Ballots not
infrequently contain two hundred names, sometimes even three
hundred or more, covering candidates of four or five parties for
scores of offices. These blanket ballots are sometimes three feet
long. After an election in Chicago in 1916, one of the leading
dailies expressed sympathy "for the voter emerging from the
polling-booth, clutching a handful of papers, one of them about
half as large as a bed sheet." Probably most voters were able to
express a real preference among the national candidates. It is
almost equally certain that most voters were not able to express
a real preference among important local administrative officials.
A huge ballot, all printed over with names, supplemented by a
series of smaller ballots, can never be a manageable instrument
even for an electorate as intelligent as ours.
Simplification is the prophetic watchword in state government
today. For cities, the City Manager and the Commission have
offered salvation. A few officers only are elected and these are
held strictly responsible, sometimes under the constant threat of
the recall, for the entire administration. Over four hundred
cities have adopted the form of government by Commission. But
nothing has been done to simplify our state governments, which
are surrounded by a maze of heterogeneous and undirected boards
and authorities. Every time the legislature found itself
confronted by a new function to be cared for, it simply created a
new board.
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