I am one of about 380,000 voters to elect 1 of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court of the state every nine years. I am one of about 1,100,000 to elect at the regular November election every two years about one-half of the following state officers: a governor, a lieutenant-governor, a secretary of state, an auditor, a treasurer, a state superintendent of public instruction, 6 trustees of the state university, clerk of the state Supreme Court, and 2 congressmen at large. I am one of about 15,000,000 voters who elect a president and vice-president of the United States every four years at the regular November election. When I entered the voting booth at the regular November election in 1912, the ballot given me to mark was 22 × 28 inches in size. It called upon the voter to do his part in filling, exclusive of presidential electors, 34 offices. It presented for his consideration, exclusive of presidential electors, 181 names from which to make selections.[3] An enumeration of the offices to be filled by election merely emphasizes the number of candidates whom the voter should inform himself about. The extent of the burden upon the voter is not fully appreciated until it is perceived how difficult actual conditions make it for him to obtain information regarding candidates for office. The least important and most inconspicuous state and local offices, as well as the most important and conspicuous, must engage the attention of the electorate of the entire governmental district. But the candidates for inconspicuous and unimportant offices must usually be men who are inconspicuous or unimportant in the community. Furthermore, the importance and conspicuousness of subordinate offices do not increase in proportion to the increase of population. The clerk of a court or a county surveyor is not a more conspicuous officer because he holds his office in a county having over two million inhabitants. He is, therefore, proportionately less conspicuous and important as the population increases. The voter is, therefore, constantly presented with candidates whose reputations are in inverse ratio to the size and population of the electoral district. The more electors there are in the district the smaller in proportion is the reputation of the candidate. The more the character and qualifications of the candidates are hidden, the more difficult it is for the voter to obtain the information which he should have in order to vote intelligently. For instance, the 600 voters in the village where the writer resides are called upon to select a clerk, a treasurer, a marshal and collector, 2 police magistrates, and library and school trustees. In so small a community the voter may with some effort actually know who the candidates for these places are. As a matter of fact, however, that effort is considerably more than the large majority of voters will push themselves to perform. The 2,000 voters in the township where