32 QUOTA IN PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION, II., 



R.S. TAS. 



constituencies are approximately equal in electoral popula- 

 tion and if members are elected by a system of preferential 

 voting ensuring that the candidate returned has received 

 votes from a majority of the electors (as in the elections for 

 the Legislative Council in Tasmania). The following 

 paragraphs will show that equality of constituencies and 

 an absolute majority system are insufficient to secure even 

 that the majority in the country shall have a majority in 

 the House, to say nothing of a majority proportional to 

 its strength. (-'''^) 



(**) Mr. L. F. Giblin, M.H.A., has pointed out to me that it is possible 

 even with proportional representation for the minority in the country to 

 win a majority of seats. With proportional representation the total rep- 

 resentation of each party depends to some extent (though to a much less 

 extent than with single-member districts) on the distribution of the 

 strengths of the parties among the disuicts. If members are allotted to 

 parties district by district, the representation, although proportional as 

 nearly as possible in each district, may become disproportional for the 

 country as a whole. The only sure way to secure exactly pioportional 

 representation is to allot seats in proportion to votes throughout the 

 country, as in the method of the uniform quota. Mr. Giblin writes : — 



" It should be noted that proportional voting with (he single transferable 

 vote may result in putting a minority in povvec, and, when the number of 

 constituences is small, the chance is not a remote one. In Tasmania 

 under the present system, in which the Droop quota is used, assume that 

 the quotas are the same in each division. Let party A return 16 members 

 and party B 14 members. There being 35 quotas in the five districts, the 

 14 members for party B will represent a majority in the country if B's 

 votes are more than 17 i quotas, i.e., if the sum of its remainders is more 

 than 3^ quotas. If B's votes are more than 17^ quotas, A's are less than 

 17^, and the sum of its remainders is less than 1^. That is party A (the 

 minority in the country) will get a majority in Parliament if the votes not 

 absorbed as quotas are divided between the parties A and B in less than 

 the ratio 3:7. In practice, the parties are fairly equally divided and no 

 party is likely to be lepresented in any division by less than two members 

 out of six. Within the range thus indicated, it may be assumed approxi- 

 mately that any remainder from to one quota is equally likely to occur. 

 On these conditions, the chance of a majority of 16 members being 

 returned by a minority of voters may be stated roughly as 1 in 14. That 

 is to say, in every 14 elections in which the result was 16 to 14, there 

 would be on an average one in which the minority of the voters returned 

 the majority in Parliament. This, however, is but a small matter compared 

 to the case in which 16 members are returned on each side, when the odds 

 are more than 2 to 1 that one party is entitled to an additional member. 

 If the number of members was altered to 7 in each district, making 35 

 members in all, this high probability of disproportional representation 

 would be removed, but tlie chance of a majority of 18 to 17 being returned 

 by a minority of voters would, under the same assumptions as above, be 

 nearly 1 in 4, It should be noted that this possibility of disproportional 

 representaticm, though not uf^gligible, is small c<>mj)ared to the possibilities 

 with singkvmember districts, and that it is equally present in the different 

 List systems, excepting <mly the List system with the Uniform Quota, by 

 which ])r()portional repiesentation is made certain under all circumstances 

 so far as the number of members will allow." 



