178 REPRESr-:NTAT10X I'.V THE TRANSFERABLE VOTE. 



19. Fourthly. How will it affect the country? 



X'oting as one large constituency will allow every voter, the 

 miner for instance, to vote just where he happens to be working. 



When one large and important question stirs the mind of 

 the country at an election; it gives an ooportunity for the ex- 

 pression of tiiat opinion on a finely graduated scale exactlv in 

 proportion to the strength of the opinion, that is. to the number 

 of the voters who hold it. There are eight steps or degrees on 

 the scale from 7 to o. through 6 to i, 5 to 2. right down to o to 7. 



Seven is really the least number that allows the good points, 

 of proportional representation to be seen. 



\\'ith three members, the lowest number that can be elected' 

 by this system there are fewest advantages. Only three grades 

 are on the scale. 3 to o, 2 to i. o to 3; each differing from the 

 other by one-third of the members. Odd numbers give better 

 results than even ones : thus with six members we have the same 

 scale, one-third of the members, only as with three, 6 to o, 4 to 2, 

 o to 6, two-thirds in 5 to i. ^^'ith five we have five grades. 



\\hen Rhodesia attains twelve elected members, and that 

 may be in a few years, with the present rate of increase, the- 

 question of two constituencies with five and seven members re- 

 spectively may arise. At present the transferable vote would 

 secure all over Rhodesia one voter one vote, one vote one value, 

 and equal number of votes for each member and all votes effec- 

 tive. 



20. The transferable vote would stop all need for redistri- 

 bution. All demand or agitation for it would cease. There 

 would be no need for expensive commissions either recurrent 

 or constant as in the Union of South Africa, no troublesome 

 unsatisfactory attempts to settle boundaries, with much unsettle- 

 ment of many men's minds. 



2T. The question of additional representation would at once 

 be automatically solved. \Mien the register showed an addition 

 of one-seventh of the present number of votes, an additional 

 member might be elected. 



22. The question of bye-elections admits of an easy and 

 very satisfactory settlement. We cannot elect one member with 

 the transferable vote, but when a member dies or resigns, we can 

 examine the voting papers which secured his return, and can 

 get the name of the next available candidate, the very man that 

 those identical voters, who have lost their member, would have 

 chosen at the election had their late member's services not been 

 available then. Thus without expense, without loss of time, 

 you supply what they have lost, the member and representative 

 they themselves would have chosen to represent them. 



23. To recapitulate shortly the substance of my paper. T 

 have pointed out what the transferable vote is, and how it makes, 

 every vote effective. U'e have found that majority election 

 by a relative majority inevitably leads to a majority of non- 

 effective votes, and such misrepresentation, that in twenty-five 



