Here's information on some of those who fought for electoral reform over the last 300 years.
(still a work in progress)
Spence, Catherine Helen: (1825–1910)
Scottish-born Australian politician, journalist, author and teacher, prominent in the movement for Proportional Representation (fair elections), women's suffrage, and other social work relating to women and children.
She was Australia’s first female political candidate (1897).
Spence was a consistent advocate of proportional direct election using Thomas Hare’s single transferable vote (STV) system.
In 1861 she proposed the modification to Hare’s system whereby the electorate would be divided into multi-member divisions. [Although she is usually credited with this innovation, several others proposed multi-member districts at the same time, and I have not actually seen that in her writings. Her 1861 A Plea for Pure Democracy does not say that she is introducing multi-member districts but instead she merely remarks that Hare's STV is applicable to the existing multi-member districts in use in Britain at the time.]
1893-4 tour of Canada, U.S. and Europe
In 1893 Spence made a presentation on STV to an event at the World Exhibition in Chicago, helping to promote proportional representation to political reformers in the United States.
The trip is recounted in her collected writings Ever yours, C.H. Spence, (p. 144-163)
During the trip, she contributed an essay to a book published by one of Canada's leading scientists, Sandfor Fleming, Essays on the Rectification of Parliament.
She remarked in her collected writings Ever yours, C.H. Spence, (p. 144-163)
"While in San Franciso I wrote an essay on electoral reform for a Toronto competition, in which the first prize was $500 [a substantial sum at the time]. Mr. Cridge [Alfred Denton Cridge see Wiki: "Annie Denton Cridge" (his wife) for info. on him] was also a competitior, and although many essays were sent in, for some reason the prize was never awarded and we had out trouble for nothing."
This is reference to Sandford Fleming's essay contest on "Rectification of Parliament."
see Montopedia: https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/fleming-essays-on-rectification-of-parliament-1893-part-1
In 2018 the federal electoral division in Adelaide formerly named Port Adelaide was renamed in her memory.
Encyclopedia Britannica
in the 1890s she developed the so-called Hare-Spence system of proportional representation, which was put before South Australia’s parliament for many years.
Catherine Helen Spence One of the best known idealists was Catherine Helen Spence (1825–1910), a renowned novelist, critic, journalist, preacher, lecturer, philanthropist and social and moral reformer.
On one of her visits to Britain she ‘made the acquaintance’ of Thomas Hare and John Stuart Mill.
Spence formed an Effective Voting League in South Australia and helped with the establishment of a similar organisation in New South Wales, but was unsuccessful as the first woman candidate to be a South Australian delegate to the Federal Conventions.
As early as 1861 Spence published a pamphlet ‘A Plea for Pure Democracy: Mr Hare’s Reform Bill applied to South Australia’, which admittedly ‘did not set the Torrens on fire’.
Spence considered her modified Hare-Spence method of PR was ‘fair and just’, ‘honest’, ‘educative’, ‘moral’ and ‘cheaper’, and would ensure that ‘minorities [would] be adequately represented’. For Spence, minorities were necessary in Parliament -- to ‘watch the majority and keep it straight’.
With her interest in civics and electoral reform, Spence considered proportional representation even more important for women than obtaining the vote. She said it was better to be an ‘unenfranchised woman’ than a ‘disenfranchised voter’.
Spence contended that only ‘effective voting’ (proportional representation) could right the injustices of the established system of ‘defective voting’, which polarised the political community and robbed Australian parliaments of their deliberative potential.
Effective voting was such a thing with her that she endorsed the use of the Hare quota, instead of the now-better-regarded Droop quota, because she said Hare wastes fewer votes. (Spence, Ever Yours, C.H. Spence, p. 280)
(yes, the Hare quota is vote-hungry and can see all the votes used to elect someone (under optimum conditions), but by doing so, it hurts chances of larger parties and more-popular candidates. Thus it aids smaller parties at expense of large ones so in some cases produces results that are disproportional compared to the Droop.)
=================
Leading Canadian Proportionalists 1890s to present
John D. Hunt of Alberta
author of The Key to P.R. 1924
instrumental in Alberta's adoption of STV in the 1920s (STV was used to elect Edmonton and Calgary MLAs from 1924 to 1956) and also use of STV in Edmonton city elections, 1923-1927.
He was instrumental in Alberta using ranked voting (IRV) in the end-Prohibition referendum of 1923.
