1. A plurality might not be equal to the percentage or majority.
2. A percentage or majority contemplates a convention to nominate in case the candidate does not receive the percentage or majority, and a convention, the best authorities hold, is prohibited under the constitutional amendment providing for the primary election.
Chapter X.
Fight Over Assembly Amendments.
Machine Succeeds in Amending the Direct Primary Bill in the Assembly -
Assemblyman Pulcifer at Critical Moment Votes with the Machine - Senate,
Although Held Up By Machine Element for a Week, Refuses to Concur in
Assembly's Action.
The machine Senators, having failed to amend the Direct Primary bill on its second reading, apparently accepted their whipping, and allowed the measure to go through third reading and final passage without opposition[42].
Twenty-seven Senators at the final roll call voted for it; not one vote was cast against it. Even Leavitt and Wolfe voted for it. The anti-machine Senators had won "a glorious victory."
But the victory was one tempered with grave misgivings on the part of careful observers of machine trickery. The fact that the bill as it had passed the Senate contained several serious clerical and typographical errors, and that its title was unsatisfactory if not defective, worried the genuine supporters of the bill not a little. The bill had been loosely drawn to begin with, and as originally introduced contained most unfortunate clerical errors, which bobbed up at most inopportune times.
At every stage of its passage in the Senate such errors were uncovered, and after it had passed second reading, no less than eight serious errors were discovered to be still in the bill. The only way these errors could be corrected was by amendment.
The errors were called to the attention of Senator Wright and of George Van Smith of the Call, who were urged to have them corrected in the Senate that the bill might go to the Assembly letter perfect, and without necessity of amendment[43]. But both Van Smith and Wright were of the opinion that time would be gained by leaving the Assembly to make the corrections.