A Model Election.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 1, 1 January 1913, Page 12

A Model Election.

AW ELECTORAL EXPERIMENT. An interesting model election to test the system of voting known as “proportional representation” was recently carried out among members of the House of Commons. The election was arranged by the Parliamentary Committee for Proportional Representation, the object of which was to secure representation for minorities by grouping constituencies and allowing the elector a selection from a list of candidates. For the model election Birmingham was taken as an example. The following were the candidates: —Mr Asquith. Mr George Barnes. Mr Thomas Burt, Sir E. Carson, Lord Hugh Cecil, Mr Dillon. Mr Lloyd George, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, Mr Bonar Law, Air Wil'liam O’Brien, Captain Pretyman. Mr John Redmond, Mr F. E. Smith. Mr Wedgwood. Mr J. W. Wilson. Of this number seven were elected. The system of voting is complicated. A candidate, to ensure election, has not to poll a majority, but only a certain proportion of the votes east. Each voter indicates in order his preference for each candidate. The returning officer eliminates the candidates lowest on the poll one after the other by transferring their votes in accordance with the wishes of their supporters to the candidates indicated as next preferences. This process is continued until the required number of candidates have been declared elected. The first votes were cast as follows:— Law 106, Asquith 96. Carson 13, Wedgwood 13. AlacDonald 11, Redmond 10, George 7, Burt 4. Wilson 3, Barnes 2, O’Brien 2, Cecil I. Smith 1; but after the counts and recounts—l2 in all —the elected were: Messrs Asquith. Lloyd George. Burt, Law, MacDonald, Carson, and Smith—four Ministerialists and three Unionists. The experiment was hardly a success, and it is to be feared that it did not make many converts to “Proportional Representation ” among the members of the House of Commons, though many M.P.'s are quite ready to admit that the system of parliamentry election is open to improvement. As matters stand at present it is, for example, quite possible for the party in power to represent a smaller number of voters than the Op position. Also it is possible under existing electoral conditions for one man to poll fourteen or fifteen thousand rotes, whilst another, exercising the same power in the division lobbies, draws his £4OO a year because five or six hundred free and enlightened electors saw fit to put a cross against his name on their polling card. Which is really a moat ridiculous state of affairs at this stage of England's history.