ustxtxb_obs_1966_02_18_50_00014-00000_000.pdf

able. Procedure for transfer of address’ should be simple. Lists should be purged routinely after warning of purge addressed to the voter by first-class mail.” Furthermore, according to the league, permanent registration “is usually more effective than periodic registration in safeguarding against voter frauds because provision is made for purging the lists of the names of voters who have died or moved away or who persistently fail to vote, and for identification of the voter by means of his signature at the polls,” cross-checkable with a card there that he signed when he registered. \(In one system employed in roughly half the statesa system which uses I.B.M. and photocopy machines duplicate cards are filled out on, and signed by, each voter; one is kept in locked files, The league, in its 1954 document on this subject, said that once a permanent system is set up, the number of re-registrations in cities each year under permanent registration is less than one tenth of the total voter list. .House-to-house checking of lists and systematic purging add costs peculiar to permanent registration, but the league 14 The Texas Observer was firm that the permanent system is cheaper. We shall be hearing copious testimony and argument on these questions during the session, and surely most of the members will suspend judgment for a time. The conservatives may be thinking that, as by extension from the poll tax, they can keep poor people from voting by making it harder to vote. If they will think a little longer they may see that what they would actually do, with feeless annual registration and the Jan. 31 deadline, is make it harder for everybody to vote, regardless of their income, as well as give more strength to voters who can be cajoled annually to register by organized drives. The poll tax kept the vote down, generally, among poor people, but it’s gone. Perhaps it is not a vain hope that the legislature and its leaders will now give Texas democracy a fresh, good-spirited start with ‘a registration system designed to make it easy, not hard, for everyone to stay qualified to vote. If not, the “team” will stand vulnerable to the charge that they prefer Alexander Hamilton’s rule by the few to Thomas Jefferson’s rule by the many. Politics and the Observer On Friday, Feb. 4, I came to a tentative decision to run for the U.S. Senate as an independent candidate in the November election this year. About 4:15 Monday afternoon, Feb. 7, I filed an intention to run with the Secretary of State. This involves problems for the Observer which I want to discuss here. I will not use the Observer as a campaign vehicle. I don’t believe any newspaper or journal ought to be the instrument of a political candidacy. The Observer will not editorialize on the Senate race as long as I am a factor in it, and the Observer’s news accounts on the Senate situation, including those in “political intelligence,” will be Associate Editor Larry Lee’s department. I will not discuss my candidacy in the Observer office by phone or with visitors to the office. Since, for an independent candidate to be qualified to get on the ballot in November, petitions signed by a certain number of voters who meet specified qualifications have to be filed with the Secretary of State by thirty days after the second primary, I will not be a candidate in the eyes of the law until and unless the petitions are filed. I will continue as Observer editor, actively writing and editing, until the summer; if the petitions are obtained, some new arrangement will have to be made. I shall confine stuff I write that might bear tangentially on the Senate race to this column, Observations, and in this I shall take care not to advocate my own candidacy, or argue for it. If I have something I want to say to Observer readers about my candidacy, I’ll buy political advertising. FUN TO READ! The IDLER is a lively, individualistic liberal monthly that entertains as it informs. Warm humor and cold facts mixed into a pleasant, personal and personable journalistic pot. Send $3.00 today for a year’s subscription. Money back if not satisfied. Discover THE IDLER and you will have made a new friend. THE IDLER 125 Fifth St., N.E. Washington 2, D.C. Please send me a one year’s subscription to THE IDLER. Enclosed is $3.00. Name Address Zip AMERICAN, INCOME LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF INDIANA Underwriters of the American Income Labor Disability Policy Executive Offices: P.O. Box 208 Waco, Texas Bernard Rapoport, President