9. ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL PARTIES The State Government has the primary responsibility for the conduct of elections, National, State and local. State Constitu tions and State laws set up machinery for the conduct of elections, and determine the qualifications for voting, subject to the federal restrictions against discriminations on account of race, colour, previous condition of servitude, or sex.
Through a succession of changes, the States have now come to have substantially universal suffrage for males and females above the age of twenty-one years. Suffrage for women became national in 1920, through the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Educational qualifications for voting have been imposed in some States, as in New York ; and qualifications as to education or tax-paying have been im posed in a number of Southern States, which discourage voting by negroes. State laws require registration of voters in the larger communities, to identify those qualified to vote.
Few officers are chosen by popular vote in the Federal system— the president, vice-president, members of the two houses of Con gress, and presidential electors are so chosen. A much larger group of State officers are chosen by popular vote; and an even larger number of county, city and other local officers. When all of these types of offices are united on one ballot or in one election, the voter is oftentimes faced with the problem of choos ing one hundred or more officials from among several times that number of candidates. Moreover the so-called initiative and referendum have been adopted in 18 States; constitutional amendments are proposed for popular approval by State legis latures; and under many State laws, proposals of municipal bond issues and other local questions must be submitted for popular approval. The voter is somewhat at a loss when forced to express himself upon perhaps 3o technical proposals, and upon several hundred candidates for public office. His choice upon the measures submitted to him is largely hap-hazard, except upon the occasional measure of real importance. His choice among candi dates for National, State and local offices is primarily guided by political parties.
Practically throughout its history, the United States has been a country of two parties. A third party has occasionally been
important, as was the case with the Progressive party under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. In the early years of the nation, the Federalist party represented the interests of a stronger nationalism; the Republican party under Jefferson, the interests of the States. In the period of Andrew Jackson, the name of the then dominant party changed from Republican to Democratic, and, the Federalists having disappeared, the Whigs became the other great party. The Whigs were replaced by the Republicans, who elected Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 186o. During all of this period lesser parties have existed, and have occasionally cast a vote sufficient to determine which of the two major parties should control.
Political parties originated as voluntary organizations. But they soon came to control the election to local, State and National offices; for in the election no one except a candidate of one of the two leading parties had or has the possibility of being elected. The methods of the political party thus became of importance to the Government itself. Today political parties are in reality no longer voluntary organizations, but are rather organs of the Gov ernment itself, controlled in great detail by State legislation. One of the first respects in which political parties came under official control was the printing of the ballot. Before 1888 parties printed their own ballots, and naturally determined also the conditions under which the names of their party candidates should appear upon such ballots. Serious abuses arose under this arrangement, particularly with respect to the secrecy of the ballot. Beginning in i888, the States adopted the official or so-called Australian ballot. Under the official ballot plan, ballots are printed at gov ernmental expense. This expense is usually borne not directly by State government but by the local bodies charged by the State with the conduct of elections. In providing for the printing of ballots, State laws at the same time necessarily determine the conditions under which party organizations shall be entitled to have the names of their candidates appear upon such ballots.