Part 7 (1/2)
[6] Governor Gerry contrived an electorate which resembled a salamander in shape.
CHAPTER VI.
THE HARE SYSTEM OF PROPORTIONAL DELEGATION.
The single transferable vote, generally known as the Hare system, was first invented by a Danish statesman, M. Andrae, and was used for the election of a portion of the ”Rigsraad” in 1855. In 1857 Mr. Thomas Hare, barrister-at-law, published it independently in England in a pamphlet on ”The Machinery of Representation.” This formed the basis of the scheme elaborated in his ”Election of Representatives,” which appeared in 1859.
He proposed to abolish all geographical boundaries by const.i.tuting the whole of the United Kingdom one electorate for the return of the 654 members of the House of Commons. Each member was to be elected by an equal unanimous number of electors. The method of election was therefore so contrived as to allow the electors to group themselves into 654 const.i.tuencies, each group bound only by the tie of voluntary a.s.sociation, and gathered from every corner of the Kingdom. The total number of votes cast (about a million) was to be divided by 654, and the quotient, say about 1,500, would be the quota or number of votes required to elect a member. But some of the candidates would naturally receive more votes than the quota, and a great many more would receive less. How were all the votes to be equally divided among 654 members so that each should secure exactly the quota? The single transferable vote was proposed to attain this result. Each elector's vote was to count for one candidate only, but he was allowed to say in advance to whom he would wish his vote transferred in case it could not be used for his first choice. Each ballot paper was, therefore, to contain the names of a number of candidates in order of preference--1, 2, 3, &c. Then all the candidates having more than a quota of first choices were to have the surplus votes taken from them and transferred to the second choice on the papers, or if the second choice already had enough votes, to the third choice, and so on. When all the surpluses were distributed a certain number of members would be declared elected, each with a quota of votes. The candidates who had received the least amount of support were then to be gradually eliminated. The lowest candidate would be first rejected, and his votes transferred to the next available preference on his ballot papers; then the next lowest would be rejected, and so on till all the votes were equally distributed among the 654 members. Such was the Hare system as propounded by its author. The electors were to divide themselves into voluntary groups; then the groups which were too large were to be cut down by transferring the surplus votes, and the smaller groups were to be excluded and the votes also transferred until the groups were reduced to 654 equal const.i.tuencies. These two processes, transferring surplus votes and transferring votes from excluded candidates, are the main features of the system. Mr. Hare's rules for carrying them out are drawn up in the form of a proposed electoral law, and in the different editions of his work the clauses vary somewhat. They are also complicated by an impossible attempt to retain the local nomenclature of members. As regards surplus votes it was provided that the ballot papers which had the most preferences expressed should be transferred; still a good deal was left to chance or to the sweet will of the returning officer, and this has always been admitted as a serious objection. The process of elimination is still more unsatisfactory. Mr. Hare was from the first strongly opposed to the elimination of the candidate who had least first preferences, and he therefore proposed that, in order to decide which candidate had least support, all expressed preferences should be counted. This involved such enormous complication that in the 1861 edition of his work he abandoned the process of elimination altogether in favour of a process of selection. He then proposed to distribute surplus votes only, and to elect the highest of the remainder, regardless of the fact that they had less than a quota. He then wrote:--”The reduction of the number of candidates remaining at this stage of the election may be effected by taking out the names of all those who have the smallest number of actual votes--that is, who are named at the _head_ of the smallest number of voting papers, and appropriating each vote to the candidate standing _next_ in order on each paper. This process would be so arbitrary and inequitable in its operation as to be intolerable. It might have the effect of cancelling step by step more votes given to one candidate than would be sufficient to return another.... Such a process disregards the legitimate rights both of electors and of candidates.” But the process of selection was not proportional representation at all, being practically equivalent to a single untransferable vote, and Mr. Hare finally adopted, in spite of its defects, the ”arbitrary and inequitable” process of elimination in his last edition in 1873. And all his recent disciples have been forced to do the same, because nothing better is known.
