This blog contains the last half of "Essay No. 10" from Sandford Fleming's 1893 book Essays...on the Rectification of Parliament. Submitted under pseudonym "Southern Cross" it is undoubtedly written by world renowned pro-rep campaigner Catherine Helen Spence of South Australia.
This blog contains Chapters V to IX and the appendices.
The first half of Spence's essay is in blog entitled "Fleming - Essays on Rectification of Parliament Part 3."
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Essay No. 10.
Table of contents
Chapter I. Importance of the Subject page 90
Chapter II. Method of Voting and Formation of the Quota page 96
Chapter III. Objections Answered page 100
Chapter IV. Effective Voting page 106
(above chapters in other blog)
Chapter V. Palliatives - The Initiative and the Referendum - the Imperative Mandate -
Direct Legislation page 111
Chapter VI. The Gove System
Chapter VII. The Danish electoral law
Chapter VIII. Conclusion page 113
Chapter IX. DRAFT BILL FOR THE PROVINCE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA page 117
Appendix I. [STV elections in Australia] page 120
Appendix II. [filling up a vacancy] page 121
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Chapters V to IX and Appendices
CHAPTER V. PALLIATIVES: THE INITIATIVE AND THE REFERENDUM;
THE IMPERATIVE MANDATE; DIRECT LEGISLATION.
It is often said that party and party spirit are excellent things, necessary and helpful to right government. Party spirit and a party organization bring indifferent and reluctant voters to the poll, without fining them as the Danish law does. The lynx eye of the opposition checks the hand of the other. A strong opposition is as useful as a strong government. Is it then a mistake to suppose that a house divided against itself cannot stand? Is constant see-saw the true condition of progress [although] stability ... is the ostensible aim of all parties? All the excesses of party spirit, its malice and uncharitableness, its injustices and deceptions are set down to the occasional abuse of what in itself is a good thing.
These evils are however, inherent in party spirit, and not accidental to it. Gerrymandering is a party weapon, only to be checked or extirpated by the collective conscience.
Thanks to that conscience, political morality makes progress in the world in spite of defective methods and machinery.
[page 112]
Bribery has always been a party weapon. In the days of Fox and Pitt it was no disgrace to bribe, though it was discreditable to be bribed.
Going back to Walpole, we see there was no discredit in either paying or receiving money for votes in or out of parliament. Nowadays, both law and public opinion make either giving or accepting bribes disgraceful in England.
In America everyone knows that bribery goes on. They know that in spite of the recently introduced secret ballot, money exercises enormous power at all elections, political and municipal. The actual agent who pays over the money, and the man who receives it are no doubt looked on as contemptible characters, but who finds the money?
Who provides the election funds for the campaigns conducted for victory or defeat?
Who does not know how a large portion of the money is expended?
We cannot wash our hands publicly of the matter if our hands privately have furnished the means of corruption. Closing our eyes to the ugly machinery we have set to work does not exonerate us from responsibility. If the evils inherent in party government depend on majority representation, we can only get rid of them by truly democratic representation — by the re-presentment of the whole people in the legislature.
[The Initiative and the Referendum]
Among the palliatives proposed for the acknowledged abuses from which America suffers, the most noteworthy are the Initiative and the Referendum, used in Switzerland, the oldest of federal republics. Those who groan under the tyranny of the caucus and the ticket, hope that by means of the Initiative, new and valuable legislation might be forced on a reluctant or apathetic congress. They hope that by the Referendum, mischievous or interested legislation or administration might be reversed.
Whatever may be the need of such things now in America, it seems paradoxical and absurd first to elect a body of men to do the national business, and then to make a requisition to drive them to attend to it, and to put all their work to the test of a plebiscite as to whether it was done properly.
The Initiative might work fairly well in a country like Switzerland. But in America it would be taken up by a caucus. As for the Referendum, just fancy the whole people of the United States voting en masse on every measure.
