ELECTORAL REFORM.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 16060, 15 October 1912, Page 6

ELECTORAL REFORM.

We notice that the "Otago Daily Times" in its issue of yesterday iciterates tho statement made by Mr W. H. Triggs in his address on proportional representation the other night to the effect that tho second ballot is rather worse- than tho evil of minority representation it was intended to euro. This statement has been repeated by our Reform friends so frequently lately that we are becoming a little alarmed lest Mr Massey should consider the abolition of tho double poll of more immediate consequence than the institution of an effective system of voting. We havo no liking for tho second ballot ourselves, regarding it as an extremely clumsy expedient for dealing with nn admitted evil, but we realise that it at least ensures tho best results wo can obtain from single electorates. Its value was never bettor illustrated than by the very election which Mr Triggs selected to show its defect*. At Kaiapoi a Reformer headed the poll in tho first ballot with 2314 votes and a Liberal and a Progressive followed with 2219 votes and 1453 votes respectively. Under the old system the Reformer would have been returned though he was in a minority of 1358 on the votes'recorded. This would have boon an example of the evil of minority representation in on© of its worst forms from which the' country was saved by tho cure our friends are condemning. In the second ballot the Progressives, having failed to return their own candidate, had to choose between a Reformer and a Liberal ani very naturally the majority of them cast their votes for the Liberal, who headed the poll by 3000 votes to 2791. Tho second ballot is really a clumsy method of applying the principle of preferential voting and unless Mr Massey is prepared to givo us proportional representation for tho House of Representatives, or at least a more scientific application of tho principle of preference, he ought to leave it unrepealed until he makes up his mind to the larger reform.