PEOCEBDINGS FOE 1892. 



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effecting au election when there were several candidates. According to our present rule all the 

 information which a voter sends to the Secretary is as to which of the candidates he considers best. 

 It will be obvious, therefoi'e, that if there are three candidates and twenty voters, the one who gets 

 most votes may nevertheless get but seven, and that unless one of the candidates is head and shoulders 

 above the others, no one of them is likely to receive two-thirds of the votes of the Section. The 

 jiresent rule, in fixet, is suited only to the case in which there are but two candidates for a single 

 vacanc}'. In a case in which there are several candidates for one or for several vacancies it will 

 probably fail to effect an election. 



" In any such case as this, howevei-, all that is necessary is that the voter should be requested to 

 give the Secretary more information. Thus, if there are, say, four candidates, each voter 

 knows (1) whether or not he considers one or more of them undeserving of the rank of Fellow, 

 (2) which of the others ranks first (or which two or three ho considers equal and preferable to the 

 others), which one (or two or three) ranks (or rank) second in his estimation, and so on. Voters 

 might therefore be asked to send all this information to the Secretary, being directed, say, to score 

 out the names of candidates considered unworthy of a Fellowship, to indicate by the number 1 the can- 

 didate (or candidates) ranking first in their estimation, by the number 2 the candidate (or candidates) 

 ranking second, and so on. If the Secretary had this information at his command he could ascertain 

 the choice of the Section in all cases in which the Section was not equally divided between two can- 

 didates. In any case of equal division any good method of election must, of course, fail to elect, and 

 some arbitrary method, as, for example, giving a casting vote to the Chairman of the Council, 

 must be provided if delay is to be avoided. 



" That the above information is suflBcient to effect an election even when there are several candi- 

 dates may be best shown by an example. Suppose eighteen members («, ft, y, a, etc.) of a Section 

 consisting of nineteen members send in voting papers marked as above. Let there be, say, six can- 

 didates (A, B, C, etc.) for one, or two, or three vacancies, and let the following be the voting papers 

 tabulated, the dash indicating that the name has been scored out : 



" As seven members have scored out A's name, he has failed to secure the approval of two-thirds 

 of the Section, and must therefore be ruled out. The rest have all been approved as possible Fellows 

 by the necessary two-thirds. 



" Of these we may first determine which of the two, B and C, is preferred by the Society to the 



