share of representative power, it will become frugal in its expenditures and honorable in its conduct. Thus the free vote destroys or checks corruption by taking away the motives which produce it, and in this respect vindicates itself as a most powerful instrument of moral improvement and progress.

THE APPLICATION OF THE FREE VOTE.

The free vote is proposed for application to the following elections:

1. To the choice of Electors of President and Vice-President of the United States.

2. To the choice of members of Congress.

3. To the choice of Senators and Representatives to the Legislatures of the several States.

In Pennsylvania it should be further applied to the election of the following officers:

1. Judges of the Supreme Court.

2. Law Judges of all Common Pleas and District Courts composed of more than one Law Judge. 3. Associate Judges of Counties.

4. Aldermen and Justices of the Peace in wards, boroughs, and townships.

5. County Commissioners and County Auditors. 6. Directors for the Poor for counties or for Poor districts whenever their election shall be authorized. 7. Councilmen of cities and boroughs.

8. Assessors of taxes whenever two are to be chosen, and Assistant Assessors triennially.

9. Constables whenever two are to be chosen. 10. Supervisors of Roads and Overseers of the Poor in townships.

11. Borough and Township Auditors.

12. Directors and Controllers of Common Schools in all the School Districts of the Commonwealth.

The new plan should also be applied throughout the country to stockholder elections for the choice of officers of incorporated companies. One of the amendments to the Illinois constitution, adopted in July last, provides, that in all elections in that State for directors or managers of incorporated companies the free vote shall be allowed, so that stockholder minorities in such companies may always be represented in their management, and abuse and wrong be detected or prevented. And all corporations require and should have this fundamental and most salutary check in their constitution.

But there is still another application of the free vote, heretofore unnoticed, which I believe to be in the highest degree important; I mean its application to primary elections or to the nomination of candidates. In fact when reform shall have accomplished its work in the legal elections and shall have invigorated and purified them, it will be required more than ever in the primary ones. For as all nominated candidates will commonly be elected under the new plan, their nomination must be made upon sound principles and with all possible guards against corruption and abuse. But here it is evident that the same remedy which will improve the one class of elections can be used to improve the other also; in other words, that the free vote can often be applied directly to the nomination of candidates and always to the choice of delegates to nominating bodies. Give it such application freely, to the fullest possible extent, and you will find that you have

reached and mastered the ultimate difficulty in the way of electoral reform.

CONCERNING THE USE OF FRACTIONAL VOTES-THEIR UTILITY AND CONVENIENCE.

In the Bloomsburg act fractional votes are allowed when three, four, or six persons are to be chosen, and they may be allowed with advantage in other cases. Most commonly they will be convenient and desirable to majorities rather than minorities, and there can be no question that their allowance will popularize the free vote, render its reformatory action more effectual and facilitate its extension generally to popular and corporate elections. Fractional votes have been used with approval many times in recent local elections in Pennsylvania, they have also been used in national political conventions for the nomination of candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, and their use will be found essential to the smooth working of representative elections under the amended constitution of Illinois. It is evident that when a voter has three votes and shall desire to bestow them equally upon two candidates, he must divide one of his votes; in other words, in order to give one vote and a half to each of two candidates he must break one of his votes into two equal fractions. When four persons are to be chosen and the majority of the voters shall desire to vote for three candidates, (giving an equal support to each,) fractions of one-third should be created; that is, each majority voter should divide one of his votes into three equal parts, so that he can give one vote and one-third to

each of the three candidates. And when six persons are to be chosen and the voter shall desire to vote for four, he must (in order to render them an equal support) divide two of his votes into four halves and give one vote and a half to each of the four candidates he votes for.

Some other numbers involved in elections are less adapted than the numbers three, four, and six for the application of fractional voting; but many others are as much so, and nearly all admit of such application to a useful extent. For instance, the number five admits of the giving of two and a half votes to each of two candidates, or one and onefourth to each of four; and the number nine admits of one and a half votes to each of six candidates, or two and one-fourth to each of four. But as it seems necessary or highly desirable on grounds of convenience to avoid fractions of which the numerator exceeds unity or one, we cannot very well divide five votes equally among three candidates, nor seven among five, etc. There is, however, more than one resource in such cases of difficulty. Terms of official service may be arranged with reference to the new plan of voting, or the body of electors in a State or district, united by party association, may divide themselves for the purpose of casting votes. Take the case of a court of five judges, chosen for ten-year terms: Instead of electing them all together it would be well to elect a part of them every fifth year, say two at one time and three at another, and so on at successive quinquennial elections. And so to a court of seven judges, four might be chosen at one time and three at another. Again, take the

case of a State entitled to eight members of Congress in which the political majority is entitled, by its numbers, to elect five. In a party convention or by a State committee it might be easily arranged that while the great mass or principal part of the majority voters of the State should vote for four candidates, (giving two votes to each,) a district containing one-fifth of their strength should be set off or set apart in which the voters of the party should give all their votes to one candidate. And so in Pennsylvania, entitled to twenty-four members of Congress, and where political parties are nearly equal in strength, either party that supposed itself in the majority could vote for a thirteenth member by a district vote, while the general mass of its voters in the State would vote for twelve. No law would be necessary to authorize these and other like arrangements; they would be made by the voluntary action of parties whenever their expediency became evident.

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In fact, by the means mentioned, and by others, the use of fractional votes can be dispensed with altogether in our plan of electoral reform, and whole votes alone retained. But I would not dispense with them in all cases, but would authorize them whenever their utility should be evident and their inconvenience slight. At present I am prepared to say that I would allow fractional votes of one-half, one-third, or one-fourth, whenever their use shall be necessary to enable voters to give an equal support to the candidates they vote for under the new plan.

The counting of fractions in making up election