If the parliament is justly elected by proportional representation there would be no need of any Initiative to drive the people's representatives to undertake important reforms.
The representatives of earnest minorities would be there in the House; sent there for that very purpose. They could be trusted to introduce and to advocate those measures that are neglected and ignored under our existing system.
Nor would there be any need to refer to any plebiscite any measure that had passed both Houses of Legislature, when the really important House (the people's) really represented the whole people. The decision indoors will correspond with the convictions of the real majority out of doors. It will be argued better in a deliberative assembly than in the harangues and the rhetoric presented to a plebiscite.
It is noteworthy, too, that it is in Switzerland, where the Initiative is in operation, that there has risen an effective demand for proportional representation. When three-fourths of the measures passed by both Houses were reversed by the Referendum, the fact that majority representation did not really represent was made patent.
The Canton of Ticino (Italian speaking) and the Canton of Neufchatel (French-speaking) were followed by the more important Canton of Geneva. Proportional voting by lists, as is explained in my second chapter, has been successfully worked in all three. Two other cantons are agitating for the change. The brave little European republic, which was a model for the U.S. in its inception, goes on still ahead. The cantons that have adopted proportional representation will soon drop the useless appeals to the people. It will be amusing if it were not so mischievous if the great United States caught hold of the machinery that Switzerland has outgrown, fancying it to be a real safeguard to liberty.
There is also a demand made in the U.S. for recourse to the Imperative Mandate, requiring a member of the legislature to resign his seat on the demand of two-thirds of his constituency. With such a short term of office as the House of Representatives has, one long and one short session, it seems unnecessary to recall a representative during that term. The Imperative would be impossible under proportional representation, for under the secret ballot it is impossible to discover who are any man's constituents.
Two-thirds or three-fourths of the qualified voters in the electorate may have voted for others and may desire his recall, but yet he may be the chosen of an earnest minority. As such I think it is in human nature for him to be true to his principles. It is noteworthy that in Switzerland, which originated the Imperative Mandate, it has fallen into disuse and is never heard of. Switzerland has found out better means. This at least has been outgrown.
[page 113]
One feels glad to hear a demand for these Swiss methods from the American people. It shows they are willing to change the old bad methods or to supply something in the shape of an antidote. But it is as if when the hounds are in full cry after the fox, a red herring is trailed across the scent, and they are drawn off to something of no value. Tinkering at defective machinery and bolstering up abuses that should be destroyed, only delays radical reform.
[Direct election of president]
Another demand that is made is for direct election of President by the whole people, so that the choice should be made by the popular vote and not by the state vote for electors to elect. This seems reasonable enough.
The U.S. Senate too would be more righteously elected by the people of the States than by the legislatures. The domestic assembly would be elected on better lines for state business, if there was no arriere pensee of choice of U.S. senators in the mind of the citizens. Probably this [type of change] would greatly lessen party spirit.
It would also probably tend to keep it out of municipal affairs. The reduction of the number of elective officers would purify municipal matters greatly, and save money and heart-burnings all round. An American municipal ticket is a fearful and wonderful thing. It is hard to vote, on the Australian ballot system. Where every office from mayor to coroner, from rate-collector and surveyors to judges and police magistrates is competed for by many candidates, all bracketed according to their politics, it presents a far more bewildering array of names than any modification of Hare's system of voting I have ever seen.
There are far too many elections in America. The Initiative and, especially, the Referendum would indefinitely multiply them.
The indirect or distilled election adopted in the U.S. constitution to secure calmness and wise deliberation is pointed out by Mr. Bryce as perhaps the most striking instance in which a written and rigid constitution bends and warps under the actual force of politics. Because the caucus - the majority, for the time being – in the local legislatures settle the matter without deliberation, generally before the houses meet.
To imitate Pope's lines:
"Blest paper credit! last and best supply,
That lends corruption quicker wings to fly!"
the machine politician and his backers may sing:
"Elect electors! Glorious double means
For wealth and craft to oil the state machines!"
