TRANSFERABLE VOTE AT MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. 289 



Two thousand eight hundred and fourteen voters voted, and 

 on only thirty-seven of the ballot papers examined at the election 

 did the voters fail to secure representation : and this failure was 

 entirely i\uc to their own faults, and might have been avoided 

 with a little care. 



There is little wonder that this is called effective voting. 



3. The object of this paper is to compare this system with 

 the plan employed at present, and this ohject will probably he 

 better attained if we take, as an example, a smaller number both 

 of voters and members, say. fifty-one voters, who are to elect 

 three members from six candidates. 



4. At such an election under the present system, each voter 

 would mark a X opposite the name of the three candidates for 

 whom he voted ; under the transferable vote system he would 

 mark with the figures 1, 2, 3, etc., as many candidates as he 

 chose, in the order of his preference. Each voter would have 

 only one vote in place of three, but by marking the four candi- 

 dates whom he thought the best he would make it absolutely 

 certain that one of the four he marked would be on the Council 

 as his representative, fie would be at no disadvantage in having 

 only one effective vote instead of three as at present, for every 

 other voter would be in the same case. 



5. If at present the three candidates he marks are all un- 

 successful, his three votes are lost; but under the new system if 

 the first three choices were all marked for unsuccessful candi- 

 dates, his fourth choice would secure his representation, in 

 helping to elect that one of the three members whom he most 

 preferred. He would have given an effective vote. 



6. The thirty-seven Pretoria voters, who failed to secure 

 representation, failed simply because they marked too few 

 choices — twelve marked only one, twenty-two marked two, and 

 three marked three, and all those marked were unsuccessful 

 candidates. But, as we have seen from our small election, every 

 voter who marks one mere choice than the number of the un- 

 successful candidates, makes perfectly certain of securing 

 representation. 



7. In this way effective voting secures true representation, 

 for every voter is represented on the Council : and thus it is that 

 minorities as well as majorities get represented, and that any 

 section of the voters numerous enough to give a candidate a 

 number of votes, equal to that received by the other members, 

 will secure his election. 



• For with the transferable vote, not only are the votes given 

 to unsuccessful candidates transferred to other candidates, whose 

 election they can help, but when a member has proved himself so 

 popular that he secures more votes than his share, all his majority 

 votes are transferred from him, because he does not need them, to 

 the next lower choice on each voting paper, who stands in need of 

 more votes to secure his election. Thus each member elected 

 receives the same number of votes. There are neither unsuccess- 



