ures usually polled large votes. The new constitutions of Alabama, Oklahoma, and Michigan; the suffrage amendments of North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and Maryland; the biennial amendment of Iowa; the initiative and referendum amendments of Montana and Oregon, and other questions of similar importance brought out a vote sufficient to show a real popular judgment upon the measures submitted.17 In some states also large popular votes were polled upon almost all questions submitted during this period.18 Upon many questions of small importance it is rather remarkable that so many voters should have expressed themselves—in South Carolina, for example, nearly two-thirds of those voting at the election of 1904 expressed

popular vote. In Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi, and in some of the other southern states the real contest for office is in the democratic primaries, and the vote at general elections is therefore slight. As a rule, in all of the states a larger proportion of the qualified voters vote in presidential election years than at any other time, but this, while affecting the proportion of qualified electors voting upon amendments, does not affect the relation between the number actually voting at the election and the number voting upon measures. Proposals submitted at special elections held for that purpose usually receive a very small vote, as in New Jersey in 1903 and 1909, but a comparatively satisfactory vote was obtained at special elections in New Jersey in 1897 and in Texas in 1907. See Oberholtzer, 165-167.

17 The proposed constitution of Connecticut was very unsatisfactory and brought out a small vote. The Rhode Island proposed constitution received a rather heavy vote in 1898, but comparatively few electors voted when it was submitted again in 1899. Even on important questions the vote is often small, as on the initiative and referendum amendments in Missouri, Nevada, and Utah.

18 Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho (1906, 1908), Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota. For a partial explanation of the vote in Idaho and South Dakota, see p. 279. The large vote obtained in Nebraska in 1906 and 1908, and in Ohio in 1903 and 1905, were obtained by counting straight party votes for the proposed amendments. See p. 194.

themselves upon the question of exempting the city of Greenville from the municipal debt limit. In a number of other cases more than fifty per cent of those taking part in the election voted upon local or trivial questions in which they could have had no personal interest and upon which they could have had no real opinion of value.19 Yet in most cases the popular vote was small and upon many measures ridiculously so.

About the same result is shown by the popular votes in Michigan between 1860 and 1908, and in New York between 1846 and 1907. Upon constitutional referenda in Massachusetts between 1780 and 1907 a somewhat better showing is made, but here also many measures received but a small percentage of the vote cast for governor, and two amendments were adopted in 1860 by 3.3 per cent of those voting for governor in the same year.20 In California between 1884 and 1896 a fairly large popular vote was obtained upon proposals submitted to the people; 21 the popular vote fell in 1898, rose again in 1900, declined much below fifty per cent in 1902, 1904, and 1906, but rose again.

19 It is a noticeable fact that when important and unimportant measures are submitted at the same election, the large vote brought out upon the one will often have an influence in producing a similar vote upon the other, and this may explain, to some extent at least, the fact referred to above.

20 Reference has already been made to the fact that, where a majority of those voting upon a measure are sufficient to carry it, any measure not strongly opposed will be adopted. Amendments were carried in Colorado and Montana in 1900, in Virginia in 1901, in Washington in 1904, and in Connecticut in 1905, although less than twenty per cent of the voters expressed themselves. Under such conditions the amending process becomes little less than a farce, although the requirement of a larger popular majority to carry measures would make it practically impossible to change many of the detailed provisions in the state constitutions.

21 Except in 1890 when one amendment was submitted and was practically unopposed.

slightly in 1908. This variation in the popular vote seemingly bore no very close relation to the character of the measures submitted. In Oregon in recent years the proportion of electors expressing themselves upon constitutional questions has been large, and this in spite of the fact that a great number of propositions have been submitted to the people.22 This is, it would seem, attributable partly to the fact that many of the questions submitted have been ones of great importance, and partly to the novelty of experiments which Oregon has been making with the initiative and referendum and with methods of bringing the merits of proposals to the attention of the voters. Different results may perhaps be expected when the novelty has worn off, and when less important measures are submitted to the judgment of the people.

Popular interest in candidates will, under ordinary circumstances, be greater than that in measures. Except upon questions of very great importance it cannot be expected that a vote will be obtained equal to or greater than that upon candidates at the same election, but if a measure is important enough to be submitted to the people it should be possible to get a vote sufficient to represent a real popular judgment, but this is not obtained upon proposed amendments under present conditions. 23

Having referred briefly to the proportion of votes upon proposed amendments it may now be worth while to call

22 For the experience of Oregon see papers by W. S. U'Ren and George A. Thacher in Proceedings of the American Political Science Association, 1907, and by Joseph N. Teal in Proceedings of the National Municipal League, 1909.

23 It is not necessary that such a popular judgment be represented by a majority of all persons voting at a general election or by a majority of all the electors of a state, but requirements of this character would be much less burdensome if only measures of a fundamental character were submitted to a popular vote.

attention to the character of the popular vote.

Perhaps the

most striking thing is the mental inertia of the elector who actually casts his vote upon questions with reference to which he has no real opinion. Both the proportion of votes cast and the character of such votes are determined to a large extent by this mental inertia. When proposed amendments are printed upon the official ballot, together with the names of candidates, they are overlooked by many voters, but attract the attention of others who will express themselves upon such measures, even though they may not have known until seeing the ballot that amendments were being submitted and may have formed no judgment either for or against them except the snap judgment formed when marking the ballot. Much voting upon unimportant measures is thus to a large extent planless and unintelligent.

Where a separate ballot is employed for constitutional questions the attention of voters is attracted to a much greater extent. This fact is clearly brought out by the experience of Idaho; in the elections of 1900, 1902, and 1904 proposed amendments were printed at the bottom of the official ballots where they were easily overlooked; in the elections of 1906 and 1908 proposed amendments were printed upon separate ballots, copies of which were handed to each elector; having the ballot in his hand the elector naturally has suggested to him that something should be done with it, and the result is a larger vote; by this mechanical device Idaho almost doubled the proportion of the popular vote upon proposed amendments. South Dakota adopted the separate ballot in 1899, and since that time has been able to obtain upon such measures a much larger proportion of the popular vote.24 Votes obtained in this

24 But New York has had the separate ballot upon proposed amendments since 1896, and seemingly this has had no effect upon the popular vote cast on constitutional questions.

way are not entirely unintelligent because the voter, when his attention is attracted, may have a basis for intelligent action. But certainly the voting is more or less mechanical. With the one ballot for both candidates and measures a certain amount of inertia must have been overcome to vote upon the measures; with the separate ballot for amendments, the fact that there is a ballot suggests voting and overcomes the mental inertia simply by a mechanical device, but there is no assurance of intelligent action as a result of the suggestion which has been given. Many of the votes are simply meaningless counters, just as are a number of the votes cast upon amendments under the Nebraska plan of counting straight party votes for or against proposed amendments.

Another indication of popular inertia is the fact that, when several proposals of amendment are submitted to the people at the same time, all of such measures are apt to stand or fall together. An unpopular proposal will frequently carry down to defeat proposals which if submitted alone, might easily have been adopted; and a popular proposal will aid others submitted at the same time. Oberholtzer, writing in 1900, said upon this subject:

Dr.

"It is a strange result which has often been remarked upon, not only with us, but in Switzerland also, that when several propositions are voted on at the same time, they will all be treated alike, that is, approved in bulk, or rejected in the same way. The experience in Minnesota in 1898, when four amendments were submitted to the people, is more or less that of the entire country, when it appeared, to quote the rather picturesque language of a Western newspaper, that most of the voters either let the whole batch slide, or voted for all four.' We have the case, too, of Texas in August, 1887 when six separate amendments were referred to the people, one among them being