POPULAR SUFFRAGE 421 



Then they seek for these various electoral figures a common divisor, 

 in connection with the number of seats to be apportioned in the 

 particular constituency; it is called the electoral divisor, or briefly 

 the quorum, because it represents exactly the number of votes 

 which will qualify for one seat in the constituency. 



Next comes the allotment of seats. Each list of candidates receives 

 a number of them equal to the result of the division of its electoral 

 figure, or grand total, by the quorum. It is absolutely certain, under 

 this method, that any ticket of which the grand total vote, that is, 

 the popularity at the polls, reaches the quorum level once or several 

 times, shall carry one or more seats. The only tickets to be excluded 

 from the apportionment are those of factions apparently too eccen- 

 tric to obtain the necessary votes for a single seat. It is only fair, 

 for local or personal cliques are not to be reckoned as political parties. 



However, most of the tickets are likely to include a number of 

 candidates somewhat in excess of the number of seats allotted to the 

 several parties, and the problem arises of how to confer the seats 

 in order once more to represent proportionally the various shades 

 of sentiment which generally exist within a party, the more likely 

 so if a party may claim to be very large and really representative of 

 a national majority. 



The law, therefore, enacts that political parties shall nominate their 

 candidates on the ticket in a preferential order, which they may 

 determine as they please, and that the voters are at liberty either to 

 adopt and ratify, or to contradict and upset the said preferential 

 order by the manner of their vote. 



The combination is at once clever and simple. The voter who wishes 

 to indorse the preferential order simply marks his vote above the 

 ticket, and hands in a straight ticket or vote de liste. He, on the 

 contrary, who wishes to signify his preference for any given can- 

 didate and to advance him to the first rank on the ticket, marks his 

 vote in the margin of the particular candidate's name. His vote is 

 called a preferential vote. 



Both the straight vote and the preferential vote go to make up 

 the ticket's grand total or electoral figure, for they are both undoubt- 

 edly in favor of the party as a whole. 



After making the separate count of the straight votes and the 

 preferential votes on each ticket, for each name, the returning-officers 

 allot the seats to the candidates who have won the largest vote in 

 each ticket. 



First in rank are the names indorsed by the mass of straight 

 tickets: each of them is to receive from it a number of votes which, 

 added to his own preferential vote, will secure for him the necessary 

 quorum. It is only fair, after the indorsement of the order of 

 candidates by the bulk of the party. Such devolution of straight 



