Republicans in italic. McClure being the lowest, was the defeated candidate.

ELECTION OF DIRECTORS OF THE POOR FOR THE BLOOM POOR DISTRICT.-At the election held in October, 1870, for three Directors of the Poor, under the special act of March 28th of that year, the voting was as follows:

Stephen H. Miller and William Kramer, Democrats, and Johnson H. Ikeler, Republican, were therefore elected for three-year terms commencing on the first day of April following. These officers being chosen on the plan of the free vote, it was inevitable that they would be divided between the two political parties according to a just principle of representation; the majority in the district would be able to elect two and the minority one. Democrats therefore voted tickets in the following form:

The

"Stephen H. Miller, 1 votes;

William Kramer, 1 votes."

The Republicans nominated two candidates also, and tickets for them were prepared in the same form; but as they had not votes enough to elect both they finally concentrated their vote mainly upon Ikeler, as shown in the above return. The election at last became to them a question of choice or preference between their own candidates, and the result proved that they preferred Ikeler. It is here shown that the free vote not only divides offices fairly between parties, but enables voters of either party, in certain cases, to choose between their own nominees and to correct any blunder made in their nomination. The truth is, that the new plan of voting is so flexible as well as just that it readily adapts itself to any state of facts at an election, and gives to the voter that complete freedom of action which is necessary to his judicious exercise of the right of suffrage. In this case, where three Directors of the Poor were to be chosen, allowing each voter to give his three votes to one, two, or three candidates, as he might think fit, enabled each party to take what belonged to it and to handle its votes in the most convenient and effectual manner to that end; and it also afforded the ready means of correcting a blunder made in the selection of candidates. This election also furnishes evidence of the convenience and accuracy with which fractional votes may be polled, counted, and returned in all cases where their use shall be found desirable.

SCORING OF FRACTIONAL VOTES.-An ordinary and convenient mode of tallying or counting tickets containing fractional votes which has obtained in

the local elections above referred to, and in others, may here be properly presented.

When tickets containing one and a half votes to each of two candidates are to be counted by election officers, the fraction may be disregarded in the first instance, and the tickets only scored upon the tally lists, the sum of the fractions being added at the end of the score, as already explained in another place. In a given case of forty such tickets polled, the score will stand as follows:

John Jones,

William Brown, (14)

=40+20=60 votes.

NU THI THU THIL =40+20-60 votes.
HH THI THI TI

If in addition to tickets containing fractional votes, a candidate shall have polled for him tickets containing whole votes alone, the latter may be scored separately above the line containing the fractional votes, and be carried out and added at the right. Thus if he shall receive, in addition to votes scored as above, twenty whole votes unconnected with fractions, the score or tally may be made as follows:

Other modes of keeping the tally lists may be resorted to at the discretion of election officers, but those above are given because they have some sanction from practice, and because by their use economy of space is consulted in the making up of returns.

NOMINATIONS TO OFFICE.

Good plans for nominating candidates to office are almost as important, and deserve consideration almost as much, as good plans for electing them. In this place it is therefore proposed to notice two recent plans of nomination which have been applied in Pennsylvania to the selection of nominees for county offices. They are both popular-vote plans, and the purpose of both is to avoid the evils which ordinarily attend upon representative conventions. The one is known as the "Crawford County System," and the other as the "Columbia County Plan;" so named from the counties in which they respectively originated and were first put in force.

By the Crawford County plan, the voters at primary elections vote directly for candidates for nomination; from each election district a return judge conveys the return of his district to a joint meeting of return judges for the county; in the joint meeting of those judges the returns are cast up and candidates highest in vote for each office are declared the nominees. Of all bad plans, accepted in recent practice, this is unquestionably the worst, and yet to men of little reflection and narrow experience, it seems fair, reasonable, judicious and just. Hence it has been adopted in many counties in place of the old convention plan. The main objections to it are these: That it produces, inevitably, expensive contests for nomination; that it tends strongly to fraudulent voting and fraudulent returns ; that it makes success very often dependent upon

intrigue between candidates whereby voters are deceived; that it shamefully disregards and puts open contempt upon the doctrine that the majority shall rule; that it leads to embarrassment of voters and to blunders in voting by reason of ignorance among voters of the relative strength of candidates, and lastly, that it substitutes a feeble body of return judges (who hardly bear a representative character) for a regular, strong convention, for the transaction of other party business beside the making of nominations. Of course it multiplies candidates, exasperates popular passions, and degrades the whole tone of party action.*

But the Columbia County plan of nomination is a popular-vote plan of a different character, and challenges attention and respect, because it retains

*The working of the "Crawford County system" as a nominating plan was well shown in the Democratic nominations for Northumberland County, in 1871. It was in force there, at that time, and exhibited some of its worst features. Hundreds of false or unpolled votes were reported to control results, and were, almost of necessity, received and counted at the meeting of the return judges; for one imperfection of the plan is that it provides no means for the investigation and correction of the frauds which it invites. Upon the face of the returns of votes for the respective candidates for the several offices, at the primary elections, it further appeared that each of the nominees (save one) had less than onehalf the total vote and one of them less than one-third.

Analyzing the vote we get the following exhibit:

President Judge.—For nominee, 1408, for other candidates, 2399. Representative. For nominee, 1585, for other candidates, 2275. Associate Judge.-For nominee, 1349, for other candidates, 2219. Treasurer.-For nominee, 983, for other candidates, 2461. Commissioner. For nominee, 1273, for other candidates, 2074. This is indeed minority representation with a vengeance! But it was unavoidable under the plurality rule.

It only remains to state, that the whole ticket set up in this very objectionable way was beaten, and that the plan of nomination which produced the disaster was forthwith abolished, and the convention plan restored with proportional representation of districts.