CHAPTER VII. CONCLUSION
The reform of Mr. Hare was originally known under the name of the Representation of Minorities. That was somewhat misleading. An idea arose that it was meant to make minorities rule. Under party government, people fancy that majorities always rule, while in point it is only a majority of a plurality-elected parliament, a fraction of the people who appoint and dismiss the cabinet, and administer the affairs of the country.
J.M. Berry, of Worcester, Massachusetts, has calculated that less than twenty percent of the vote elected the working majority in the Canadian Parliament. This is not due so much to gerrymanders as to the inherent vices of the system itself. Proportional representation would secure that it is the real majority in the country who have ascendancy in parliament.
I cannot say whether the adoption of this equitable system would be of greater advantage to minorities or to the majority itself.
[page 114]
It is a good thing when there is no dissatisfied, unrepresented class in the community, and it is a very bad thing when political life has no charms for our wealthy citizens, or for our best educated young men. But great as are the advantages to minorities of having their votes freed, and their individual powers of action made available, the advantage to majorities is no less.
[STV's advantage to the majority]
In the first place, they can make sure of having honest representatives. Those who differ from them can appeal to other voters in the larger constituency, and go in free. They are not exposed to the temptation of concealing their convictions as the only means of entering parliament at all. We are told that there is no need for the reform, because there are men in our present parliaments of every shade of opinion. But every representative whose convictions were different from those of the real or supposed majority in the district for which he sought election, had had to submit to a lowering style of canvass. He had had to submit to a cross-questioning, legitimate enough if minorities can be represented, but under the exclusive power of plurality, weakening to the moral sense of the candidate.
The second advantage to the majority would be that they would hear all sides of public questions, and that objections to their party measures would have to be met fully and fairly. Questions would be discussed in parliament, in newspapers, at election meetings and public meetings generally, in a very different way from what takes place now.
A minority unrepresented is apt to be a sulky and a useless thing, going about continually with a grievance for which it has no redress, and unable to make its voice heard in parliament, or through the popular press.
A minority represented is the sharpener of the wits of the ruling powers, the educator of the people, the animator of the press. It is the only strong and moralizing opposition. Without it there may be struggles as to who shall be in office or out of it. For as long as there are such things as place and power, those who have them will want to keep them. Those who have them not, will desire to obtain them, but such opposition is too often factious and dangerous – not constitutional and progressive.
It is not only when they are in the right that represented minorities could give such life and vigour to the body politic. Right or wrong, the sincere expression of opinion is always the friend of truth and progress. We never believe anything so firmly, as when an adversary whom we cannot silence, or ignore, or ridicule, has marshalled all the arguments on the other side, and we have proved them fallacious.
And if the minority should perchance be in the right, will it be wise to silence them, and lose the truth that is in them? There are many ways of losing truth. One is by persecuting it. Another is by not listening to it. A third is by being too stupid to understand it. Persecution has gone out of fashion, except perhaps in Russia, but inattention and stupidity are not yet obsolete.
I hear it said that you cannot make men moral by any electoral system whatever. France is presented as an example to show that all sorts of methods have been tried without any real betterment in legislatures or people. But France has never tried proportional representation.
I should be as unwilling to charge the people of France with the corruption in the legislature recently exposed, as to say that the American party abuses are what the American people choose to make them. It is what the machinery has made it.
Improve the machinery in France and in the United States, and then we shall see things mightily changed for the better.
As Simeon Stetson, of San Francisco, in his trenchant pamphlet The People's Power: How to wield the Ballot, points out, the difficulty is not really a moral one. When people ask him how it is possible that a simple readjustment – an arithmetical device – can purify politics, educate the voter and raise the character of the legislature, he replies that there is enough of virtue and honour among the people of France and of America. Only they are shut out by the party machinery. Change the machinery so as to give equality of opportunity to the higher elements of society, and you will transform the whole political world.
