REPRESENTATION. 



REVEL, GIOVANNI P. 



681 



votes than there are persons to be elected, as, 

 if there are four members to be chosen, each 

 elector can only vote for three; if three, but 

 for two ; and so on. This system was applied 

 by act of Parliament of 1867 to those constit- 

 uencies returning three members, and to Lon- 

 don, which returns four. In a " three-cornered 

 constituency, 1 ' therefore, of 10,000 Liberals and 

 5,000 Conservatives, the Liberals give 5,000 

 votes to each of two candidates, and the Con- 

 servatives give their 5,000 to one candidate. 

 The members elected stand, therefore, two 

 Liberals to one Conservative, which is the pro- 

 portion of the popular vote. In 1870 an effort 

 was made to abrogate this method of election, 

 but by a decided vote Parliament insisted on 

 its retention. In 1867 the thirty-two dele- 

 gates at large to the New York State Conven- 

 tion were elected by the limited vote, no elec- 

 tor being allowed to vote for more than six- 

 teen candidates, and in 1870 the Judges of the 

 New York Court of Appeals were elected on 

 the same general principle. The limited vote 

 is also in use by law in the choice of jury 

 commissioners in Pennsylvania and judges of 

 election in New York, Pennsylvania, and 

 Ohio. The origination of the limited vote is 

 variously attributed to Prof. Fawcett and to 

 Lord John Russell, but the germ of the prin- 

 ciple is to be found in the Norwegian Con- 

 stitution of 1812. The list vote, or libre liste, 

 is claimed for a Mr. Thomas Gilpin, of Phila- 

 delphia, who is said to have worked the system 

 out in 1844, but it is ordinarily supposed of 

 Swiss origin. The elector votes not for A, B, 0, 

 and so on, but for list A, list B, etc., or the 

 Reform list, or Conservative list, or whatever 

 it may be, in which the names of the candi- 

 dates are ranged in a certain order of prefer- 

 ence. The entire number of votes cast is then 

 divided by the number of representatives to 

 be chosen, the quotient being the quota. The 

 number of votes for any list is divided by this 

 quota, and the quotient is the number of can- 

 didates on that list elected. Thus there are 

 four tickets; for list A, 5,000 votes; list B, 

 4,000 ; list 0, 3,000 ; list D, 2,000 ; total, 14,- 

 000 votes. There being fourteen representa- 

 tives to be elected, the quota is 1,000, and this 

 divided into the list A vote, gives five, into the 

 list B vote four, and so on as the number of 

 candidates on these tickets respectively who 

 are elected. This plan has nowhere been re- 

 duced to practice, though strongly urged in 

 some of the Swiss cantons. The substitute vote 

 divides the entire vote cast by the number of 

 persons to be elected to obtain the quota, and 

 allows any candidate having less or more than 

 a quota to cast that number of votes for a can- 

 didate of his own. Thus, there being 15,000 

 votes and five representatives to be elected, 

 the quota is 3,000 votes. The poll stands: 

 A, 7,000 votes; B, 4,000; C, 2,000; D, 1,000; 

 and E, 1,000. A is elected, with 4,000 votes 

 to spare ; B, with 1,000 votes to spare ; and 

 0, D, and E, fail of a quota. Three more mem- 



bers are required. A and B cast their surplus, 

 and C, D, and E, their entire vote, for three 

 members, and the three highest are elected to 

 take their seats with A and B. This plan was 

 originated by Mr. J. Francis Fisher, of Phila- 

 delphia, but has not been reduced to practice. 

 The proxy vote, also Mr. Fisher's suggestion, 

 is, that the elector authorizes any person by a 

 proxy, or power of attorney, to be his repre- 

 sentative, and he who can secure a quota of 

 proxies becomes ipso facto elect. Proxies in 

 excess of a quota, Mr. Fisher proposes the 

 member-elect shall be empowered to pass over 

 to some other candidate of his own party. 

 The New YorTc scheme, which is the proxy vote 

 up to this point, proposes that the member 

 secure all the quotas he can, and cast one vote 

 in the legislative body for each quota. Thus, 

 if he has votes to the number of five quotas, 

 he shall cast five votes, and so on. This plan 

 was proposed to the New York Convention 

 of 1867, in a memorial from the New York 

 Personal Representation Society, written by 

 Mr. Simon Sterne, of New York. None of these 

 latter propositions, or some others which have 

 been put forth, have been reduced to prac- 

 tice. The preferential vote has been found 

 to work well in Denmark, the limited vote in 

 England, and the cumulative or free vote in the 

 United States. Some of the leading works on 

 minority or proportional representation are: 

 "The Representation of Minorities of Electors 

 to act with the Majority in elected Assemblies," 

 by Thomas Gilpin, Philadelphia, 1844; "Ma- 

 jorities and Minorities, their Relative Rights," 

 by James Garth Marshall, London, 1853 ; " The 

 Machinery of Representation," by Thomas 

 Hare, London, 1859; "Reforme du Systeme 

 Electoral," par M. Ernest Naville, Geneve, 

 1865 ; " The Degradation of our Representa- 

 tive System and its Reform," by J. Francis 

 Fisher, Philadelphia, 1863; "Representative 

 Government," by Herbert Spencer. D. Apple- 

 ton & Co., New York, 1865 ; " On Representa- 

 tive Government," by John Stuart Mill, Lon- 

 don, 1865 ; " Reform of Municipal Elections," 

 by J. Francis Fisher, Philadelphia, 1866; "Les 

 Minorites et le Suffrage Universel," par Baron 

 de Layze, Paris, 1868 ; " A Treatise on the 

 Election of Representatives," by Thomas Hare, 

 London, 1869 ; " A Scheme for Proportional 

 Representation," by "Walter Bailey, London, 

 1869; "On Representative Government and 

 Personal Representation," by Simon Sterne, 

 Philadelphia, 1871 ; and " General Represen- 

 tation, or a Complete Readjustment and Modi- 

 fication of Mr. Hare's Plan," by Archibald E. 

 Dobbs, London, 1872. These works are mostly 

 special treatises on particular forms of voting 

 to secure proportional representation ; and, for 

 a manual of all the information upon the gen- 

 eral subject, the reader is referred to a work 

 prepared for publication by Salem Dutcher 

 of New York. 



REVEL, Rev. GIOVANNI PIETEI, D. D., a 

 Waldensian clergyman and professor, born in 



