CATECHISM FOR VOTERS

The Cortland Democrat, Friday, October 17, 1890.

CATECHISM FOR VOTERS.

What a Voter Must Do When He Goes to the Polls to Vote at the Next Election—The New Method Fully Explained.

   Q. What is the first thing a voter must do in order to vote?

   A. He must pass through the guard rail, step up to the ballot clerks' table and announce his name to the election officers.

   Q. What shall the voter do next?

   A. He must wait to see if he is entitled to vote; if so, he will receive from the ballot clerks one of each kind of ballots which have been furnished for use according to law. The voter should see that the stubs of all ballots delivered to him have on them the initials of both ballot clerks, or the initials of a ballot clerk and an inspector.

   Q. Having received his ballots, what shall a voter then do?

   A. He must go alone into one of the voting booths and prepare his ballot.

   Q. What will be found in the booth?

   A. Materials, such as ink, mucilage, etc., which may assist in preparing his ballot.

   Q. How long must a voter remain in the booth?

   A. Not less than three and no longer than ten minutes.

   Q. Suppose the voter in the booth should write or paste upon his ballot the name of any person lawfully a candidate for whom he desires to vote, will such ballot be counted?

   A. It will.

   Q. Can the voter take into the booth with him any other ballot besides the official one?

   A. He can.

   Q. What name is given this ballot?

   A. It is known as the paster ballot.

   Y. Describe it.

   A. The paster ballot must be white paper, printed in type uniform with the official ballot and in plain black ink.

   Q. What may the paster ballot contain?

   A. It way contain the names of all the offices to be filled and the candidates for whom the holder desires to vote.

   Q. How shall this paster be used?

   A. It must be pasted on one of the official ballots below the stub, and in such a manner that when the official ballot is folded no part of the paster is visible.

   Q. Suppose the voter should fail to completely cover the name of a candidate on the official ballot, which name will be counted, that name or the paster for the same office?

   A. The writing or paster on an official ballot must be considered as the choice of a voter, and will be so counted.

   Q. Need a man know how to read and write in order to become a voter?

   A. While it is exceedingly desirable, the paster ballot will overcome all difficulties in this respect.

   Q. Must the voter fold all the ballots given him by the ballot clerks?

   A. He must.

   Q. How must they be folded?

   A. They must be folded in the middle, lengthwise, and then crosswise, in such a manner that the contents of the ballot shall at no time be exposed.

   Q. As the voter leaves the booth how many kinds of tickets will he have?

   A. Three kinds; the ballot he desires to vote and the two ballots he does not desire to vote.

   Q. Which one does he hand the inspector first?

   A. The one he desires to vote.

   Q. What then follows?

   A. After his vote shall have been deposited in the box, he must then deliver to the inspectors the ballots he does not  desire to vote.

   Q. Can a person take with him into the booth an unofficial ballot?

   A. He can.

   Q. Suppose a voter spoils a ballot, can he receive another set?

   A. He can receive as many as four sets and no more.

   Q. Can a voter take any one into the booth with him?

   A. Only upon oath that he is physically disabled.

   Q. After the voter has voted what must he do?

   A. He must retire through the opening in the guard rails and not enter the enclosed space again unless permitted by the inspectors.

   Q. If the voter desires further information to whom can he apply on election day?

   A. He can apply to the ballot clerks or read the cards of instruction at the polling places.

   N. B. Preserve this or commit it to memory.

ATTEND TO IT IN PERSON.

   If you are not registered you cannot vote. This refers to every voter. Attend to it Saturday, October 18. A board of registration will sit at each polling place on that day. Do not delay or listen to the enemy's soft tone "that will be all right" or "promise to fix it for you," but go in person, see to it yourself—it costs nothing to register and the board should be at the polling place from 9 A. M. to 9 P. M. The law requires that a certified copy of the list shall be conspicuously posted at the polling place from the first day of registry until election day, so that any one can see whether he is registered or not. A penalty of five years in the State prison is the penalty meted to any person making false registry of himself or any one else. The above applies to all localities, excepting cities, for which there is special provision in this State.

PAGE FOUR/EDITORIALS.

   A vote for Peck for Member of Assembly is a vote for Tom Platt for U. S. Senator. Platt caused the defeat of New York city in her efforts to secure the World's Fair, which, had New York secured it, would have been of incalculable benefit to every farmer, merchant and laboring man in the state. Who wants Platt for U. S. Senator?

   In the short biography of Hon. Rufus T. Peck, furnished by himself and published in the Albany Evening Journal Almanac for 1889, it is stated that he "was born in Solon, Cortland county, December 24th, 1836." Now Fort Sumpter was fired on in April, 1861, and this was when the war commenced. At the time the war began he was in his twenty-fifth year, and as he was between the age of 18 and 45 years he could have enlisted if he had wanted to, and if he had remained in Solon instead of going to Canada he would have been liable to draft.

