Tuesday, Oct. 9, 1917
With voter rolls depleted by the world war, Democratic and Republican party operatives in Troy are scrambling to register as many people as possible by the deadline for the November citywide elections.
The Record reports that sources within both parties estimate that registration will be down by about 1,500 from 1916, a presidential and gubernatorial election year.
Registered voters who’ve joined the military since the April declaration of war against Germany will be able to vote in local elections via absentee ballots. “When the country is not at war the law permitting soldiers and sailors to vote is not so strictly adhered to,” our reporter notes, “but in case of national strife nothing is left undone in arranging for the casting of the votes of the fighting forces.”
Regardless of the military vote, local Republicans believe that the war may have shifted Troy’s population in their favor. They hope to prevent Democratic mayor Cornelius F. Burns from winning a fourth two-year term next month.
“During the last few municipal campaigns there has been admittedly a noticeable indifference on the part of certain Republicans who, figuring the city ticket had no show and the county candidates were safe anyway, have not participated in the campaign with enough interest to register their votes,” oure writer recalls.
“Now, the Republican leaders are offering the argument that while the county ticket is assured of election the city candidates have an excellent chance if the party members respond to the urging to come out and register. Further than this, the Republicans, claiming to have discovered considerable disaffection among the Democrats, will facilitate the registration of these men in the hope that they will be favored by their votes election day.”
Republican mayoral candidate George T. Morris, the Fourth Ward alderman, is unpopular with many party leaders and has heard bipartisan criticism for perceived personal attacks on Mayor Burns. His supporters believe that Morris’s maverick fiscal-conservative stance in the common council has earned him the support of independent voters dissatisfied with the alleged domination of both major parties by machine politicians.
The GOP has a team of forty young campaign workers registering sympathetic citizens. In response to their effort, “For the first time in many years the Democrats are displaying more than ordinary interest in the campaign.”
City Democratic chairman James V. Coffey says that “he has seen sufficient evidence of the interest of the younger Democrats to convince him they will give the Republicans an equal battle in the matter of strenuosity. He predicts that his party will soon have more volunteers registering voters than the GOP.