Sandford Fleming
one of Canada's leading scientists
he assembled and published two books on electoral reform in the early 1890s
-An Appeal for Essays on the Rectification of Parliament in 1892. (most of book is reprint of past North American newspaper coverage of electoral reform up to that time) (available on the CIHM Canadiana website)
-Essays on Rectification of Parliament (1893).
reprinted in Montopedia blogsite:
SEE
=====
Robert Tyson
Catherine Helen Spence said she was particularly proud of her success in converting Tyson to the PR cause in the 1890s (Spence, Yours Ever, C.H. Spence)
wrote a section in Alfred Cridge's 1904 pamphlet on PR
see Montopedia blog "Tyson..."
Earl Grey
Canadian Governor General 1906-1911
donated the Grey Cup, awarded to best Canadian football team to this day
said to be a perfect fanatic on the subject of PR
===
The DL Record records the involvement of several significant Canadian reformers circa 1900 -
George Wrigley (who is said to be father of George Weston Wrigley (see DCB)),
James H. Macoun (of the Geological Survey of Canada), [attended the 1899 Political and Social Conference]
E.N. Price of St. Thomas (Ont.),
J.M. Johnson, editor of the London (Ont.) newspaper Searchlight.
(#331 (p. 71))
====
Oliver Aiken Howland (1847-1905)
political activist and author about the time when Catherine Helen Spence toured Canada
mayor of Toronto 1901-1902
He authored several books:
-The Irish problem as viewed by a citizen of the Empire (1887) (Hathitrust)
-The New Empire - reflections upon its origin and constitution and its relation to the great republic (1891), in which he reprinted views he had previously presented in columns in the Toronto Week.
Howland was first elected as an MPP in 1894 and to the mayor's chair in Toronto in 1901.
He was an advocate of electoral reform calling for proportional representation. (Spence, Ever Yours, C.H. Spence, p. 155)
William Peyton Hubbard
Shortly after his mayoralty, Toronto began to use Cumulative Voting (a semi-proportional election system) to elect its Board of Control. The change to at-large direct election using Cumulative Voting can be credited to Toronto's first black municipal politician - William Peyton Hubbard.
CV first used in 1904.
This was also first time that the Toronto Board of Control was directly elected by voters - previously city councillors had elected the Board from among its own members.
The Board of Control was elected in city-wide district.
William Peyton Hubbard, Board of Control member 1898-1907, had been instrumental in achieving this democratization. He was the first person of a visible minority to serve in Toronto city hall and the only one to do so to at least the year 2000 (at least the only one to be elected by a city-wide electorate). A mere alderman under FPTP, under CV he was elected to the Board of Control.
Ronald Hooper
prior to moving to Winnipeg in 1910s to run a newspaper, he had background in electoral reform, being active in Tyson's Proportional Representation League.
In 1919, he was contacted when Manitoba government officials was discussing how to calm public unrest following General Strike.
When asked if PR would cause Labour victory, Hooper said he could not say about that but would say that the result would be fair to all sides. Based on that, the Manitoba government became the first in North America to use STV to elect legislators. (see Monto, When Canada Had PR)
In 1936 Hooper addressed a House of Commons committee investigating electoral reform.
see the transcript of the 1936 HofC. Spec. Comm. on Franchise and Elections Acts
House of Commons Committees, Special Committee ... - Image 146 - Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources
A.J. Samis
Calgary city commissioner
advocate of PR
He was instrumental in pushing Calgary to adopt STV for election of city councillors in 1917, the first Canadian city to use PR to elect members of its city council.
(see Monto, When Canada Had PR)
W.M. Southam
W.M. Southam,
Correspondent Extraordinary
Wilson M. Southam of the Ottawa Citizen, a leading figure in the Southam chain of Canadian newspapers, died on August 24 of last year. His going deprived the Canadian P.R. movement of its most active and effective leader since Ronald Hooper, of St. James, Manitoba, had to discontinue his fruitful volunteer work as secretary of the Canadian P. R. Society some years ago.
Mr. Southam performed a unique service through a wide correspondence.
Keeping in close touch with political developments throughout the world, he kept up a constant bombardment of the principal figures involved with letters pointing out how an accurate method of representation could help them. In 1943 he distributed widely a pamphlet of his own preparation on the application of P.R. to the problems of world government.
Mr. Southam's Citizen was well named. He and it were citizens of the world. Their penetrating editorials and special articles helped to keep democratic principles to the fore in his nation's capital and exerted an influence far beyond his country's borders.