   What did this eminently patriotic gentleman mean a few weeks since, when he stated in his speech to the Veteran Soldiers' and Sailors reunion that "his only regret was that he was not one of them, and that he would have been had he been old enough?" There were many younger men than Peck in the audience who served all through the war.

   Shall we hear any more of the "home market" humbug, now that Secretary

Blaine has explained it all away! He admits that we can have no adequate home market for the product of our farms, and that our manufacturers have also overrun the consumptive capacity of the country. Our trade needs expansion, and it can't expand if it is walled in. This is the doctrine the Record has been preaching for years. There is no difference between Mr. Blaine's free trade and the Records free trade except in the name. He calls his free trade "reciprocity.''—Philadelphia Record.

   Mr. Peck is traveling about the county telling Republicans that they must vote for him because a United States Senator is to be elected this winter and that his defeat would endanger the election of a Republican Senator. What complete nonsense. The State Senate stands 19 Republicans to 13 Democrats. Last winter there were 71 Republicans in the Assembly and 57 Democrats. Both houses unite in the election of a United States Senator and it requires a majority of the members of both houses to elect. Last winter the Republicans had 20 majority on joint ballot and as the Senate holds over, the Democrats would have to elect 11 more members than they did last year, which is an utter impossibility. The leaders of the Republican party recognize this fact, for the reason that in all their arrangements for candidates they do not take into consideration the fact that it is possible for the Democrats to carry the Assembly.

PECK'S WONDERFUL RECORD.

   EDITOR DEMOCRAT:—If Rufus T. Peck wrote the article in last week's Standard, eulogizing himself, he has to some extent relieved the Standard's editor from the imputation of having voluntarily tried to deceive his readers by the publication of an alleged record, teeming from beginning to end with misinformation and false pretenses. If Mr. Peck is not its author, he cannot too quickly repudiate the article in question, and the statements therein made. Whoever wrote the article presumes altogether too much upon the ignorance of those who may read it.

   A man who shrank from the duties and responsibilities of American citizenship, and sought an asylum on a foreign shore and the protection of the British flag, when his native land was in imminent danger of dismemberment, may well be expected to pervert the facts and discolor the truth, where his own record is in question. The first claim put forth in the Standard is that he introduced a bill to prevent frauds on "hotel and boarding house keepers," and thereby lessened taxation. The bill was in the interest of Justices of the Peace and as a result has swelled their bills and largely increased taxation instead of lessening it. If any Justice of the Peace has represented that the bill in question has reduced taxation, it must be the gentleman who now acts as secretary of the Republican County Committee. If he has any remarks to submit upon that question, he can illustrate them very forcibly by printing at the same time his Omnibus bill for services as Justice of the Peace since the passage of that law, and compare it with his bills before the passage of the law.

   The Board of Supervisors of Cortland county in 1889, asked their member to secure the passage of a law exempting Cortland county from the operation of the Mase dog law. Other counties took the same or equivalent action. The result was that nearly all of the country members voted to repeal the bill, and even Mase did not vote against its repeal when the final vote was taken.

   But for Mr. Peck's officiousness in the matter, the bill would probably have passed the assembly without a dissenting vote. As it was he made himself the butt of raillery to such an extent that it endangered the repeal of the bill. Peck made all the opposition there was to the repeal of the Mase dog law, and now has the impudence to claim credit for it. The legislature is composed of 128 members and 32 senators. Mr. Peck did not constitute a majority, and was not a quorum in either house. Nevertheless he claims the entire credit for the passage of the repeal bill in the Assembly, in the Senate, and its approval by the Governor. For egotism, vanity and false pretenses, "the Queen's own" takes the cake.

   Previous to the last session, a convocation of School Commissioners formulated the District Quota bill, and did all they could to secure its passage. It was sent to Mr. Peck and when the third reading was reached instead of being passed it got 57 votes when 65 votes were required to pass it. In order that the bill should not perish through Peck's inefficiency, men who had tact and experience took hold of the bill and easily secured its passage. If special credit is due to any one for the passage of this bill it is to the School Commissioners who originated it, and the men who finally secured its passage.

   The Standard article claims that Peck is the especial friend of the farmer and the laboring man. In Albany he announces his calling to be that of a private banker and lawyer. When and where has he demonstrated his love for the farmer and the laboring man? Laboring men have certain views in relation to Mr. Peck, and these views are decidedly adverse to him. A man that claims he can be elected because he has got the most money, mistakes the integrity of the voters of Cortland county.

   Space will not permit the examination of all the claims in detail. We have already seen that the repeal of the dog law originated with the Board of Supervisors in this and other counties. The District Quota bill originated with the School Commissioners.

   The course Peck took on the mortgage bill deserves the contempt of all thinking men. He did all he could to procure its defeat as did other monopolists, but when the final vote came and it was apparent that the bill was doomed to defeat, he voted for it. He wanted the bill defeated and if his vote had been necessary to secure its defeat, every one who knows Peck, knows he would have voted against the bill. But in working against the bill and then voting for it, he showed himself to be a cheap demagogue.

   LABORER.