The Shadowy Business of Proxy Voting
Local political observers call out the 'proxy convention' system for allowing unelected outsiders to hijack political representation.
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One of the most fruitful causes of misrepresentation in Conventions is the admission of proxies. It is safe to say that more jobs have been perpetrated, more sneakiness succeeded and more violence has been done to the desires of the people by proxy representation than by any other single factor in the constitution of party conventions. A man who goes into a Convention with a number of proxies is from the outset formidable. Many a good candidate, the choice of the people, has by means of proxies lodged in unscrupulous hands been slaughtered, and supplanted by an offensive nominee. The late Convention at Dayton was a proxy convention; there were out of 70 votes, 30 proxies. Several members of the Convention were not elected delegates, but secured admission solely by procuring proxies from counties in which they had neither residence nor even extensive acquaintance.
“A man who goes into a Convention with a number of proxies is from the outset formidable.”
The late 19th-century struggle against 'machine politics' and proxy-wielding operatives echoes modern debates over how delegates are selected in our primary systems, where voters often feel the 'machine' ignores the rank-and-file. The P-I's demand for direct, local representation remains a perennial theme in American civic life.
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