MULTIPLE CANDIDATES

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 101, 25 October 1940, Page 6

MULTIPLE CANDIDATES

Where the voter has no preference vote to cast, a political party will continue to pin its faith to the single candidate system. Given the system of one voter and one vote, its corollary seems to be one candidate for a party and no more. But preferential voting introduces new factors. Because a voter in Australia enjoys preferential voting, it is now claimed in New South Wales, by certain party managers, that the multiple candidature principle—one party with more than one candidate —is a success. Analysing the New South Wales voting in the recent Federal General Election, the president of the United Australia Speakers' Association, Mr. H. R. McWilliam, advances the contention that the existence of two or more strong candidates, bearing the same party label, divides the votes of the party, and causes factional bitterness, but the factions nevertheless "interchange preferences loyally," and thus poll full party strength for that candidate who beats his colleagues. Mr. McWilliam adds:

We can draw the conclusion that Labour, far from suffering from a multiplicity of candidates, was greatly strengthened thereby; that in no case did the U.A.P. or the Country Party lose a seat because of multiple endorsement; and that in many cases it saved the situation for them; seats with single candidates were, on the other hand, lost and several others had narrow victories; furthermore, the only seats where Labour lost ground were those of New England and Cowper, where in each case only one Labour candidate contested the election. Cannot we therefore infer that the experiment met with the approval of the electors, who, for the first time in years, found an opportunity to articulate themselves at the ballot box? I suggest they will not lightly forgive the party that in the future tries to rob them of that privilege.

The whole contention, it will be observed, pivots on preferential voting, and otherwise seems to have no application. Even so, it is certainly not without interest to the student of machine politics and of the problems that the machine inevitably brings in its wake.