202 Methods of Election. 



sented in any sense by the candidate they vote for; they 

 may merely be in the position of having a choice of evils. 



This plan has frequently been proposed for adoption in 

 England, and quite recently it has been proposed by more 

 than one speaker in the Legislative Assembly of Victoria. 

 The method is indeed a great improvement on the present 

 system of single voting, and if the election be merely a 

 party contest, and neither side runs more than two candidates, 

 the result cannot be wrong. But if these conditions be not 

 satisfied, the method may easily lead to an erroneous result. 

 The method may be used whatever be the number of candi- 

 dates; but it is sufficient to show that it is erroneous in the 

 case of three candidates only. This is at once done by a 

 further consideration of the example already given in 

 discussing the single vote method. For in that example C 

 is at the bottom of the poll, and, according to the present 

 system, he is rejected, and a second election is held to decide 

 between A and B, because no one has an absolute majority 

 at the first election. The result of the second election is, for 

 A, five votes; for B, seven votes; so that B wins. In order to 

 show that this result may be erroneous it is only necessary 

 to suppose that the five electors who voted for A prefer C 

 to B. For then, if the question 



That C is to be preferred to B 

 was put to the whole body of electors, it would be carried 

 by a majority of four. Now, we have already seen that the 

 question 



That C is to be preferred to A 

 would be carried by a majority of two. Hence, then, this 

 method leads to the rejection of a candidate who is 

 declared by a majority of the electors to be superior to each 

 of the other candidates. This method, then, clearly violates 

 the condition that the result must not be contrary to the 

 wishes of the majority. 



We may consider this example from a slightly different 

 point of view. In discussing it under the single vote 

 method, the important result arrived at was that A was 

 inferior to each of the other candidates, and, therefore, ought 

 to be at the bottom of the poll, instead of being at the top, 

 as he was, in consequence of his being opposed by two good 

 men, B and C. Thus, instead of excluding C, as in the 

 French method, A is the one who ought to be excluded. 

 Having arrived at the result that A is to be excluded, the 

 whole of the electors have now a right to decide between B 



