ELECTION LAWS AND REFERENDA
To establish a "government of the people" is to follow an ideal set
by the growth of democratic principles, but, after such government has
been established by a constitution, it remains to be determined how
the will of the people is to be recorded and each state accordingly
has enacted an election law to provide for registration and for
taking the vote. These laws are so defective as to give unquestioned
advantage to dishonesty and corruption in most elections upon
referendum questions. In several states there is little doubt that
suffrage amendments have been lost through fraud. All the suffragists
in Michigan seem to agree that the amendment was counted out in the
first campaign of 1912 and that ballot boxes were stuffed in the
second, 1913. Willis E. Reed, Attorney General of Nebraska, has
declared that he believes the amendment was counted out in that
state. An investigation has revealed forty-seven varieties of fraud
or violation of the election law in forty-four counties in the Iowa
suffrage election of June 5, 1916. Given a group determined to prevent
women from getting the vote, a group provided with money and knowing
no scruple, and the inadequacy of the law in many States offers
a positive guarantee at the outset of a campaign that a suffrage
amendment will be lost.
If suffrage amendments are defeated by illegal practices, why not
demand redress, asks the novice in suffrage campaigns. Ah, there's the
rub. In twenty-four states, no provision has been made by the election
law for any form of contest or recount on a referendum nor are
precedents for a recount found. Political corrupters may, in these
states, bribe voters, colonize voters and repeat them to their hearts'
content and redress of any kind is practically impossible. If clear
evidence of fraud could be produced a case might be brought to the
courts and the guilty parties might be punished, but the election
would stand. In New York, in 1915, the question was submitted to the
voters as to whether a constitutional convention should be called.
The convention was ordered by a majority of about 1,500. Later the
District Attorney of New York City found proof that at least 800
fraudulent votes had been cast in that city. Leading lawyers discussed
the question of effect upon the election and the general opinion among
them was that, even though the entire majority, and more, should
be found to be fraudulent, the election could not be set aside. The
convention was held.
In the other twenty-three states,[A] contests on referenda seem
possible under the law, but in practically every one, the contest
means a resort to the courts and in only eight[B] of these is
reference made to a recount. The law is vague and incomplete in nearly
all of these States. In some of these, including Michigan, where the
suffrage amendment is declared to have been counted out, application
for a recount must be made in each voting precinct. To have secured
redress in Michigan, provided the fraud was widespread, as it is
believed to have been, it would have been necessary to have secured
definite evidence of fraud in a probable 1,000 precincts and to have
instituted as many cases. This would have consumed many months and
would have demanded thousands of dollars.
[Footnote A: In Ohio, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, New Jersey, Minnesota
and Michigan by law; in Illinois, Texas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Oregon, Arizona and Iowa by precedent; in West Virginia, South Dakota,
Kentucky and Colorado, officials express the opinion that the
law governing candidates's contests could be stretched to cover
amendments. In Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and
Washington, the law is so fragmentary as to make the possibilities
very uncertain. Information on this last group of laws will be found
in Appendix B.]
[Footnote B: Ohio, Texas, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Minnesota,
Michigan, Massachusetts and Utah.]
In some States the courts decide what the redress shall be, but where
such provision exists, no assurance is given by the law that such
redress will include a correction of the returns. In at least seven
States,[A] the applicants must pay all costs if they fail to prove
their case a provision amounting to a penalty imposed upon those who
try to enforce the law.
[Footnote A: Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, West Virginia,
Minnesota, Utah.]
The penalties for bribery range from $5 to $2,000 and from thirty
days' to ten years' imprisonment, but only one state (Ohio) provides
in definite terms for punishment of bribery as a part of the penalty
in an election contest. In most cases proof of bribery does not throw
out the vote of briber or bribed, nor does an action to throw
out purchased votes in contest cases bring with it automatically
punishment of the purchased voter. This omission from the contest
provisions presupposes that these bribery cases would be separate
actions. Thirty-two states in clear terms disfranchise (or give the
Legislature power to disfranchise) bribers and bribed, but few make
provision for the method of actually enforcing the law, and upon
inquiry the Secretary of State of many of these states reported
that, so far as he knew, no man had ever been disfranchised for
this offense. This was true of states which have been notorious for
political corruption.
