P.R. AND INFORMAL VOTES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 112, 8 November 1930, Page 8

P.R. AND INFORMAL VOTES

(To the Editor.) Sir,—ln your issue o£ Tuesday last you reprint a paragraph from a Christchureh paper to tho effect that Councillor Beanland has given notice o£ motion to abolish proportional representation in the city of Christchureh, and that he has seen fit to give as justification for his attitude—(l) That he has always been opposed to proportional representation; and (2) that the system is cumbersome and should be superseded by something that people can understand, meaning the first-past-the-post system—if system it can be called. Clearly, Councillor Beanland has a mean idea of the intelligence of his fellow-citi-zens, not so much because of his holding that proportional representation is beyond their mentality, but on account of his disregard of undeniable facts of which he cannot be ignorant. I allude to the official record of polling at the last municipal elections. In Dunedin 15,860 votes were recorded, of which 3057 were informal; in Wellington there were 23,884 votes recorded, of which 4047 were informal; in Auckland there were 23,980 votes recorded, of which 2933 were informal; and in Christchurch there were 29,484 votes recorded, of which only 1469 were informal. These figures speak for themselves, but they are rendered more striking when we remember that''at the election of 1927, when the first-past-the-post system was in force in Christchureh, there were 28,149 votes recorded there, of which 4984 were informal! The foregoing facts prove that Councillor Beanland is taking daring liberties with accuracy, to put it mildly, in denouncing proportional representation on the grounds that it is cumbersome and not understood by the people. He is contradicted by the unanswerable facts of experience, and I take the liberty of saying that his real reason for opposing proportional representation has not been avowed. He is merely the mouthpiece of a coterie calling itself the Citizens' Association, which, after the manner of all "machine" cliques, hates independent opinion, and accordingly hates the system of election which emancipates the electors from the control of pompous nobodies to whom the system of first-past-the-post gives a spurious importance.—l am, etc., P. J. O'EEGAN. 7th November.