FEDERAL ELECTIONS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15977, 20 November 1919, Page 4

FEDERAL ELECTIONS.

The Australian Federal elections on December 13 wilt be conducted under a new voting system. In tlie case of the House of Representatives it is based on the ordinary transferable preferential vote. The single electorates remain, but the elector, instead of voting for one man, must number all the candidates on the ballot-paper from one onwards, thus indicating the order of his preference. If the man who heads tie poll on the first count does not get an absolute majority of all the valid votes oast, the man lowest on the list is eliminated, and his preferences distributed. This simple process continues until .a candidate gets an absolute majority, and is thereupon declared elected. The Senate system has the same basis, but, since it has to be adapted to the fact that each State as” a whole elects three senators, at is much more complicated. Senators axe elected for six years, and half of the number in the Senate, 36, retire every three years. The voter must give preferential votes for seven candidates, but he can allot preferences to all candidates if he so wishes. All the number one votes are counted first, and if that does not give any candidate an absolute majority, the man with the least votes is excluded from this count and hie second preference distributed..

'This goes on until someone gets an absolute majority and is declared elected. Then the second count commences. All the second preference votes on the bal-. lot papers of the elected candidate are distributed. This may quite conceivably place at the top of the poll a man who, on primary votes, was at the bottom. If this does not give an absolute majority the man then ,at the bottom of the list is excluded, and l;is second preference distributed, and this goes on until the tbird successful candidate is found. Then the third count commences, and proceeds in an exactly similar way, until" the thrid successful candidate is found. It is a complicated system, and those who have studied it fear that it may not work well in practice. The net result of the system is that it establishes majorities soundly in power, and excludes .minorities from representation. The argument is that it is better to do this under present conditions than have a proportioned representation scheme which with the present multiplicity of parties, would place in Parliament a series of clashing and shifting groups and make for unstable government.