There is no doubt that some methods of representation make men immoral. We have been so long in the habit of excluding reason and fair play from electioneering that we have almost grown into the belief that the drawbacks we see are inseparable from representative institutions themselves. We see them as part of the price we must pay for liberty. But we must not blind ourselves to the relations between cause and effect in ordinary life.
It is not the ascertaining of people's opinions and preferences, but the means we take to ascertain them, whereby one's loss is another man's gain, that creates the injustice and the bitterness.
[page 115]
Just fancy a mother, who wanted a peck of peas shelled, setting all her children old and young to do it, promising to give the one who shelled the most the reward of an apple. Suppose her disregarding all the cries for fair play, when Tom the eldest boy pulls the basket towards him, and does all in his power to prevent his brothers and sisters from obtaining the pods from which to extract the peas. Fancy her thinking that by giving each child a measure stamped by authority, she has done all in her power to equalize their chances of success; and then bestowing the reward on the virtuous Tom, whose stronger nails had more easily opened the pods, and whose vigorous arm had kept possession of the basket.
Fancy her saying when the younger children made faces at Tom as he munched his apple, and called him a bully and a cheat, that she did not understand how it was, but they always quarrelled about the peas. She did her best to excite a little wholesome emulation, and never gave the apple but to the child who shelled the most. She supposed it must be something in the peas!!!
Politically speaking, I agree with the popular orator, "One man is as good as another." I only object to the commentary or addition of his Irish admirer, "Yes, that he is, and better too." By majority representation, we give the Irish interpretation to the equality. Yet though political equality is desirable, mental and social equality is not desirable, even if it were possible.
In democratic communities, it is of supreme importance that everything individual, original, and even eccentric, should be called out and utilized.
The average man and the average woman have things too much ordered according to their liking for their own advance beyond mediocrity. What John Stuart Mill feared was that originality would dwindle and die under the reign of the commonplace. The comfort and convenience, mental as well as material, of the mass of humanity would be too exclusively studied, in their eating and in their drinking, in their education and their amusements, in their politics and their religion.
But pure Democracy such as is advocated in these pages, would give scope to individuality. What can a man of genius give to the world of more value than just a bit of himself? All that is wanted is equality of opportunity for expression – the best will come to the front and keep there. For the benefit of all, for the service of all should the varied gifts of all earnest men and women be used and strengthened by use. rife would be enriched, would be elevated, would be moralized by the free play of the higher elements in society.
Our competitive system thus had its day and done its work. It has spurred many individuals to laborious and continuous efforts, and in many directions man has essentially served the community, when he was primarily seeking his own profit or his own fame.
But even in the past, the race has not been always to the swift, or the battle to the strong!
[Art and Invention]
Nowadays King Capital appropriates, not only a very large amount of the earnings of labour, but also almost monopolizes the rewards of invention. Too often only the crumbs from the rich man's table are flung to the creator of wealth who by some happy discovery has cheapened production or transportation by some machinery or appliance that the rich man was incapable of inventing himself. King Capital also often tempts the artist out of the straight narrow way to which his genius prompts him, into the primrose path that leads to money making and ephemeral applause. No commonplaceness of the vulgar taste is more fatal to true art than the conventionalism that the wealthy art patron loves.
"Art for the people," has in it this element of progress. The power of admiration grows when it is fed with worthy objects. Democratic art can scarcely be said to exist, even in democratic countries. Mr. J. Addington Symonds, in his penetrative essay on "Democratic Art," says that with the single exception of Walt Whitman, neither poet nor novelist, neither painter nor sculptor, has yet adequately recognized the people.
It may be said that in an essay on electoral representation and the rectification of parliament, suggestions as to the rewards of invention and on democratic art are out of place. I beg to submit that they are in place. We hear much about the correlation of forces, and the interchangeableness of much that we used to believe were distinctly separate in the physical world. In the intellectual and moral world, all thinking men and women see the same correlation and interdependence. They cannot look on anything as isolated and detached.
