French Electoral Systems.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20472, 16 February 1932, Page 8

French Electoral Systems.

It was announced in yesterday's cable news that, the French Chamber of Deputies had passed an Electoral Bill enfranchising women and restoring majority voting. Under the present law, if no candidate secures a clear majority of the votes cast at the first ballot, a second ballot is necessary a fortnight later, on which occasion a bare majority over the candidate with

the next largest numbei ; of votes is sufficient to secure election. This arrangement is clearly to the advantage of the Left parties, whose success in 1924, for instance, "was largely due to Socialist and Radical-Socialist candidates pooling their votes in cases in which an independent fight would have meant the return of Moderate candidates. In December of last year M. Laval's Government brought in a Bill to suppress "second ballots," but after determined obstruction by the Left it was shelved. The present Bill, except for the clauses enfranchising women, has the same purpose, and if it passes the Senate the Radical's, and Socialists will almost -certainly lose many seats at the coming election. As a weakening of the Left will strengthen M. Laval's foreign policy, it is possible to regret that the Bill is likely to become law, but for the second ballot itself there is little to be said. It does not in practice make legislative assemblies more representative of public opinion, and it inevitably acts as an incentive to intrigue and bargaining among parties. New Zealand tried the second ballot at the General Elections of 190S and 1911, and political morality has seldom sunk so low in this country as it was in those two years. The French Chamber of Deputies, however, is not given to theorising about systems of voting; the second ballot has been rejected for the sake of a, definite political advantage, and it is fairly certain that if another Government thinks it can profit by again altering the electoral system it will do so. The French elector must wish that those who founded the Third Republic had fixed the electoral system by a constitutional law, for the changes have been bewildering in their frequency. The scrutin de liste, under which each elector votes for as many Deputies as the entire Department has to elect, was introduced in 1871, to be replaced in 1876 by the scrutin d'arrondissemcnt, under which each Department is divided into a number of arrondisse menis, each elector voting for one Deputy only. In 1885 there was a return to the scrutin de listc; in 1889 the scrutin d'arrondissement was reintroduced; in 1919 the scrutin de liste with proportional representation was tried; and in 1927 there was a change back to the scrutin d'arrondissement, to which was later added the second ballot. There ought to be enough in France's wide experience to settle the interminable arguments between the advocates of rival voting systems, but the fact that France's experience is not often appealed to suggests that the only possible generalisation from it is that the more things change the more they are the same.