from OBSERVATIONS ON THE WORKING RESULTS OF THE HARE SYSTEM OF ELECTION IN TASMANIA.
BY R. M. Johnston, F.L.S. [circa 1897]
The chief Merit of the Hare System.
...The keystone of the Hare system, upon which commonly too little or no attention is directed, is the Hare-constitution of large electoral divisions. [the multi-member districts]
Without the latter all the nice arrangements of first, second, third, &c, preferences, and transfer of quota-excesses and lowest excluded candidate votes, would be a cumbrous farce.
With the former secured, together with even the ordinary one man one vote principle, the results attained would be such an improvement upon methods hitherto prevailing that they would not fall far short of the more complete Hare scheme with its method of preference and transfer voting. [That is, simple SNTV in a district is itself so much better than FPTP that the lack of transfers would not hardly be noticed.]
for more details and explanation of this important point, see
John Stuart Mill endorsed STV
... John Stuart Mill (p. 56, 57, " On Representative Government ") :
" But real equality of representation is not obtained unless any set of electors amounting to the average number of a constituency, wherever . . . they happen to reside, have the power of combining with one another to return a representative.
This degree of perfection in representation appeared impracticable until a man of great capacity, fitted alike for large general views and for the contrivance of practical details —Mr. Thomas Hare—had proved its possibility by drawing up a scheme for its accomplishment, embodied in a draft of an Act of Parliament; a scheme which has the almost unparalleled merit of carrying out a great principle of government in a manner approaching to ideal perfection as regards the special object in view, while it attains incidentally several other ends of scarcely inferior importance. . . . .
The more these works are studied, the stronger I venture to predict will be the impression of the perfect feasibility of the scheme and its transcendent advantages. Such and so numerous are these that, in my conviction, they place Mr. Hare's plan among the very greatest improvements yet made in the theory and practice of government." (use of bold is mine)
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