Mr. Hare's scheme has ceased to be of any practical interest, since it is now generally admitted that electorates should not return more than ten or twenty members. Moreover, it is admitted that the electors would group themselves in very undesirable ways, and not as Mr. Hare expected.
And yet the only effect of limiting the size of the electorates is to reduce the number of undesirable ways in which electors might group themselves. Let us briefly note the different proposals which have been made.
+1. Sir John Lubbock's Method.+--In his work on ”Representation,” Sir John Lubbock says:--”The full advantage of the single transferable vote would require a system of large const.i.tuencies returning three or five members each, thus securing a true representation of opinion.”
Three-seat electorates are, however, too small to secure accurate proportional representation; with parties evenly balanced, for instance, one must secure twice as much representation as the other.
The following rules are given to explain the working of the system:--
(1) Each voter shall have one vote, but may vote in the alternative for as many of the candidates as he pleases by writing the figures 1, 2, 3, &c, opposite the names of those candidates in the order of his preference.
COUNTING VOTES.
(2) The ballot papers, having been all mixed, shall be drawn out in succession and stamped with numbers so that no two shall bear the same number.
(3) The number obtained by dividing the whole number of good ballot papers tendered at the election by the number of members to be elected plus one, and increasing the quotient (or where it is fractional the integral part of the quotient) by one, shall be called the quota.
(4) Every candidate who has a number of first votes equal to or greater than the quota shall be declared elected, and so many of the ballot papers containing those votes as shall be equal in number to the quota (being those stamped with the lowest numerals) shall be set aside as of no further use. On all ballot papers the name of the elected candidate shall be deemed to be cancelled, with the effect of raising by so much in the order of preference all votes given to other candidates after him. This process shall be repeated until no candidate has more than a quota of first votes or votes deemed first.
(5) Then the candidate or candidates having the fewest first votes, or votes deemed first, shall be declared not to be elected, with the effect of raising by so much in the order of preference all votes given to candidates after him or them, and rule 4 shall be again applied if possible.
(6) When by successive applications of rules 4 and 5 the number of candidates is reduced to the number of members remaining to be elected, the remaining candidates shall be declared elected.
Objection is commonly taken to this method on account of the element of chance involved in the distribution of surplus votes. Suppose the quota to be 1,000, and a candidate to receive 1,100 votes, the 100 votes to be transferred would be those stamped with the highest numerals. But if the hundred stamped with the lowest numerals or any other hundred had been taken the second choices would be different.
Strictly speaking, however, this is not a chance selection--it is an arbitrary selection. The returning officer must transfer certain definite papers; if he were allowed to make a chance selection it would be in his power to favour some of the candidates.
Sir John Lubbock points out that the element of chance might be eliminated by distributing the second votes proportionally to the second choices on the whole 1,100 papers, and that it might be desirable to leave any candidate the right to claim that this should be done if he thought it worth while.
+2.--The Hare-Clark Method.+--The Hare system has been in actual use in Tasmania for the last two elections. It is applied only in a six-seat electorate at Hobart and a four-seat electorate at Launceston. The rules for distributing surplus votes proportionally were drawn up by Mr. A.I.
Clark, late Attorney-General. The problem is not so simple as it appears at first sight. There is no difficulty with a surplus on the first count; it is when surpluses are created in subsequent counts by transferred votes that the conditions become complicated. Mr. Clark adopts a rule that in the latter case the transferred papers only are to be taken into account in deciding the proportional distribution of the surplus. Suppose, as before, the quota to be 1,000 votes, and a candidate to have 1,100 votes, 550 of which are marked in the second place to one of the other candidates. Then the latter is ent.i.tled to 50 of the surplus votes, and a chance selection is made of the 550 papers.
The element of chance still remains, therefore, if this surplus contributes to a fresh surplus.