From Ohio alone has evidence been found of the actual enforcement
of the disfranchisement provision. In this state nearly 1,800 bribed
voters of Adams County were disfranchised in 1910 for scandalous
and well-remembered corruption but in 1915 they were restored to
citizenship. These cases reveal a disgraceful provision in the Ohio
law, by which the briber is given immunity if he will turn State's
evidence on the bribed; the vote-buyer may purchase votes by the
thousands with perfect safety provided that when suspected he will
deliver up a few of the bought by way of example.
With a vague, uncertain law to define their punishment in most states,
and no law at all in twenty-four states, as a preliminary security,
corrupt opponents of a woman suffrage amendment find many additional
aids to their nefarious acts. A briber must make sure that the bribed
carries out his part of the contract. Whenever it is easy to check
up the results of the bribe, corruption may reign supreme with little
risk of being found out. A study of some of the recent suffrage votes
gives significant food for reflection. It shows how the form, color
and arrangement of the ballot may help the corrupt politician to
organize ignorant voters to do his will. In Georgia and Louisiana no
party names are printed on the official ballot and emblems only are
used. In almost half our states, though the party name is used also,
the emblem is the real guide. New York does not even relegate this
emblem to the top of the column. The emblem is placed before the name
of each candidate, so that the illiterate voter can make no mistake in
recognizing the sign of the machine which controls his vote. Scarcely
more than a dozen states have the headless ballot[A] which makes
it impossible for politicians to make corrupt use of the illiterate
voter.
[Footnote A: Oregon, Nevada, South Carolina, Florida, Colorado,
California, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Massachusetts,
Mississippi, Nebraska, Pennsylvania.]
In Wisconsin suffrage referendum the suffrage ballot was separate and
pink. It was easy to teach the most illiterate how to vote "No" and
to check up returns with considerable accuracy. In New York there
were three ballots. The official ballot had emblems which easily
distinguished it. The other two were exactly alike in shape, size and
color and each contained three propositions: those which came from
the constitutional convention and the other those which came from the
Legislature. The orders went forth to vote down the constitutional
provisions and it was done by a majority of 482,000, or nearly
300,000 more than the majority against woman suffrage. On the
ballot containing the suffrage amendment, which was No. 1, there was
proposition No. 3, which all the political parties wanted carried and
to which no one objected. It could easily be found by all illiterates
as it contained more lines of printing, yet so difficult was it to
teach ignorant men to vote "Yes" on that one proposition that, despite
the fact that orders had gone forth to all the state that No. 3 was to
be carried, it barely squeezed through.
In Pennsylvania there are no emblems to distinguish the tickets and
on the large ballot the suffrage amendment was difficult to find by
an untutored voter. In probable consequence Pennsylvania polled the
largest proportional vote for the amendment of any eastern state. In
Massachusetts the ballot was small and the suffrage amendment could be
easily picked out by a bribed voter. In Iowa the suffrage ballot was
separate and yellow while the main ballots were white.
In the North Dakota referendum the regular ballot was long and
complicated and the suffrage ballot separate and small. It was easy to
teach the dullest illiterate how to vote "No." It might be said
that it would be equally easy to teach him to vote "Yes." True, but
suffragists never bribe. Both the briber and the illiterate are allies
of the opposition.
A referendum on a non-partisan issue has none of the protection
accorded a party question. Election boards are bi-partisan and each
party has its own machinery, not only of election officials but
watchers and challengers, to see that the opposing party commits no
fraud. The watchfulness of this party machinery, plus an increasingly
vigilant public opinion, has corrected many of the election frauds
which were once common and most elections are now probably free from
all the baser forms of corruption. When a question on referendum is
sincerely espoused by both the dominant parties it has the advantage
of the watchfulness of both party machines and is doubly safeguarded
from fraud. But when such a question has been espoused by no dominant
party it is utterly at the mercy of the worst forms of corruption.
The election officers have even been known to wink at irregularities
plainly committed since it was no affair of theirs. Or, they may even
go further and join in the entertaining game of running in as many
votes against such an amendment as possible. This has not infrequently
been the unhappy experience of suffrage amendments in corrupt
quarters.
Honest election officers, respecting "the will of the majority" as
the sovereign of our nation, would protect honesty in elections,
regardless of their own or their party's views, but unhappily that
high standard is not universal.
Surely, the method of taking the vote and of safeguarding the honesty
of elections should be the most important and fundamental of all
questions in a republic. Such laws ought to be preliminary to all
other laws. Yet as a matter of fact the laxity and ambiguity of
many state election laws and the utter inadequacy of provisions for
enforcement are almost unbelievable. The contemplation of the actual
facts seriously reflects upon the intelligence and good faith of the
successive lawmakers of our land.
