89 



classi fication on the principle of least dislike. Nor does the number 

 of " exhaust papers " offer occasion for serious criticism. In 

 many cases such papers were useless because candidates whose 

 names they bore were elected without their assistance. The 

 number of informal votes was sufficiently large to excite the 

 hostility of the censorious ; yet it was not larger than is usual 

 on the occasion of a change in the mode of voting; indeed, the 

 percentage was much lower than at the recent elections for the 

 Federal Convention. In the city of Hobart, the informal votes 

 amounted to 105 ; 52 had been guilty of extra marking, especially 

 of scoring out the names of rejected candidates ; 20 had marked 

 each of their chosen candidates 1, instead of 1, 2, 3, etc.; 16 

 had failed to mark at least three candidates , four had omitted 

 to observe a proper sequence in their numbers ; three had written 

 the figures between the names ; three were illegible ; two had 

 contributed their signatures ; two had marked all their candidates 

 2 instead of 1, 2, 3, etc.; one had given his numbers in writing; 

 and one had scrawled over the whole of his paper, apparently 

 to express an abhorence of the system. 



If we regard the Act as a whole, I am not aware that ex- 

 perience has exposed its defects. Whatever objections a captious 

 criticism may discover, there is, perhaps, but one which requires 

 serious attention. If X receives 2000 primary votes and the 

 quota be 1000, the resulting surplus is distributed in a proportion 

 determined by reference to secondary preferences on the whole 

 of X's 2000 votes. Under sucha mode of distribution nothing is 

 left tolchance or to the discretion of the returning officer. But 

 let us go a step further—let us suppose that Y has 800 primary 

 votes, and that he receives 600 from X's surplus. In that case 

 he obtains his quota and 400 excess votes. How are these 

 excess votes to be distributed ? Several modes suggest them- 

 selves. The returning officer may take the 400 ballot papers 

 from the top of Y's box and pass them on to next preferences ; he 

 may do this after having first shuffled the whole of Y's papers ; 

 or, again, a 3 may exercise his own s^eet will upon them. The 

 objections to each of these courses is clear. But if the su*plus 

 of 400 is to be distributed according to a proportion, by re- 

 ference to what ballot papers is the proportion to be determined ? 

 The Act, apparently with the intention of simplifying the work of 

 the returning officer, answers " By reference to the 600 papers 

 transferred from X to Y." It will be at once seen that this intro- 

 duces the element of chance. We know that if Y gained 600 of 

 X's suplus of 1000, he must have been marked 2 on 6-10ths of X's 

 total number of primary votes. 2000 x 6-10=1200. The actual 

 600 papers transferred from X to Y were to be chosen at random 

 from the whole of the 1200 papers on which Y was marked 2. 

 The proportion among the third votes of one chance selection 

 from this 1200, might be very different from the proportion among 

 the third votes of ar.other chance selection. If the returning 

 officer choose " to take a hand," the variations may be increased. 

 All such objections may be avoided by distributing Y's surplus 

 of 400 in a proportion determined by reference to the whole of the 

 1200 papers, i.e , the whole of the X Y papers. It might save time 

 if the returning officer, in transferring the 600 papers which con- 

 stituted Y's share of X's surplus, were to preserve the same 