G.H.H. [George H. Hallet]From 1948 National Municipal Review
=================================
Other Proportionalists:
John H. Humphreys
executive member of the Proportional Representation League (U.K.)
author of Proportional Representation 1911
Clarence Hoag
co-author of Proportional Representation 1926
George H. Hallett Jr.
co-author of Proportional Representation 1926
John Stuart Mill who said "Democracy according to its definition is the government of the whole people by the whole people equally represented." (as quoted in Spence, A Plea, p. 24) and whose book On Representative Democracy says much in favour of Hare's STV.
Alfred Denton Cridge (1824-1902) (his books mostly just say Alfred Cridge )
(he is constantly confused with his author son of the same name.)
Apparently besides being proponents of PR, he (and his wife Annie Denton Cridge) were spiritualists
He authored the book Epitome of spirit-intercourse a condensed view of spiritualism, in its scriptural, historical, actual and scientific aspects; its relations to Christianity, insanity, psychometry and social reform; manifestations in Nova Scotia; important communications from the spirits of Sir John Franklin and Rev. Wm. Wishart, St. John, N.B., with evidences of identity and directions for developing mediums. (1854) (see Hathi Trust online)
(Book is said to be authored by "Alfred Cridge of Canada," presumably the same person.)
contributor to Sandford Fleming's essay contest On Rectification of Parliament (1894) (Spence, Ever Yours, C.H. Spence, p. 148) (essay contestansts used nom de plumes - perhaps he is "Pacifico")
author of 1895 pamphlet PR including its Relation to the Initiative and Referendum (see Hathi Trust)
(starts out by giving examples where people simply accepted myths that they were told, pointing out how the election system actually does not operate at all as most people think)
author of 1904 pamphlet PR including its Relation to the Initiative and Referendum (Spence, Ever Yours, C.H. Spence, p.146) (see Hathi Trust)
(starts out "If a representative government is the nearest approach to a democracy,..."
(the two small books were different but both bore the same title)
He also wrote other hard-hitting pamphlets:
-Ballot bosh! : the theory of the "people's government" demolished : criminal silence of press and leaders---a simple remedy defined [1880s? - Seattle]
-Voting not representation: a demand for definite democracy and political evolution (1880: San Francisco)
-The veto! : abolish the presidency! abolish the Senate! establish the referendum (1882- Socialistic Labor Party (U.S.))
He also was an anti-greenbacker and monetary reformer, and anti-corporate agitator.
He wrote
-Partnership vs. corporation : the safety of the latter and worthlessness of the former conclusively demonstrated ..
and
-To every greenbacker (1880 -San Francisco?).
He is subject of a blog:
and Montopedia blog:
==================================
Wakefield (his wife was Thomas Hare's daughter)
mentioned in report of a 1894 pro-rep meeting in United Kingdom
see Montopedia blog
St Just Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just (1767–94)
French military and political leader, elected to the French National Convention in 1792, and a leader of the government of the First Republic. In 1893 he proposed to the National Convention that the electoral system for the whole nation should be the single non-transferable vote (SNTV), which if adopted would have been the first national usage of a system of proportional representation; his proposal was “quickly surpassed [suppressed?] by the violent opposition of Robespierre” (Hoag and Hallett 1926, 163)
Eltweed Pomeroy --
an U.S. activist for Direct Legislation but gave Tyson space in his DL book for a chapter on Proportional Representation.
(see Montopedia blog "Old books...")
Sir Lubbock
(see Montopedia blog "Old books...")
Some electoral reform technicians/scientists
Droop
see talk section of Wikpedia "Droop quota"
Edward Nanson
The technical dimension of PR was given sophisticated analysis by Professor Edward Nanson, who was appointed to a Chair of Mathematics at the University of Melbourne in 1875. Nanson was not, however, the only mathematician focused on the subject, others included J.B. Gregory and Professor W. Brown. Nanson, though, was known as ‘the expert’s expert’38 and published several papers as an electoral reformer of the school of Thomas Hare and J.S. Mill, with a selection of ideas published in newspaper articles for the Age and Argus.
In 1899 Nanson published his own tract titled Electoral Reform: An exposition of the theory and practice of proportional representation, which expressed misgivings about the widely employed single-member plurality district system.
At Federation Nanson strongly advocated the adoption of PR for the Senate and the preferential (alternative) voting system [IRV] for the House of Representatives, considering the Senate (with each State being polled as one electorate) ready made for the PR voting system. With the backing of George Turner and Alfred Deakin, two former premiers, Nanson backed legislation to elect Victoria’s first Senators by PR and preferential voting [IRV] for the first House of Representatives members.
Hagenbach-Bischoff
came up with Droop quota about same time as Droop
slightly different formulation but pretty much the same.
see Wikipedia: "Droop quota"
===========================
Comments