Elector

Where the qualifications of the electors are the ſame, whether they have to chooſe a ſmall or a large number their votes will fall upon thoſe in whom they have the moſt confidence; whether thoſe happen to be men of large fortunes or of moderate property or of no property at all.

The conſtitution of France ſays, that every man who pays a tax of ſixty ſous per annum, (2s. and 6d. Engliſh), is an elector.— [...] Can any thing be more limited, and at the ſame time more capricious, than what the qualifications of electors are in England? [...] Capricious—becauſe the loweſt character that can be ſuppoſed to exiſt, and who has not ſo much as the viſible means of an honeſt livelihood, is an elector in ſome places; while, in other places, the man who pays very large taxes, and with a fair known character, and the farmer who rents to the amount of three or four hundred pounds a year, and with a property on that farm to three or four times that amount, is not admitted to be an elector.

In the courſe of not many years muſt the electours of one place grapple in the waves for their town, and at preſent a ſeptennial conſequence is given to a heap of ruins.

But in France is practice of bribing electors is almost unknown, whilst it is notoriously and publicly carried on in England.

I Think this Letter, which was ſent to me by my Electors, worth printing, becauſe as it has convinced me, it may convince others.

The constitutional right of the Electors to exact pledges, from Candidates who are soliciting the honour of representing the nation in Parliament, has been frequently agitated, and as loudly contended for as manfully resisted, at different periods of effervescence; [...]

India is to have a new Constitution, under which certain limited powers will be assigned to elected representatives. [...] Who, then, are to be the electors in rural constituencies? Only a few general statements can be made on this point. Women must wait, and, in the country at least, they will not mind; there is to be no literacy test, but military service will very properly qualify.

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows / Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The electors were originally designed to be the agents of a State, armed with plenary authority to cast its vote for President and Vice-President in such manner as the agents themselves or a majority of them might will, all danger of abuse of the trust being intended to be averted by the selection of worthy and fitting instruments for the execution of this high office. [...] Electors are now the mere instruments of party, "party puppets," as Justice [Joseph Philo] Bradley termed them, to perform a function which an automaton without intelligence or volition might as fittingly discharge.

The secondary electors will be formed into twelve electoral colleges according to the religious community to which they belong: the number of colleges to be allotted to each religious community will be proportionate to the number of secondary electors belonging to the several communities; and each electoral college will elect one member of the [Legislative] Council.