Page:A History of the Australian Ballot System in the United States.djvu/41

 last preceding five elections, a number equal to the number required to nominate by petition a candidate for the office in question, while New York and Texas demand that the political party cast 10,000 votes for its candidate for the office of governor at the last preceding election. On the other hand, a number of states, as Connecticut or Arkansas, do not define a political party at all.

Before the introduction of the mandatory direct primary, a political party could generally nominate by one of several recognized ways. The provisions of the Illinois law of 1891 are typical of a large majority of the states. This statute provided that candidates could be nominated by a convention of delegates, a caucus, or a meeting of qualified voters representing a political party which at the last preceding election cast 2 per cent of the entire vote in the state, or in the electoral district or division or municipality for which the nomination is made. Since 1900 the direct primary has in many states superseded the caucus or convention, and the latter exists in such states, if at all, only as supplemental to the primary law.

All but four states, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, and New Mexico, allow candidates to be nominated by petition of the electors. This was in fact the only method provided in the Australian act. The number of petitioners deemed necessary varies, not only among the states, but from time to time within a single state. Mississippi is the most liberal of the states, requiring the petition of only fifteen electors for any beat or municipal office in a village or town containing less than three hundred inhabitants, and for any other office, fifty petitioners. For any office to be voted on by all the qualified voters of the state South Dakota requires the petition of two hundred electors; Alabama, Idaho, and North Dakota require three hundred signatures; seven states require five hundred; and nine states place the number at one thousand. New York is the only state which requires a geographical