THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Majority Nominations THE REPUBLICAN PARTY of Wisconsin in its platform upon which it went before the people in the November election, declared as follows: "We...
...On the count of the ballots, the candidate receiving the smallest number of first-choice votes will be eliminated as a candidate, and the voters who voted for him as their first choice will then be counted as having voted for the candidate who is their second choice...
...Everybody can run for office who can procure a very small percentage of voters to sign a petition for his candidacy...
...The result of this situation is that, as between the opposing forces and opposing principles within a party, as between the "Progressives" and the "Tories," the result of the election may not be primarily dependent upon the actual majority of votes on one side or the other, but is more powerfully influenced by the simple circumstance of the number of candidates in the field, representing either side...
...Now it is not intended to assert that such conditions always exist and always must exist, but merely that they exist sometimes...
...Look it over...
...Every voter who has a first and second choice for a nomination can mark his ballot to express his first and second choice without the slightest confusion...
...That is taken care of by the automatic operation of the election machinery provided by law for counting the vote...
...The result will be to give the leading "Progressive" candidate, as ascertained by the result, practically the solid support of the "Progressive" voters, and to nominate him by an absolute majority vote...
...Thus, for example: If the "Reactionaries" have but one candidate, and the "progressive" first-choice vote be divided between two candidates, the "Progressives" who vote for one of these "Progressive" candidates as their fust choice will vote for the other "Progressive" as their second choice...
...With this their influence in the election is spent...
...I would prefer to see him nominated, rather than any of the other candidates...
...Absurd, isn't it...
...And the solution is so simple, so easy, and so natural that you would be surprised that it has not been adopted anywhere in this country, except in the State of Washington and the city of Grand Junction, Colorado, under its commission form of government...
...The argument for second choice voting assumes this, and to date no one has arisen to dispute its correctness...
...Let it be assumed that the party nominee for an office should represent the majority sentiment of the party...
...If all the candidates stand for the same principles and policies in public affairs, it is really of little consequence—unless some are dishonest or inefficient—which candidate is nominated...
...It presupposes, alsj, that on one side of the division is a majority of the party membership, and on the other side there is a minority...
...THE Wisconsin primary, like the primary in most States, is a wide-open affair...
...In every primary election thousands of voters experience this precise mental process...
...In the fulfillment of this promise lies the redemption of the Wisconsin primary law from the imperfections which have in the past impaired its beneficial operation...
...It is simply as though the voter said: "Smith is my first choice...
...The Australians, from whom we Americans have borrowed practically every advance in the machinery of our suffrage system, solved the riddle many, many years ago...
...often enough, in fact, to he entitled to consideration in framing election laws...
...While the counting is made more complicated by increasing the number of candidates, this does not affect the voter in any way and does not affect the result in securing the nomination by a majority vote of a candidate in accord with the views and principles of the majority of the party...
...But under the existing system they have no means of giving effect to any but their first choice...
...And this, be it remembered, is all that the voter has to understand...
...But if Smith can not get the nomination, my next preference—my second choice—would be Jones...
...No, dear reader, it is not a helpless and hopeless situation...
...Eighteen years ago, to be exact, the Australians established in their primary elections the system of "contingent," or "second-choice," voting...
...This is just as simple as a, b, c. The "Progressives" may be in overwhelming majority in the party, and yet, if their votes be divided between two candidates, while the "Tory" vote is centered on one candidate only, the "reactionary" candidate, representing a minority of the party, may receive a plurality of the votes cast and thereby the nomination...
...Let this stand then, as a clear, simple proposition: that the party candidate should be a candidate who is in accord with the political views and purposes of the Majority of the party...
...With the counting of the vote we are not concerned here, nor is the voter concerned with that at the polling place...
...all that the voter has to do...
...Under the Australian system, although the voter's first-choice candidate is not nominated, his right to express his second choice enables him to participate in securing the nomination of a candidate who is nevertheless measurably satisfactory to him...
...The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Majority Nominations THE REPUBLICAN PARTY of Wisconsin in its platform upon which it went before the people in the November election, declared as follows: "We pledge amendment to the primary law which will secure majority nominations by giving the voter the right to name his second choice candidate for each office...
...The division in the party may even become so marked that adherents on either side should, in the course of political discussion, become known by collective names, such as, for instance, "Stalwart," or "Halfbreed," or again by the term "Progressive," on one side, or "Tory," on the other...
...The foregoing presupposes that in the primaries there is a division in the party, a division upon principle...
...Under this system the voter has the right to mark his ballot not merely, as does the voter in the Wisconsin and other American primaries, for the one candidate who is his first choice for the nomination, but marks his ballot also for that other candidate who is his second choice for the nomination in the event that his first-choice candidate should not receive a majority of the votes cast...
...And still it is the condition of the primaries, with practically the single exception of the State of Washington, in all the advanced and enlightened American commonwealths in which direct nominations are in vogue...
...Of course, if there is no such division in the party, the primary becomes relatively unimportant...
...It being assumed then that there is a division in the party primarily upon principle, and that the party candidate should represent the set of principles for which the majority of the party stand, a primary election law which fails to secure this result is obviously in need of amendment...
...Even in that case, however, a majority nomination would not be objectionable...
...If their first-choice candidate is not nominated, their vote and their influence on the election of the party candidates is lost...
...As a complete answer to those who seek to defeat this necessary legislation on the ground that it is complicated and confusing to the voter, we print herewith the sample ballot which was a part of the bill proposed in the last Wisconsin legislature to provide for majority nominations and second-choice voting...
...There is nothing difficult, complicated or obscure about this...
Vol. 2 • November 1910 • No. 47
