I^ro THE TRANSFERABLE VOTE IN ELECTIONS. 



.'C" with i,ooo voters, they -ould have had six members of the 

 Council elected by the "A" party, three by the B, and one by 



^^^ \?ow fifty years after, thanks to the evolution of electoral 

 methods? and'm'ainly to Lord Courteney's abdity Pat-- -^ 

 persistence, the South African cosmopolitan town of i^^^J'^'f 

 bur^realised as nearly as possible, this very ideal on the first 

 occfsion on which they used the transferable vote, securing thus 

 rne'vote one value, and' the election of the ten best men among he 

 candidates, and the representation of the minority as well as of the 

 majority, and of any section of the ratepayers numerous enough 

 to secure the election of one member. t • •* ^ 



Three other plans to secure these objects are the Limited 

 Vote the Cumulative Vote, and the Belgian System ; the first 

 tw^'are abandoned in England. We had the cumulative Vo_^, 

 working easily and well, in our Cape Colony late Legislate e 

 CouncTefectio'ns. The third holds the field and --kes way m 

 Belgium, both in Municipal and in Parliamentary elections 



The Royal Commission Report I have already quoted says 

 after examining these three systems :— 



«^, If then anv system of proportional representation is to 



Par°a«raph .35 l"As e have already pointed ""Iv *e ^yjem show 

 rri'bTs. iL'llictions, where the com ar»ee , , ^ 



S-V*afaSl.h'od1^^.^^^^^^^ 



^ffi'^';^^sf;;;^hTe;v°„?^£^Sejg|- 



KicSaf I.^?US aT5ch^f ^r/JpraS r^enav been he,d wi.h 

 marked success under the Transferable Vote. 



7 The object of this system is to secure that as far as possible 

 everv vote shall be effective, shall help the return of one member. 



Under this transferable vote system the voter s work is very 

 simple ;1n place of marking a cross "x" opposite the name of the 

 candidate he wishes to vote for, he marks the numeral i. In 

 do^g this he secures for himself and ^he chosen candidate all that 

 tVPv eniov under the present system. He may stop there it ne 

 chooses -yelTe is a voluntary exercise on his part of a privilege 

 he may employ. His vote already given may be effective, or it 

 n^av be oTe of a non-effective surplus, or one of the useless, non- 

 StWe minority votes for a candidate, who can never hope to 

 come in, whose candidature becomes eliminated. If he has 

 "ntdlige^ce enough to express his preferences for other candidates 

 and ^^ihes to do so, he may secure that his vote goes to help the 

 dection of that very'one among his sdected candidates, who needs 

 it to secure his return. The voter simply places opposite as many 

 candidates' names as he chooses the consecutive numerals 2, 3, 4, 

 S, etc., having already, as I say, placed "i" opposite the candi- 

 date's name, where now he puts "x,'^ a cross. The more prefer- 

 ences he expresses the more surely does he secure his object. 



