The use of these words is confined to the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Prox, in Rhode Island, means the ticket or list of candidates at elections presented to the people for their votes. By a law of the colony of Providence Plantations passed in the year 1647, the General Assembly was appointed to be holden annually, "if wind and weather hinder not, at which the general officers of the colony were to be chosen." This clause made it convenient for many to remain at home, particularly as they had the right to send their votes for the officers by some other persons; hence the origin of these terms prox and proxy votes, as applied to the present mode of voting for State officers in Rhode Island.--Staples's Annals of Providence, p. 64.
Mr. Pickering observes that this word is also used in Connecticut, as equivalent to election, or election-day. He quotes the following instances from a Connecticut newspaper:
Republicans of Connecticut; previous to every proxies you have been assaulted on every side.
On the approaching proxies we ask you to attend universally.
Dr. Webster, with whom New England, or rather Connecticut, seems to have been a synonym for "all creation," says, the word means, "in popular use, an election or day of voting for officers of government."