Electing Colonel Bogey

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

WE have just had an election in my part of the country. I did not vote. I suppose I ought to be ashamed of myself. I suppose I am ashamed of myself. But listen.

The electoral district in which I reside is a respectable suburb. It is almost entirely populated by respectable suburbanites. All respectable suburbanites, here as elsewhere, belong to the same political party. This district has elected a representative of that political party ever since it began to elect anybody. It will continue to do so until the party ceases to be respectable and suburbanite.

So I did not bother to vote. It would n’t have mattered at all if I had. But I am not satisfied with the fact that I did not vote, or with the system which rendered it practically useless for me to go to the trouble of voting. And I have worked out an election system which might do something to remedy that situation.

I have decided to call it the Colonel Bogey System, owing to the fact that it bears a close resemblance to the system in which the doughty colonel is employed in the game of golf. My proposal is that a registered voter who does not vote and who fails to file with the election officers a declaration of reasons for not voting shall be considered as voting in favor of the nonrepresentation of his electoral district. If more electors thus abstain from voting than vote for the leading candidate, the district goes without a member. Colonel Bogey is declared elected.

The idea that every electoral district must have a human representative in the legislative body is all wrong. It originated in the early days of democracy, before it had ever occurred to anybody that large numbers of people possessing that priceless asset, the ballot, would care so little about it that they would not even walk around the corner and mark a paper. Now that we know that there are large numbers of people who care so little about it, it is time we gave them a chance to express their don’tcare attitude (if they are a majority of the electors of their district) in the composition of the legislative body. We are not disfranchising anybody. We are simply giving a majority in any electoral district the power to disfranchise itself.

A district containing twelve thousand electors, of whom four thousand vote for one candidate and two thousand for another, while six thousand do not vote at all, is far more accurately represented in the legislature by no member than by the man who got only four thousand votes. Yet under the existing system the four-thousand-vote man goes to the legislature and exercises exactly the same powers as the man from the next district who got eight thousand votes. It is more logical, and more just, that the first district should have no member at all.

Under this system there would be no uncontested elections, for Colonel Bogey (or Nemo, or the Unknown Candidate, if you don’t like my nomenclature) would always have to be reckoned with, and even if only one live human being were put in nomination it would still be necessary for his supporters to go to the polls to the number of at least half of the registered electorate, or the seat would go to the Colonel. This would involve a change in the tactics of the minority party in districts where the result hitherto has been a sure thing. In my own district, for example, the anti-suburbanite party would never nominate a candidate, and if one should nominate himself they would abstain from voting for him, because a vote given to him would have no chance of doing any good, whereas a vote not voted would have some chance of defeating the suburbanite. They would abstain, but their abstention would be a deliberate political act, performed with malice aforethought and with a definite hope of results; not in the least like my abstention the other day. And the suburbanite party would have to see to it, first of all, that the register contained no names except those of real living electors (since under this system a dead elector would be counted as abstaining), and second, that all of its supporters were got to the polls, or, if they could n’t get to the polls, were represented by a declaration to that effect; for any suburbanite not voting and failing to file a declaration would be voting for the enemy.

My one fear about this proposal, which has other advantages too numerous to mention, is that it is too good, too simple, and too sensible, to have any chance of being adopted. Yet it has one enormous advantage, which should commend it to many in these hard-up days. Colonel Bogey would never draw any sessional indemnity or salary or whatever you like to call it. He would never make any long speeches, to take up the time of the legislature and to be spread at great expense upon the record. He would never filibuster. He would never be unseated for corruption. (I do not go so far as to say that he could never be corrupt, for there is no doubt that voters might be bribed to refrain from voting by the heelers of a party which knew that it could not win the seat but hoped to prevent the other party from winning it.) He would never logroll for tariff items or local expenditures. He would never bolt his party or threaten to bolt his party. He would never —

But the more I think of him the more I am convinced that he is the ideal representative, and the only danger is that all the electoral districts in the country would elect him. And that, I freely admit, is another problem.

Meanwhile, a voter is more and more coming to be a person who does not vote.

B. K. SANDWELL