Religion is of no value if kept only for Sunday services and stated seasons, and does not penetrate the whole daily life. Honour and honesty should not be confined to one's personal affairs, and should not be kept out of corporate matters and political action. Intelligence should not be restricted to the acquisition of knowledge, but should be allied to our religion and to our bread-earning avocation, and to all the duties of a citizen.
[page 116]
And the democratic spirit that sees in every man a brother and in every woman a sister, should not be kept for platform orations. Instead it should be felt in the church and in the state, in the factory and in the shop, in the auditor's study, in the newspaper editor's den, and in the artist's studio.
It is on account of this interdependence, this inextricable complexity of human motives and actions that the exclusively dual character of political representation is so misrepresentative of modern society. In olden times, when the people had to struggle against monarchs and privileged classes, there was a definite dualism in politics. Then party organization on one side or the other was a useful, perhaps a necessary, thing. But in that very country that has worked the party system longest, in the United Kingdom, we see every year more and more important questions withdrawn from the limitations of party. "This is not a party question" is publicly given out. Members on both sides of the House are free to speak and vote for or against it. If it is brought forward by the ministry, the loss of a majority does not compel them to resign. [The necessity of a unsuccessful vote to bring down a government was weakened in Canada in the 1920s, as well.]
Under proportional representation there will be more and more liberty given to individual thought in parliament. This will react on the people outside.
The pocket boroughs of England once represented localities, opinions and people. But when a demand was made for the reform in 1832, they represented nothing but the prestige of rank, the bribes of wealth and the venality of a handful of voters. Great cities like Birmingham and Manchester had no representative at all, while a dozen depopulated hamlets in Cornwall sent two members each to parliament. After they were disfranchised, was there a single voice heard all over the United Kingdom for their reinstatement? No, not one. But before the passing of the Reform Bill, the whole Conservative forces of Great Britain protested against laying unhallowed hands on the sacred ark of the constitution.
Thus it was, and thus it will ever be. The advocates of the radical reform of enfranchising minorities are confronted with the whole conservative and traditional forces of the world. Local separation of small districts from their fellows has been the invariable rule in the past. Districts whether large or small, have always been carried by the plurality of votes, however small the preponderance maybe. Under this haphazard system, England and her daughter states have managed to jog on. Practical politicians would be put out of their reckoning and embarrassed in their tactics under proportional representation.
How often is it necessary to remind the world that national organizations do not exist for the advantage of practical politicians, or merely to suit their convenience, but that politicians exist for the sake of the nation? If plans that are pooh-poohed as doctrinaire and Utopian are shown to the plain people who really direct public affairs, to be just and practicable, the practical politicians must accommodate themselves to the changed conditions.
Every extension of the suffrage was dreaded by the Conservative party as certain to lower the character of the elected representatives. This has not been the case. Although the first change of 1832 has been followed by extensions more sweeping and modifications more subtle, the tone and character of the British House of Commons is higher than it was previous to the first Reform Bill. The evils and shortcomings that still exist in it proceed from party government, and this rests on majority representation. This therefore is the radical evil that must be attacked from all sides with arguments as various as individual minds can present.
The demand of the Canadian Institute for contributions towards the solution of this vital question from the whole world is one that is wise and timely, and which ought to give a great impetus to the cause. But if the demand only rests with the reward for the best essays, and their publication, and distribution among coteries of students and thinkers, little will be done towards the realization of better things. Unless the publication of these essays stirs up active efforts among the people of Canada, the rectification of parliament by electing it on equitable principles may be indefinitely postponed.
The Reform Bill was not carried by essays. The ballot was not won by pamphlets. Free trade in corn was not obtained by writing books. The thinker and the writer may furnish arguments, may give facts and figures. But if their disciples do not become apostles and missionaries and preach this gospel where opportunity offers, or where opportunity may be made, no real practical issue can be expected.
