ELECTORAL SYSTEMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22631, 24 July 1935, Page 6

ELECTORAL SYSTEMS

TO THE EDITOR ■* Sir,— -In a leading article in your issue of Monday last, you say that it is improbable that any measure to introduce preferential voting will be considered in the forthcoming session of Parliament. While I must confess to inability to see why such a measure, which would improve the certainty with which the House could be said to represent the country, should not be considered in this as well as in any other session, I suggest that there is a reason why it is not likely that the reform in question would be welcomed by the present Government or any other strongly party Government. \ The present first-past-the-post system lends to favour the return of party candidates. This is so, not on account of the direct effect of the system of voting, but because the vote-splitting bogey can be, and frequently is, used to good effect, not only to drive votes into the party fold, but also to discourage the candidatures of men and women of independent mind who refuse to be bound by party ties. Under the Nansen-Hogben system of preferential voting there is no such thing as vote-splitting and the candidate returned, however many candidates stand, is the one,really preferred by the electors. The need of the movement is not to “ simplify the task of the voter" but to improve the quality of the politics of the country, and it is the opinion of a large and increasing section of the electors , that the “ sterner party discipline ” which you appear to favour would be, from that point of view, a step in the wrong direction. — I am, etc., R. Gardner. Dunedin, July 23.