+3.--The Droop-Gregory Method.+--This method, advocated by Professor Nanson, of the Melbourne University, is claimed to entirely eliminate the element of chance. The Gregory plan of transferring surplus votes is defined as a fractional method. If a candidate needs only nine-tenths of his votes to make up his quota, instead of distributing the surplus of one-tenth of the papers all the papers are distributed with one-tenth of their value. Reverting to our former example, if a candidate is marked second on 550 out of 1,100 votes, the quota being 1,000 and the surplus 100, then instead of selecting 50 out of the 550 papers, the whole of them would be transferred in a packet, the value of the packet being 50 votes, or, as Professor Nanson prefers to put it, the value of each paper in the packet being one-eleventh of a vote. Should this packet contribute to a new surplus the third choices on the whole of the papers are available as a basis for the redistribution. The packet would be divided into smaller packets, and each a.s.signed its reduced value. It might here be pointed out that the use of fractions is quite unnecessary, the value of each packet in votes being all that is required, and that the-same process may be used with the Hare-Clark method to avoid the chance selection of papers. The only real difference is this: that when a surplus is created by transferred votes Mr. Clark distributes it by reference to the next preference on all the transferred papers, and Professor Nanson by reference to the last packet of transferred papers only--the packet which raises the candidate above the quota.
Which of these methods is correct? Should we select the surplus from all votes, original and transferred, as Sir John Lubbock proposes; from all transferred votes only, with Mr. Clark; or from the last packet only of transferred votes, with Professor Nanson? Consider a group of electors having somewhat more than a quota of votes at its disposal. If it nominates one candidate only every one of the electors will have a voice in the distribution of the surplus, but if it puts up three candidates, two of whom are excluded and the third elected, Mr. Clark would allow those who supported the two excluded candidates to decide the distribution of the surplus, and Professor Nanson only those who supported the last candidate excluded. Both are clearly wrong, for the only rational view to take is that when a candidate is excluded it is the same as if he had never been nominated and the transferred votes had formed part of the original votes of those to whom they are transferred.
Whenever a surplus is created it should therefore be distributed by reference to all votes, original and transferred. As regards these surpluses, Mr. Clark and Professor Nanson have adopted an arbitrary basis, which is no more than Sir John Lubbock has done; and they have therefore eliminated the element of chance only for surpluses on the first count. It may be asked, Why cannot all surpluses be distributed by reference to all the papers, if that is the correct method? The answer is that the complication involved is enormous. Yet this was the plan first advocated by Professor Nanson, who wrote, in reply to a definite inquiry how the Gregory principle was applied:--”I explain by an example. A has 2,000 votes, the quota being 1,000. A then requires only half the value of each vote cast for him. Each paper cast for him is then stamped as having lost one-half of its value, and the whole of A's papers are then transferred with diminished value to the second name (unelected, of course). The same principle applies all through. Whenever anyone has a surplus all the papers are pa.s.sed to the next man with diminished value.” Now, the effect of this extraordinary proposal would be that the whole of the papers would have to be kept in circulation till the last candidate was elected, with diminis.h.i.+ng compound fractional values. In a ten-seat electorate a large proportion would pa.s.s through several transfers, and would towards the end of the count have such a ridiculously small fractional value that it would take several millions of the ballot-papers to make a single vote! It is no wonder that this method was abandoned when the complications to which it would lead were realized.
A simple method of avoiding this complexity would be to treat transferred surplus papers as if the preferences were exhausted. It must be remembered that in all transfers a certain number of papers are lost owing to the preferences being exhausted, and the additional loss would be small. Thus at the first Hobart election 206 votes were wasted, and this number would have been increased by two only. Every surplus would then be transferred by reference to the next choice, wherever expressed, on both original papers and papers transferred from excluded candidates.
It might be provided, however, for greater accuracy that all papers contributing to surpluses on the first count only should be transferred in packets. Should these contribute to a new surplus, it should be divided into two parts, proportional to (1) original votes and votes transferred from excluded candidates, and (2) the value of the packet in votes. Each part would then be distributed proportionally to the next available preferences wherever expressed. To divide the packets into sub-packets is a useless complication. The loss involved in neglecting them would usually be less than one-thousandth part of the loss due to exhausted papers.