[page 117]
With confidence that men and women may rise to the height of their responsibilities, and of their opportunities and take up this, the greatest political reform of this great political century, and not lay it down till they have embodied it in law, I submit these parties for thoughtful consideration to the Institute of Canada.
CHAPTER IX. DRAFT BILL FOR THE PROVINCE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
The condition that along with the essay on electoral representation, there must also be forwarded for consideration a draft bill, applicable to countries with a parliamentary system similar to that of Canada, is somewhat hard on writers who are not legal or parliamentary experts.
The essay may indeed indicate the principles on which an Act of Parliament should be framed, and may describe practical methods. But the essayist may lack the legal technicality requisite for details.
In any case, it is unnecessary to construct a complete electoral Act. The qualifications of voters, the methods of registration, the fixing of polling places and the definition of the duties of returning officers, the penalties for bribery, treating, and corrupt influence must be the same under proportional representation as they are under the present majority system. The points necessarily to be provided for are the enlargement of constituencies, the conditions of candidature, the method of voting, the method of counting votes, so as to return each representative by quota, the tilling up of vacancies, and the readjustment of the number of candidates to electoral districts according to relative increase or decrease of population.
In some of these points I avail myself of certain clauses in Mr. Hislop's Bill presented to the New Zealand Parliament in 1888, in the time of the Atkinson Ministry, and lost. However he uses Sir John Lubbock's mathematical quota, instead of Hare's simpler one. Also he takes the contingent vote as held in Queensland for uninominal elections to fill up a vacancy, while instead I propose the votes of the retiring candidate to ascertain which of the unsuccessful candidates at the last election makes a plurality over the others, and allot the seat to him without a new election at all. So there are several features in these suggested clauses quite distinct from Mr. Hislop's.
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Proposed clauses to be introduced into a new Electoral Act for Election of Members of the House of Assembly for the Province of South Australia, in order that the principle of proportional representation by means of the Single Transferable Vote may be carried into practice.
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Preamble. — Whereas it is expedient that the system of voting in the Province of South Australia shall be altered so as to give equal representation to the whole people.
Be it enacted:
I. That the Province of South Australia shall be divided into nine electoral districts, or divisions, following the natural geographical divisions of the country, and as nearly as possible of equal population; the 27 present electorates being amalgamated into nine groups to return each six members to the House of Assembly.
II. Any duly registered elector, with his Consent, may be nominated as a candidate for any district by not less than ten electors thereof, by a nomination paper in the form and to The effect set forth by regulation, and given to the returning officer, or transmitted to him so as to reach him before the last hour appointed for receiving nomination papers.
III. Any duly registered elector may vote for any candidate who presents himself for the larger electoral district, but he shall record his vote in that division for which he is registered, and at the polling place appointed for such division.
[page 118]
IV. Every duly registered elector shall have one vote only, but may vote in the alternative for as many candidates as be pleases. His ballot-paper [initially] shall be deemed to be given for the candidate opposite whose name is placed the figure 1. But it shall be transferable to the other candidates in succession in the order of priority designated by the figures set opposite their respective names, in the event of it not being required to be used for the return of any prior candidate.
V. The voter having received a ballot paper, shall retire into one of the inner compartments provided, and shall there, alone and secretly, insert opposite to the names of the candidates for whom he wishes to vote the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or fewer, in the order of his preference. He shall not strike out from the ballot-paper the names of any candidate.
VI. As soon as all the ballot-papers are received from all the polling-places in the electoral district by the Chief Electoral Officer at the central polling-place of such district, the said electoral Officer shall open the boxes in the presence of The Resident Magistrate of the district, or of two Justices of the Peace, who shall attend at his request, and taking the said ballot-papers from the several boxes or packets, shall mix them up together and place them in an open box without unfolding any of them.
2. The ballot-papers after being thus mixed, shall be drawn out of the box, and in succession; each paper as it is drawn out being marked with a number in arithmetical series beginning with the number "1," so that no two papers shall have the same number, and the resident magistrate or the two justices of the peace shall sign a document stating the entire number as a whole, of the ballot papers received from the various returning officers, which shall be carefully preserved by the said election officer for production when required by lawful authority.
