year. The plan of primary election proposed for Indiana is in force there. The democrats concooted a schome wereby they joined with an element of the republi cans and nominated a very weak brother named Bumgartner for mayor. At the same time the other democrats nominated as their candidate Samuel D. Rose, a popular man, who was duly eleoted. I think this provision will have to be changed if the bill pass the legislature. It is easy to carry out this schome, because under a primary election law a large plurality nominates. For instance, if 1,000 votes are cast there may be so many candidates in the field that the one that gets but 300 votes is the nominee. In a delegate convention a majority of alh votes *is required. The primary' election plan will cost a good deal of money. The reform may be demanded in Indianapolis, but I know of no great demand for it elsewhere.”