. FREAK VOTING.
1To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,--Your 'intelligent and sympathetic remarks on &Tr' presidential -election are a source of satisfaction to those Of us here who, like myself, follow with keen interest the course of politics in Great Britain. 'YOU say in your issue of November 10th (News of the Week) : " The Demoeratic vote was the lowest on record."
May I point out that while Hoover received 444 electoral votes' to -Smith's 87, Hoover's popular vote had reached' almost 21,000,000 and Smith's not far from 15,000,000 ? Thus Smith received only 16 per cent: of the' electoral vote,- but about 40 per cent. of the popular vote. This year's election emphasized to an unusual degree the disparity that may exist between the electoral and popular vote of a CRLI-' didate under our strange method—handed down from Stage. coach days—of choosing a President.
In this `election the Dethocratic Party sustained its greatest disaster, while at the same time recording a greater vote than even before in its history ; indeed, a larger vote than the total of -all the ballots cast in 1924 for Wilson, Roosevelt, and Taft.-I am, Sir, &c.,
ALBERT MELVILLE FARR.
Little Hollows, Ridgedale Avenue, Madison, New Jersey.
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