With no one on the election board whose special business it is to see
that honesty is upheld, a suffrage amendment must face further hazards
through the fact that most states do not permit women, or even special
men watchers, to stand guard over the vote and the count upon such
questions.
When it is remembered that immigrants may be naturalized after a
residence of five years; that when naturalized they automatically
become voters by all our state constitutions; that in eight states[A]
immigrant voters are not even required to be citizens; that the right
to vote is limited by an educational qualification in only seventeen
states, and that nine of these are Southern, with special intent to
disfranchise the Negro while allowing the illiterate White to vote;
that evidence exists to prove that there is an unscrupulous body
ready to engage the lowest elements of our population by fraudulent
processes to oppose a suffrage amendment; that there is no authority
on the election board whose business it is to see that an amendment
gets a "square deal"; that the method of preparing the ballot is often
a distinct advantage to a corrupt opposition; and that when fraud is
committed there is practically no redress provided by election laws,
it ought to be clear to all that state constitutional amendments
when unsponsored by the dominant political parties which control the
election machinery, must run the gauntlet of intolerably unjust and
unfair conditions. When suffragists have been fortunate enough to
overcome the obstacles imposed by the constitution of their states
and a referendum to the male voters has been secured, they must
immediately enter upon the task of surmounting the infinitely greater
obstructions of the election law. They make their appeal to the public
upon the supposition that a majority of independent voters is
to decide their question. Instead, they may discover that in a
determining number of precincts the taking of the actual vote is a
game in which the cards are stacked against them. One woman, who had
watched at a precinct all day in a suffrage amendment election, said
"Something went out of me that day which never came back--and that was
pride in my country. At first I thought it was disappointment
produced by the defeat of the woman suffrage amendment, but when I had
recovered and could think calmly, I knew it was not that. I was still
patient and still willing to go on working, struggling, sacrificing,
for my right to vote; but I could not forget that I lived in a land
which tolerated the things I saw that day." The women who know cannot
rise to "The Star-Spangled Banner" without a "lump in their throats,"
for they recognize the terrible fact that hidden under the beautiful
pretense of democracy is a hideous menace to our national liberties,
which no political party, no legislature, no congress, has dared to
drag out into the daylight of public knowledge.
[Footnote A: The number of states which permitted men to vote on
"first papers" was formerly fifteen. The following eight states
still perpetuate this provision: Arkansas, Delaware, Indiana, Kansas,
Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Texas.]
Bear these items in mind and remember that Congress enfranchised the
Indians, assuming its authority upon the ground that they are wards of
the nation; that the Negroes were enfranchised by Federal amendment;
that the constitutions of all states not in the list of the original
thirteen, automatically extended the vote to men; that in the original
colonial territory, the chief struggle occurred over the elimination
of the land-owning qualifications and that a total vote necessary
to give the franchise to non-landowners did not exceed fifty to
seventy-five thousand in any state.
Let it also not be forgotten that the vote is the free-will offering
of our forty-eight states to any man who chooses to make this land his
home. Let it not be overlooked that millions of immigrant voters
have been added to our electorate within a generation, men mainly
uneducated and all moulded by European traditions, and let no man lose
sight of the fact that women of American birth, education and ideals
must appeal to these men for their enfranchisement. No humiliation
could be more complete, unless we add the amazing fact that political
leaders in Congress and legislatures are willing to drive their wives
and daughters to beg the consent of these men to their political
liberty.
The makers of the Federal Constitution foresaw the necessity of
referring important and intricate questions to a more intelligent body
than the masses of the people and so provided for the amendment of the
Constitution by referendum to the legislatures of the several states.
Why should women be denied the privilege thus established? The United
States is one land and one people. All the states have the same
institutions, customs and ideals.
Woman suffrage has been caught in a snarl of state constitutional
obstructions, inefficient election laws and the misapplied theory
of States Rights. It is a combination which has so far retarded the
normal progress of the movement in this democratic land that other
countries have already outstripped it. Under these circumstances
Congress should extricate the woman suffrage question from this tangle
by way of honorable reparation for the injustices unintentionally put
upon the only unenfranchised citizens left in our Republic, and women
should insist upon their enfranchisement by amendment to the Federal
Constitution as their self-respecting duty.