PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 491 



(c) It ia possible for a party polling a minority of the votes in 



the country to obtain a majority of the seats. 



(d) As there is no provision for a second ballot a member can 



be, and frequently is, elected on a minority vote. 



niustrations of all these anomalies are well known to all of you. 



The Hare System. 



This represents an attempt to deal with the anomalies of the 

 existing electoral system by means of securing the better represen- 

 tation of minorities. Recognising that the bad results we have 

 just been reviewing arose from the disfranchising of the minorities 

 in a single-member electorate, Mr. Thomas Hare proposed in his 

 first publication, as the foundation of his system, that the whole of 

 the United Kingdom should be constituted one vast electorate. 

 This would have the effect of bringing electors together, not by 

 geographical association, but by community of ideas. A certain 

 number of votes was to be determined as being sufficient to elect a 

 candidate, and this was to be called a quota. Candidates who re- 

 ceived more than the quota were to yield up their surplus votes to 

 others, whilst candidates who had the least amount of support were 

 elimiinated by transferring their votes to other candidates. The 

 transfer was to be effected according to the wishes of the elector, 

 who was given a single transferable vote, which he could pass on to 

 the different candidates by marking his paper with the numbers 

 1, 2, 3, &c., thus showing the order of his preferences. The pro- 

 cess of transferring votes and eliminating candidates in a consti- 

 tuency returning ;; members goes on until either // candidates have 

 obtained the quota — in which case the}'^ are elected — or there are 

 k -\- 1 candidates left to fill k vacancies, in v/hich case the fir«t 

 k are elected and the last rejected. 



In the subsequent writings the plan was modified in details. 

 It was recognised that the work of marking preferences and count- 

 ing would be prohibitive if England was to be polled as one elec- 

 torate, and it is now submitted that electorates returning about ten 

 members each would be preferable. The cardinal principles of the 

 scheme, however, remained unchanged. Tliese are — (a) first and 

 foremost, the principle of massed electoral divisions, returning a 

 large number of members; and (b) the scheme of the quota-excess 

 and transfer of the lowest excluded candidates' votes according to 

 the scale of preference laid down by the elector. 



When dealing with the transfer of the quota-excess, a point 

 arises which has resulted in great divergences in practice amongst 

 the supporters of the system. Suppose that A has 5,000 votes and 

 the quota is 4,000. According to the principle of the Hare system 



