VOTING METHODS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 171, 22 July 1935, Page 8

VOTING METHODS.

ADVANTAGES OF "P.R."

REPRESENTATION FOR ALL. The existing election system was indefensible, in that the result of an election depended, not on how the people voted, but on how the votes were split, asserted Mr. P. J. O'Regan in an address on the proportional represetation eystem given under the auspices of the People's University at the Fabian Club rooms yesterday afternoon. Mr. C. R. McLean presided. The omens indicated, said Mr. O'Regan, that during the coming session Parliament would be asked to enact a bill to introduce preferential voting in single electorates, and hence it wae important to bear in mind that the method of marking the ballot paper was the sanie under that system as under the proportional system, a fact which should dispose effectively of the objection that that system wae too complicated for the average voter. The proportional eyetem, however, required plural-member constituencies, and the electoral quota necessary to elect a candidate was ascertained by dividing the number of votes east by one more than the number of vacancies and adding one to the result. For example, in the case of a five-mem-ber constituency having 30.000 voters, the quota would be 5001. Every candidate who polled the quota would be as certain of election as he who polled half the votes or more, pnd while under the present system all votes in excess of a bare majority are really waited, under the proportional system all votes in excess of the >juota would be transferred to other candidates precisely in accordance with the directions of the voter himself.

Under the system the majority of the electors would always have the majority of the representatives, but every considerable minority would be assured of its proper proportion of representation. Such wae the system in vogue in Holland, in Ireland, in Tasmania and elsewhere, and it had got beyond the stage when it could be disregarded as a practical solution of a very urgent problem. The system, Mr. O'Regan concluded, would involve many incidental advantages beyond the chief objective of effective voting. It would secure real secrecy of the '-allot, as the votes would necessarily be counted at one central polling booth. It would involve permanent electoral boundaries, and it would enhance the prestige and authority of Parliament. The speaker concluded with a strong defence of Parliamentary government. He maintained that unless such tyrannies a existed to-day in Italy a'nd Germany ended in bloody disaster, then the lessons of history were futile and of no account.