3. The election officer shall first reject all ballot papers which have not the official mark on the back, and all on which no numbers have been placed by the voter, and all those in which the name number has been placed against more names than one, but he shall not reject any ballot paper whereon the numbers of designation are fewer or in excess of the number of members to be elected.
4. The election officer shall then proceed to ascertain the quota by dividing the aggregate number of all the ballot papers tendered at the election by six, and the quotient, exclusive of fractions, shall be the number required for the return of any candidate.
5. Every candidate who has a number of first votes equal to or in excess of the quota shall be declared elected, and so many of the votes as make up the quota shall be set aside as his votes - his constituency - to be of no further use.
6. On each ballot paper beyond the necessary quota, the name of the elected candidate shall be cancelled, and the candidate marked "2" on each paper, shall take the first place and the election officer shall transfer the vote to him.
After the surplus votes, if any, have been transferred according to the contingent choice of the voters, the election officer shall declare the candidate having the fewest first and transferred votes not elected, and his votes shall he given to the second choice in each ballot paper, if he is not already elected, when the third is made use of.
After this distribution, the ballot papers of the man who now has fewest votes are dealt with in a similar way and given to the first name down the series who has not been declared elected, or who has not been declared not elected. This process shall be applied successively to the lowest on the poll until there are no more candidates left standing than are required for the electoral district, when these shall be declared to be elected, whether they have attained the full quota or have fallen short of it.
For example of an actual scrutiny for the return of six representatives out of twelve candidates, see Appendix I.
[page 119]
For Filling up a Vacancy. [no by-elections would be held]
VII. All the ballot papers given at each election for each electoral district shall be preserved by the election officer, and the ballots appropriated for the return of each candidate shall be kept together and labelled with his name, and a correct record shall aIso be kept of the number of first votes given to each of the unsuccessful candidates that were afterwards transferred.
VIII. When by death, resignation, or other cause, any seat shall be declared vacant, the election officer, in the presence of the resident magistrate of the district, or of two justices of the peace shall take the votes that made up the quota for the dead or retiring member, and shall distribute such of these as are not limited to the six successful candidates among the unsuccessful candidates, and add these contingent ballot-papers to the number of first votes originally polled by each man, and the candidate having the greatest number, shall be declared elected for the remainder of the term for which the retiring member was appointed to act as representative.
For an example of how this would work, see Appendix II.
For readjustment of Electoral Districts.
IX. After every decennial census, a revision of electoral districts shall be undertaken by a parliamentary committee, and whenever an electorate shall have increased proportionately to the aggregate population of the said Province of South Australia by one 54th part, (be the same a little more or less) that district shall return seven members at the next and succeeding elections, and whenever an electorate shall have decreased in population by a 54th part, (be the same a little more or less) that diminished electorate shall return five members at the next and at succeeding elections, but the number of representatives shall remain the same, 54 representatives for the whole Province, and shall not be altered without a vote of a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Parliament.
Legislative Council of South Australia.
For the Upper House, or Legislative Council of South Australia elections, all the change that would be necessary - to secure proportional representation would be that in the four electorates returning six members each, all six should retire at once and not two in rotation, and to require the qualified electors to record preference by the single transferable vote as provided for in the preceding clauses for Assemblymen.
It would indeed be better if the Upper House could be elected by the votes of the whole Province, as was originally done, but unfortunately by scrutin de liste, or voting at large — the very worst system of majority voting. If it were done by means of the quota ascertained by the single transferable vote, it would be Hare's grand ideal realized in one English-speaking community, at least.
[page 120]
APPENDIX I. Results of Scrutiny of Voting Papers filled in at various meetings held for Elective Voting, 10th March, 1893.
Total Votes, 3,824 — Quota 637.
