Electoral Reform

The Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall.

In the 1910s, and earlier, many local and state political parties were run by political machines that controlled both the nominating and the legislative processes. In response to such corruption voters sought to increase direct democracy by furthering a series of electoral reforms that had begun in the late nineteenth century: the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. The initiative and referendum were first established in South Dakota in 1898, and by the 1910s a score of states had established such laws. The initiative and referendum allowed voters to write policy by passing specific laws. The recall, also widely adopted and used during the 1910s, allowed voters to remove an elected official from office if he failed to carry out the wishes of his consitutents. All three measures reflected a progressive belief in the efficacy of the political process: if the means of electing...

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