If the offices which the voter was called upon to fill while politically ignorant were few in number and altogether insignificant in the extent of the governmental power which they controlled, not much harm would be done. But little by little, as population has increased and social and governmental organization has become more complex and the political duties of the voter have grown heavier, the political ignorance of the voter has extended to a constantly increasing number of candidates for office, until the sum total of the governmental power of all the offices for which the voter casts his ballot in political ignorance constitutes the principal part of the entire local and state governmental power. The great sources of governmental power are the Congress of the United States, the legislatures of the state and local governments. When the tide of political ignorance on the part of the intelligent voter rises so high that it embraces the candidates for the local, state, and federal legislative bodies, the situation is serious. When it includes the local judiciary and all but the president of the United States, the highest executive officer of the state and of the principal local government, the situation has become desperate. So far as the electorate is too ignorant to vote intelligently it has been in effect disfranchised. It does not really vote at all. If the voter were required to vote blindfolded, or if the ballot were made up in cipher, he would know that he was disfranchised. Suppose, however, that the voter is blindfolded or the ballot done in cipher only in those instances where the voter is called upon to vote without any political information necessary to enable him to vote intelligently. Would he be any worse off because of the cipher or the bandage on his eyes? Does not the political ignorance of the voter as clearly deprive him of his power to vote as the use of a cipher or blindfolding? In both cases he goes through the mechanical act of voting, but he records nothing at all by so doing.