Significance of the First Count in STV noted back in 1897, by R.M. Johnston, of Tasmania

from "OBSERVATIONS ON THE WORKING RESULTS OF THE HARE SYSTEM OF ELECTION IN TASMANIA." (Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of 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.]

The main feature of the Hare-Electorate or Electoral Division is, that it shall be sufficiently large and untrammelled so as to permit the units of any representative party or body of opinion to unite together, if numerous enough to command a quota ; that is, such a proportion of electors, as on the basis of numbers, would entitle the latter to return their just share, viz. one parliamentary representative. This provision also involves the breaking down of all arbitrary and unreasonable sub-divisions which, as in the unequal ward system of cities, have hitherto prevented the otherwise wasted surplusage of aggregate majorities or minorities, in one division of common locality interests, from joining forces with the weaker members of their respective parties similarly restricted in a neighbouring arbitrary sub-division ; and so unjustly preventing the true ideal of real equality of representation, i.e., representation of minorities and majorities in proportion to numbers.

That this should be regarded as the most important feature of the Hare system is certain, and is so regarded by ail great thinkers who have devoted any attention to the subject.

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)

It cannot be too strongly emphasized, therefore, that the chief causes which tend to produce and perpetuate unfair and unequal representation are

(1) inequalities in the magnitude of the population of the various electoral divisions, [not an issue when fewer districts are used]

and

(2) the unnecessary multiplication of artificial boundaries, restricting unjustly the voting force to too narrow an area, and thereby preventing the necessary and fair combination of persons who desire to act together, without which their forces are wasted or misdirected.

...

It is the chief merit of the Hare system that it entirely removes all such artificial barriers to just and real representation of the various parties; for, by its abolition of unwise artificial restrictions, it gives full fair play to all the individual forces, and it enables the surplusage of any one division [now a sub-part of a large district] to come to the aid of its own party in any other division [within the same large district], so that no vote [or relatively few anyway] would form the element of a lost or wasted surplusage.

By the Hare system, the inequalities of electoral subdivisions are practically rendered equal and harmless.

...

The Hare method is per se a sort of special providence, preventing the waste of valuable votes by automatically distributing surplus strength fairly and exactly to the next and next of preference* until at last the full fair strength of the particular party is properly determined. If combinedly in this way any party fails to return one representative, it is because all the members of the party are too feeble in numbers to have the right to be represented ; if the party on the whole returns one, two, three, or more representatives it is, for the best of all reasons, because this is the exact representation to which, by force of numbers, it is justly and reasonably entitled.

*If not preference, the ranking equally serves to indicate usefully [the voter's] order of detestation or dislike, No. 1 being least detested, No. 2 next in order of dislike, No. 3, 4, 5 in a similar way next in order of candidates disliked. Even in the order of dislike it must be of service to the elector to see that his most disliked candidates are handicapped by his influence.

=========

...

The only persons who may oppose the Hare system are the selfish aggressor or the selfish indifferent; the former craves to maintain or gain more than justice; the latter too indifferent or lazy to demand it.

Launceston had no winner in the first round, hence no winner of the second order (winners who won due to transfer of surplus votes of first round winners) (p. 75 computer 7/32)

=====

for more details and explanation of this important point, see

https://eprints.utas.edu.au/16182/1/johnston-observations-hare-system-election-1897.pdf