ELECTION OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS.
I respectfully call your attention to the statute of the State providing for electing Electors for President and Vice President of the United States. The act requires the Marshals of the several Congressional Districts to collect the returns of the Counties composing their respective Districts, and deliver the same on the 4th Monday of November, between the hours of 9 and 12 o'clock of that day, to the Secretary of State, who shall, in the presence of the Governor and all the Marshals in attendance, between the hours of 12 and 6 o'clock of said day, canvass the vote. The law makes no provision for an adjournment of the Board in case any of the Marshals have failed to perform their duty and deliver the returns on that day; and no provision for collecting and delivering the returns to the Secretary of State, or for the canvass of the returns if the Marshals or any of them have failed to collect and deliver them as provided by law. It is obvious that the law needs amending so as to meet every possible contingency, in order that neither the failure of Marshals to collect and deliver the returns, nor clerical mistakes of ministerial officers can defeat the will of the people as expressed through the ballot-box. I am unable to see the necessity of such machinery as Congressional District Marshals for collecting and delivering the vote of the State.
In canvassing the returns of the last Presidential vote of the State in accordance with said page: 26[View Page 26] act, it was ascertained that the blanks used by the County Clerks to certify the returns of their respective Counties had been printed before Thomas W. Bennett, candidate for Elector for the Sixth District, had withdrawn, and the name of Benjamin S. Parker had been substituted. Several of the County Clerks, in making up their certificates of the vote of their Counties, unintentionally omitted to erase the printed name of Thomas W. Bennett and insert that of Benjamin S. Parker, who had been voted for, as shown by the tally sheets of the Election Precincts, and for whom the vote, in accordance therewith, had been canvassed by the County Board, as required by law. Such clerical error I permitted to be corrected on the Clerk making the proper affidavit re-certifying the certificate. In doing this I think I did right. I love the institutions of my country and the principles of self- government too well to make the clerical error of a mere ministerial officer the pretext to set aside the lawfully expressed will of the people. The same kind of an error occurred in the tally-sheets of some of the Election Precincts, and were certified and so canvassed by the County Board of Canvassers. Such errors, in my judgment, are not susceptible of correction, and were allowed to stand I would suggest the enactment of a law making it a misdemeanor for an Inspector of Election to fail to call distinctly the name of each candidate on the ticket when counting the vote.
