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Show VOTING BY MAIL IN WASHINGTON District of Columbians Must Send Ballots to Home States WASHINGTON. Nov. 7 Elections ever the country today had their reflex re-flex In Washington. In every government gov-ernment department there wero many vacant places, soveral members of the cabinet and many under officials and employes having gone homo to vote. The exodus this year, however, was not a.M great as usual US an Increasing In-creasing number voted by mall, Having registered' his choices In this manner, President Bardlnsj was at his office at the usual hour with a full day ahead. He had all the latest forecasts of his party lieutenants and as the day wore along r- etved -jittering report.s from the .t -il.:1 balloting. ballot-ing. Having reglnferod his choice in thir manner. President Harding was at his office at the usual hour with a full day ahead. He had all the latest forecasts of hln party lieutenants and as the day wore ;.lnng received scattering scat-tering reports front the actual balloting ballot-ing Tonight ho was to got the results in his study as tapldly as they could bo received at ih8 executive offices over an Associated Press wire and relayed to hi n over the t lephone by Secretary Christian OTING BY M MI-. Pour members of the president s cabinet remained In Washington and of these. Secretaries Hughes .md W.il-laco W.il-laco voted by mail. Attorney General Dougherty also voted by mall, but s- nt today In Baltimore with lire. Daufherty, who is recuperating there after an operation. Three members of tho cabinet will not vote. Secretary Mellon, it u:is stated, was prevented from registering register-ing by pressure of public business; ; Secretary Hoover, now on his way. west to a meeting of the Colorado, rner commissi m at Santa Fe: New Mexico. Is unable to reach his home state of California In time for the election, while Secretary Davis Is still in tho far west whero ho has been campaigning. WASHINGTON VOTELESS While there wis no accurate In-! formation as to Just how many votes I were cast today by residents of "voteless"' "vote-less"' Washington, leaders, of the two principal parties cstlmato that there ore upwards of 50,000 potential voters in the District of Columbia, the number num-ber having been swelled slnco the enactment en-actment by 24 states of laws permitting permit-ting legal residents absent to vote by mall. Both tho major parties maintain organizations here to get out the otes of the 400.000 odd residents who havo that right. Of the estimated 60.000 potential voters, It Is figured that about 20 per cent do not "bother" to cast ballots, and that an equal number go to their homes The work of getting the others to ote by mull wherever possible s the task that occupies oc-cupies tho local political organizations. organiza-tions. Party officers charged with this work "declare that women take far more Interest In sending their vote home by mall than do the men. They offer no explanation, but they do go j so far as to lay that the women "show far more lntelllgi nee" in preparing their ballots and picking their candidates. candi-dates. LAWS V KY WIDELY Since the voting by mall laws of each stato having sucn a statute are vastly different In terms mall otlng presents a somewhat complex subject. No person In tfle District of Columbia 1 who has not had actual legal resl-l dence in a state or whose parents hadl' not had or has lost such legal resl- dence is entitled to vote. The absentee voter law of South Dakota Da-kota requires that tho voter mark his ballot in a booth or a room similar sim-ilar to booths in polling places, where there are no witnesses Kansas furnishes fur-nishes a special ballot blank, known as the feedral, state tor county) ballot. bal-lot. Maryland does not allow anyone i not an actual resident to vote by mail The voting by mall Idea is said to have originated in Kentucky. At any rate this was the first state to permit' It, but now tho supreme court f thati state has held the law to be In conflict con-flict with the state constitution so' that Kentucklans away from homel who desire to vote today had to return re-turn there in order to do so. i rrt I |