172 REPRESENTATION BY THE TRANSFERABLE VOTE. 



will and must occur. We are using a wrong method of 

 election, a method which only shows in each constituency which 

 of two candidates the majority prefers, which necessitates in all 

 cases that the minority shall be unrepresented, and which some- 

 times reduces the number of effective votes to a very small 

 percentage. It utterly fails to secure true representation. 



4. The Report of the Royal Commission on Electoral 

 Systems, 1910, Cd. 5163, says of the seven British Parliamentary 

 elections from 1885 to 1910: " Only in one case, the election of 

 1892, can the actual results be said to represent approximately 

 the balance of voting power possessed by the two parties. If 

 these conclusions are checked by the figures for contested elec- 

 tions only, they are merely confirmed. In the contested elec- 

 tions of 1895, a Conservative majority of ']'] was returned by .i 

 minority of 25,000 voters. In England in 1906, an unusually 

 cogent example, because out of 465 seats only 20 were uncon- 

 tested, a Liberal majority of 200 members was returned by a 

 margin of voting strength, which onlv warranted a majority of 



5. With majority election we never can get true repre- 

 sentation. For that we must take another method, in place of 

 trying to find in seven single-member constituencies which man 

 of two each voter thought the better man, which man was mosc 

 preferred ; we must in three-member or larger constituencies try 

 to find which man most of the voters prefer. We must in large 

 constituencies, with numerous candidates, allow 'the voter to 

 mark his preference for the four or more best candidates in his 

 judgment; so that, if the first man of his choice does not need 

 his vote, or cannot use it to secure his election, it may not be 

 wasted or non-effective as now, but may help in the election of 

 the highest placed candidate of his choice, who needs it. We 

 must substitute for majority election sectional election, and for 

 this we need the transferable vote. 



6. We have just seen that in the election of one member, a 

 section of the voters equal to one less than half can give only 

 non-effective votes, cannot secure representation ; so also, if two 

 members are to be elected, a section of two less than one-third 

 of the voters must give non-effective votes. But while a 

 minority can never elect a single member, nor one of two mem- 

 bers, it can elect one of three members, if it amounts to one more 

 than one-fourth of the voters ; and with constituencies electing 

 three or more members Sectional election becomes possible, and 

 the larger the number of members to be elected the better does 

 it work. Thus in a three-member constituency the voters can 

 give expression to their views on an important question by 

 electing three members, if they are still of one mind; or two 

 members on one side and one on the other. But in a seven- 

 member constituency a much more varied expression of their 

 feelings may be given, according to the voting strength on one 

 side or the other. Their decisions may vary from 7 to o. through 