Electing Parties:—
C Capital
L Labour
ST Single Tax,
IC Irish Catholic
T Temperance
WS Women's Suffrage
[Table of results missing from this reiteration]
Two candidates have a surplus [in the initial count of votes].
The larger surplus, Charleston's surplus of 45, is Count No. 1 and down that column we see the distribution of his 45 votes.
Margey's surplus of 19 is distributed in Count 2.
Count 3 begins the minus votes (eliminations of least-popular candidates) and Robinson's are eliminated for distribution first, as he has the fewest votes.
Count 4 distributes Harrolds'
Count 5 distributes Guthries'.
Count 6 takes Fowler's.
Count 7 distributes Buttery's and during that count Stirling makes up his full quota of 637. Following the horizontal line we see that the 466 first votes have been swelled by accessions from two surpluses receiving 4 and 13 votes and increasing by 150 votes from men who failed to make up quota.
[page 121]
At this point in the scrutiny there are three men returned with full quotas and four left in the running. This is the crises between the competitors as to who is to be thrown out, on which the uncertainty with regard to allocation of surplus from the top from the bottom or the middle, has been made an objection to the Hare system altogether.
In point of fact both Charleston's and Magarey's heap were cut once, and the 47, and the 19 votes taken then from the top.
But at this crisis how did Birks, the Single Tax candidate, stand in comparison with Baker the second man on the capitalist side?
What effect would any change in distribution of surplusage have had on the relative position of the two?
Birks had 361 first votes and 129 contingent votes, 490 in all, while Baker had only 262 first and 80 contingent, 342 votes in all, so there was no question which should go.
In two other scrutinies with considerable numbers, one of 1,423 votes for six poets out of twelve at Port Adelaide, South Australia, and another of over 1,100 in the Register (S.A.) newspaper office, called the Ministerial Ballot, there was the same great disparity between the last man to be thrown out and the last man left in.
If we note in the tabulated results of the scrutiny of 10th March, 1893, that 144 votes were apparently ineffective because given to men who had not been able to reach the quota, and men already in, we know that to that extent some men will have short quotas.
Gwynn was 22 short and Birks 120, and there were 2 votes beyond the required number, a remainder from 3,824 divided by six. In all these 3,824 votes, I found only two really ineffective, because they had voted for six unsuccessful candidates. These might have a chance in case of a vacancy, as described in Appendix II.
It may be noted that each of the outside parties succeeded in bringing in a representative, but this was owing to the greater interest taken in this subject by third parties.
The four capitalist candidates only mustered 941 first votes, and the four labour candidates had 1080. To make up two full quotas required twice 637, or 1274, so neither of them could return two men. The contingent votes for capital helped Stirling who had capitalistic opinions along with his woman's suffrage, and were given to Glynn rather than to Birks. The contingent labour votes assisted Birks and Glynn and Stirling.
In an ordinary election, probably only two of the outside parties would succeed in obtaining a representative, but the contingent votes of the unsuccessful would affect the return of other candidates.
APPENDIX II.
Method of filling up a vacancy by death or resignation of any member of parliament during the term for which he was elected.
The voting papers must be kept, and all votes appropriated to the return of each member shall be tied up together. Suppose in this case Stirling retired. The number of first votes given to each unsuccessful candidate has been tabulated, even though their votes have been distributed, and to these original numbers should be added those that may fall to each from Stirling's 637 votes. The list may run thus:
Original First Votes Stirling's Contingent.
Baker 262 + 65 = 327
Buttery 190 + 59 = 249
Fowler 167 + 185 = 352 Returned.
Guthrie 136 + 79 = 215
Harrold 93 + 100 = 193
Robinson 72 + 42 = 114
Votes confined to the six successful candidates and therefore unused 97
Total: 637
Thus the distribution of Stirling's votes brings in Fowler, who makes a larger total than any of the others. As having the larger share of Stirling's votes, he seems most worthy of stepping into his shoes.
[signed] Southern Cross.
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