BY E. L. PIESSE, B.SC, LL.B. 



25 



1913. 



General Election, Tasmania, 2?>rd January, 1913. — Result 

 according to the Method of the Uniform Quota. 



As between the parties the result would be the same 

 as with the single transferable vote; but in Franklin (in 

 which 15,243 vot-es were polled) there would have been 

 seven members instead of six, of whom the Liberals would 

 have had four, and in Wilmot (in which only 12,289 

 votes were polled) there would have been only five mem- 

 bers instead of six, and there would thus have been a 

 greater approach to electoral equality between electors in 

 these two districts than with the same number of members 

 for each district. 



It w^ould remain only to choose the members from the 

 candidates of each party in each district. For each party 

 the candidates highest on the poll wovild be chosen ; these, 

 of course, would not necessarily be the same if each elector 

 had several votes as when he had only one vote. 



65. From this illustration two of the principal advan- 

 tages of the method of the uniform quota can be seen : 

 first, districts in which political interest is more 

 active may get more members than districts in 

 which, although the number of electors enrolled is the 

 same, fewer voters go to the poll; second, it is no longer 

 necessary to alter boundaries as the distribution of popu- 

 lation changes, for the method (so far as the size of the 

 House allows) will give proportional representation to the 

 districts in spite of differences in their electoral populations. 

 The method, then, gives proportional representation as 

 between parties throughout the country; proportional 

 representation as between parties in each district; and 

 proportional representation as between districts of varying 

 sizes. 



