THE ELECTORAL BILL.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume x, Issue 1940, 28 May 1888, Page 2

THE ELECTORAL BILL.

Comparatively little interest has as yet been taken in the new Electoral Bill, not because it lacks importance, but because finance is the question of the hour, and throws all other subjects into the background. The modification of Hare's system which has been proposed will be simple enough so far as the electors are concerned, and may be thus explained : Suppose there are six seats in any electoral district to be filled, and that there are twelve candidates. Ballot paperß are presented to each elector with the twelve names printed thereon. Each elector puts a number from one to cix opposite to the nameß of the six candidates for whom he wishes to vote. The one whom he chiefly desires to have returned he marks as No. 1 on his voting paper, and the others in the order of preference. This is a simple matter enough. Any voter of ordinary intelligence

can do this ; it is less complicated than an ordinary school committee election, and as easy of performance as exercising a ratepayer's vote for a county council or road board election. The subsequent counting is more intricate. For the sake of simplicity, let us suppose that only forty-eight persons vote ; the principle would be just the same if we said 4800 or 48,000 instead of 48. The central returning officer, after all the voting papers have come in, counts them, and finds 48. He knows that any candidate with more than 24 votes must have been elected. He therefore opens the papers, and finds that Messrs. A has 35, B 30, and C 27 first votes They are clearly elected, i because they have more than the required quota. It will be seen that A has ten, B five, and C two votes to spare. The returning officer therefore sorts out and sets aside twenty-five of the voting papers which secured the election of A, B, and C, taking them in order according to the official consecutive numbers which all of them bear. The names of A, B, and C are cancelled on the remaining 23 voting papers. On these 23 papers the names with the number 2 set opposite to them rank as Nos. 1. Let us assume that at the first count D got 20, E 16, and F 12, first votes. When the papers with the cancelled names have been recounted after the value of the second vote has been raised to that of a first vote, it is clear that D and E may easily make up out of the 23 voting papers thus amended the 5 and 10 votes which they respectively require in order to be elected, and F may perhaps get 5 out of those which were needed to ensure his return. Five candidates out of the six to be returned have been thus elected. The voting papers are again reduced on the same principle as before. The names of D and E are cancelled on the papers remaining, after 5 for D and 10 for E have been withdrawn, and the process is gone through as before, with the 13 papers still left, until either E or some other of the six candidates previously below him on the list secures the required quota of 25. The process is one which is difficult to sefc,forth clearly in writing. In practice it would be simple enough for any competent returning officer to carry out. The principle at the baso of the system is thus defined : — When the number of first or principal votes given for any candidate reaches the quota, he is pronounced elected, the voting force of every voting paper being exhausted when used for the election of one candidate. No voting paper is actually lost, and every voter in the constituency is almost certain

to have some one, and it may bo several, of his chosen candidates elected to Parliament ; the exceptions to these two rules being so rare and so unlikely that they need scarcely be spoken of as a contingency. The advantages claimed for this system are that : No votes are wholly thrown away, as votes frequently are under our system ; and by the " single transferable " vote being always utilised, every elector has some representative in Parliament whom he has assisted to elect. It is certainly desirable that the spirit of petty localism which now to a great extent pervades and degrades our parliamentary institutions, should be got rid of, or at leapt modified. The introduction within mediumBized electoral districts of Hare's system, promises to provide at least a partial remedy for the evil. All suitable men whose names and reputation are known outside of their immediate locality will be comparatively sure of election. The colony will no longer run the risk of seeing some of its most successful and experienced politicians defeated and excluded from Parliament by some unknown man of little or no political standing — by one, for instance, who may have been busily engaged buttonholing electors and getting promises of votes, while the politician whom he desired to supplant, was busily engaged in doing laborious and difficult political work for the colony. It is probable that ways and means will be found by partisans for swaying the votes of large bodies of electors in favor of a particular set of candidates, even after the introduction of some such system as that proposed The individual canvasser may be replaced by the caucus, bent upon securing certain class benefits or upon upholding or opposing some doctrine such as free trade aud protection, the enfranchisement of women, or the like. But any reform would be welcome which would relieve political elections of the petty personalities, which seem now almost inseparable from elections. At present an election frequently resolves itself into a discreditable sort of duel between John Brown, backed up by his friends, and John Smith backed up by his supporters. Electors throughout New Zealand generally, as well as many within this particular district, would be glad to see such duels improved off the face of New Zealand.