OF ELECTION IN TASMANIA. SS 



be initialled and transmitted to the superintendent's com- 

 piling table. If they do not agree the error must at 

 once be traced out and corrected. A septum of coloured 

 paper, placed in each cell above the last ballot-paper 

 entered in a former pair of recording sheets, will greatly 

 aid in facilitating the detection of such errors. 



During the last general election at Hobart each record- 

 ing sheet had 50 lines, numbered from 1 to 50 at each 

 side, with a separate column for each candidate. As each 

 recording tick 1 was marked under each name on the line 

 immediately succeeding the last recorded tick for the same 

 person, it followed that as soon as any one candidate's 

 recording tick reached ihe fiftieth line the sheet was 

 complete, and the numbers of all the other candidates 

 could be ascertained by inspection without counting ; For 

 the line number of the last entry in each column would 

 indicate exactly the number of votes to be carried to total 

 at foot of recording sheet. 



In this way the work of the superintendent in com- 

 piling the recording sheet totals was greatly facilitated, 

 and enabled him to show at any moment the aggregate 

 number polled for each candidate. 



If the plan here indicated is adopted at any election, 

 there is every reason to believe that it would work satis- 

 factorily, and the final results of the election might be 

 ascertained and published within an hour of the close of 

 the poll. 



The only work of the Hare system of ballot which 

 would have to be postponed until the close of the poll 

 would be the distribution of transfer votes from quota- 

 surpluses and lowest eliminated candidates. 



HOW TO SIMPLIFY THE BALLOT BY THE 

 HARE SYSTEM TO THOSE WHO CANNOT 

 READ OR WRITE. 



Many who otherwise regard the Hare system of voting with 

 favour, have objected to its introduction in Tasmania, on the 

 ground that the difficulties of instructing voters w T ho can 

 neither read nor write would be practically insurmountable ; 

 and they believe that attempts to record the preference 1,2, 3, 

 or even I., II., III., against the persons chosen in this order 

 of preference by those who cannot read or write would involve 

 many mistakes, and largely increase the number of invalid 

 ballot-papers. Another, and perhaps a more serious objection 



