THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, October 27, 1937. ELECTION STRATEGY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23333, 27 October 1937, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, October 27, 1937 . ELECTION STRATEGY

While the results of the elections for the Federal Senate will not be known for some days, the indications are that the Labour Party is in a very good position, and that its candidates have a prospect of capturing an unexpectedly large number of seats. The natural expectation would be that the support secured by a political party at the polls would be fairly evenly reflected in the election results for the two branches of the Legislature. The. Federal elections seem likely to tell a curiously different tale, and Labour’s success in the Senate campaign is described in one message as “ inexplicable ” except in so far as it may be due to the party’s adoption of the ingenious plan of selecting candidates with names beginning with the first letter of the alphabet, which brought them into a group at the top of the ballot papers, Where they were more likely to obtain a preponderance of primary votes and the early preferences of unwary electors. No apology seems to be required for this explanatory suggestion. The tabulation of Senate candidates reveals in the alphabetical aspect more than a sufficiency of interesting design to repay attention. In the case of New South Wales, for example, are we to believe that it is simply through the operation of the long arm of coincidence that the names of the four candidates comprising the Labour group all begin with the letter “A.” that they are Messrs Armour, Armstrong, Arthur and Ashley, and not perhaps Messrs Robinson, Smith, Taylor and Watson? In the case of most of the other States Labour candidates will be found asserting undisputed claim to the “A” groupings which take precedence on the ballot paper, though Independents and Douglas Credit candidates make alphabetical bid for first notice in the cases of South Australia and Queensland respectively. These exceptions, merely throwing Labour in each instance into the second political grouping, do not affect, however, the pleasing general harmony of the whole plan. Concerning the fine art of election strategy, our own Dominion, thanks to its electoral system, has evidently something yet to learn. As revealed in the Federal Senate elections this roaches, it

would appear, a level that should be calculated to make the independ-ent-minded yet innocent and unsuspecting elector squirm as he reflects how, psychologically, he is liable to be played upon. The tendency of a large number of voters to be influenced by the order of names and groupings in a ballot paper is readily understandable. To aim at drawing the highest preference votes from persons of more or less apathetic mind, who, being in a hurry to dispose of the bothersome business —to which they are driven by statutory compulsion—of dealing with their ballot papers, and inclining to be forgetful of groups, find their attention particularly engaged by the earlier names on the list, may be considered good , electioneering in a party executive. But the system that lends itself to the encouragement of strategy of that kind is clearly open to criticism. If serious competition for the alphabetical advantage were to develop among political parties at election times, consequences of the gravest national import might even be foreshadowed. The alphabetical arrangement of people's names may solve many minor problems. But when the "A's " and the " B's " begin to assert definite claims to precedence for political preferment it is time that something was done about it. Always difficult, the question, " What's in a name? " suggests new and disturbing implications on the results of the Federal Senate elections. Aspirants for Senatorial honours in the Commonwealth may have to ponder them somewhat deeply in relation to the blessings of the electoral system that is in operation.