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Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1102, 29 August 1873, Page 2

The first indication of any impending electoral contest is the sudden flutter of " requisitions" to be presented to individuals presumedly willing to contend for the honor of election. Such documents are circulated industriously, aiid the majority of electors, with easy complaisance or to save themselves the trouble of refusal, append their autographs to every such document presented, and thereafter, feeling safe in the secrecy of the ballot vote as they choose. They suffer no qualms of conscience thereby, and, keeping their own counsel, run little risk of being bowled out by either of the confiding candidates who has calculated his chances of election upon the encouraging array of names appended to the documents handed him by his too familiar friends. Thus have requisitions become mere delusions, and although the system affords an easy means of obtaining an explicit intimation of intentions from any presumed candidate who modestly awaits the question before declaring himself, yet it by no means ensures him any tiling beyond a doubtful measure of support in the contest, aud nothing is more common after elections than to hear defeated candidates complain that they had not received the amount of support promised them. Referring to tins, a contemporary thus pertinently remarks upon the practice of getting up requisitions : —" This practice is entirely at variance with the principle of the ballot. In fact to ask a man to sign a requisition of this kind, is to place him in the possible predicament of having to do one of three things which may he alike disagreeable to him—viz., either to reluse to sign ; or to sign and give his vote contrary to his better judgment, simply beeause he has so signed ; or to sign for one man and vote for another. Every man who prizes the benefits the ballot confers on him should resent a request to sign a requisition as being a request to him to forego his electoral birthright. If experience proves that requisitions are only empty and delusive forms they will die a natural death, but this will not come about until a great many pledges have been broken. The same remarks apply, in a large measure, to personal canvassing. Both means o! endeavouring to secure support are simply tampering with the votes of the electors the very thing that the ballot is designed to prevent."