Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1904 — PRESIDENT NOT YET ELECTED. [ARTICLE]

PRESIDENT NOT YET ELECTED.

'Electors May Choose Cleveland or Debs " ’ if They See Fit, - Most persons, If asked, would unhesitatingly declare that the people of the ’United States last Tuesday elected Theodore Roosevelt to be President for four years following "March 4 uext. As a matter of fact we did nothing of the kind. The next President will not be elected until the. second Monday of next January. What we did at the polls was to.choose in each State a number of men, equivalent in number to the Senators and Rep-, resentatives from the respective commonwealths, and these men, known as electors, are to elect the President OnJan. 9 these electors will meet in their respective States and cast their ballots, first for President and then for Vice President. These ballots will be sent tb Washington aud on the second Wednesday in February the President of the Senate, in the presence of both chambers of Congress, will count them nnd declare the result.: The person having the majority of all the electoral votes cast will be declared President. If it should have happened that Mr. Swallow, Mr. Watson, Mr. Debs or some other presidential candidate received enough electoral votes so that no candidate had a majority over all, then the three having the greatest number would be presented to Congress and that body would choose. As Congress is Republican. Roosevelt would be selected. This year there are 476 electors. Suppose Mr. Swallow had carried enough States to give him 25 electoral votes, Mr. Debs enough to give him 22 and Mr. Watson enough to “give him 38. This would make a total of 85 votes, which, taken from the 476 would leave 391. Now, again, suppose that of these 391 electoral votes 230 were cast for Mr. Parker and 161 for Mr. Roosevelt. Mr. Parker would clearly have a handsome plurality, but he would not have a majority over a 11—239. In spite of the fact that he had 69 more votes than Mr? Roosevelt, Congress would have the right to select Mr. Roosevelt, and, being Republican, would do so. In voting for “Roosevelt electors” or “Parker electors,” the people are not even positively certain that the electors selected will cast their ballots as they are expected to do. Of course, honor binds an elector to cast liis ballot for the nominee of the party for which he stands, but there is no legal compulsion about it. When the electors for Maine meet on the second Monday of next January, for example, they may, if they see fit, cast their ballots for Mr. Parker, or for Grover Cleveland, or for any American citizen eligible to the offlee. The electors could make "the choice of Mr. Roosevelt unanimous, or they could defy the will of the people and select Mr. Watson. They COURT make Mr. Parker President nnd Mr. Roosevelt Vice President, or vice versa. The presidential electors are merely a number of well-known and responsible citizens'whom the people elect to pick out a President and a Vice President for them, on the theory that a body of men thus selected will be apt to make a better choice than the people ns a whole. In case of the death of Mr. Roosevelt before the second Monday of uext January, there will be no new election. The Republican leaders of the country, acting for their party, would select <a new candidate and the Republican electors would vote for hitil.