Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election

by John H. Humphreys

With the single transferable vote all that an elector is asked to do is to number candidates in the order of his preference. He need do no more than place the figure 1 against the name of his first choice. It is desirable that, he should proceed further, but abundant assistance, if he needs it, will be forthcoming from the party organizations and the press. But is there any considerable section of the English electorate that cannot perform this new duty? When being examined before the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Municipal Representation Bill, Mr. J. J. Stephenson, a member of the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, was asked, "Do you think that the system of voting proposed in the Bill would offer any difficulties to working men?" His reply was emphatic. "No. I have had some experience of working men, and I have never found them any slower in intelligence than any other part of the community—there are few working men who could not tell in order of merit the men they wanted to vote for. That is my personal experience gained after some years of work." Apart from this expression of opinion, we have this convincing testimony to the capacity of working men electors that they have been among the first to put improved electoral methods into practice. The Northumberland miners and Canadian Trades Unions are familiar with the use of the single transferable vote in the election of their officers; the Labour Party in Victoria has made use of preferential voting in the selection of its parliamentary candidates. Moreover, the daily work of artizans enables them readily and quickly to grasp the fundamental idea of proportional representation—the representation of parties in proportion to their strength—and the discussions on this question in Labour organizations have been at least as keen as, if not keener than, those in other political associations.

The doubts entertained as to the capacity of the electorate are not shared by those who have been officially responsible for the conduct of elections. Mr. S. R. Ginn, Clerk of the Peace for Cambridgeshire, in giving evidence before the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems, declared that "after one or two elections proportional representation ought to work as easily as the ballot. When the county electors got the extended franchise we had some difficulty with the ballot, but now it is simple, and proportional representation would be much the same." Speaking of the elaborate precautions taken in the organization of elections he expressed the opinion that the voters were more to be trusted than our machinery trusts them. It is difficult in the face of such evidence to understand on what grounds the English electors should be regarded as so greatly inferior to the electors of other countries that they cannot be trusted to make proper use of an improved electoral method. The charge of incapacity can only apply to the least intelligent section of the electorate, and it is astonishing that those who are so anxious to preserve the electoral privileges of the unintelligent voters should be supremely indifferent to the representation of the abler sections of the electorate. At present at every election the votes of thousands of intelligent citizens count for nothing. The electors who voted for Conservative candidates in Wales at the General Election in 1906 might have saved themselves the trouble. Their voting papers, although not spoiled in the technical sense, had no value. Proportional representation would have given a value to all these votes, and even if its introduction should result in an increase in the number of spoiled papers, this would be as nothing compared with the number of votes to which, for the first time, a value would be given. The Australian advocates of proportional representation aptly describe the reform as "effective voting." The elector knows that his vote will count, and thus every inducement is offered to him to take part in the choice of a representative. The vote becomes a more valuable possession to the elector under proportional representation than under the single-member system.

The returning officer's task.

With regard to the duties of returning officers, which in England fall upon the sheriffs of counties and the mayors of boroughs, it should be remembered that in the performance of these duties they are invariably assisted by an expert staff, and in judging of the difficulties which would attend the introduction of a new system, the fact that this expert staff would be available for the purpose of carrying out the details of an election must be taken into consideration. There would probably be no more difficulty in the introduction of a system of proportional representation than was experienced in introducing the greater change associated with the Ballot Act. On that occasion instructions as to their new duties were issued to returning officers, and similar instructions would no doubt be issued as to the practical organization of elections under a system of proportional representation. In Belgium a department of the Ministry of the Interior is set apart for the administration of electoral affairs. Complete instructions are issued from this department to the returning officers throughout the country, and the supervision which the department exercises over the conduct of elections doubtless contributes to the facility with which returning officers have carried out their duties under the proportional system.

The fears expressed lest returning officers should not be equal to the duties which would fall upon them under the system of the single transferable vote are not shared by the returning officers themselves. Mr. H. R. Poole, Under Sheriff for Somerset, who has had thirty years' experience in the conduct of elections, stated, in evidence before the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems, that were Somersetshire treated as a single constituency under the system of the single transferable vote he would be able to make the necessary arrangements for the counting of the votes with a staff of the same class of men as had assisted him hitherto. Speaking on behalf of the Under Sheriffs' Association, he added that "they saw no difficulty in carrying out any new electoral law which might be passed, and that they would always be glad to give their assistance and work as loyally as they could in support of anything which might be done." The officials of urban constituencies are not less competent. Perhaps the largest urban constituency which would be formed under a system of proportional representation would be that of Glasgow, and Mr. Alexander Walker, the Assessor of that city, who for twenty-four years was intimately associated with the organization of elections, has, after a careful examination of the details of the single transferable vote, stated that there are no practical difficulties in the way of applying the system to a constituency of the size of Glasgow.

The doubts as to the capacity of returning officers spring from an inadequate acquaintance with the difficulties which they already overcome in the conduct of elections. The duties which would devolve upon these officers under the single transferable vote system are not greater than have been undertaken and are undertaken in Great Britain to-day in connexion with the use of the cumulative vote. The Scottish School Boards are still elected under the latter system, and the following particulars of the elections in Glasgow on 2 April 1909, illustrate the admirable manner in which returning officers in this country, as elsewhere, carry out the tasks assigned to them. The whole city was polled as one constituency; fifteen members were to be elected, and each elector had fifteen votes, which he could distribute or cumulate as he pleased upon any of the twenty-one candidates nominated. There were on the roll 157,194 electors, of whom 40,778 took part in the election. The returning officer, in this case the Treasurer of the Glasgow School Board, had therefore to deal with over 600,000 votes, but he had to make provision for counting a much larger number of votes. Yet he had no difficulty in accomplishing successfully and expeditiously this gigantic task. He enlisted the services of over 250 clerks, and the whole process of extracting the details of the ballot papers was completed in the course of about five hours. Had the single transferable vote been employed the number of votes to be dealt with would have been 40,778 only, and although the papers would have had to be counted more than once, the task would not have been so large as that entailed by the cumulative vote, nor would it have been necessary to have engaged so large a staff. It is sometimes forgotten that returning officers take a pride in the perfecting of their arrangements for counting the votes. In introducing new methods into the counting of votes in the Glasgow Municipal elections, Mr. Walker prepared and issued very complete instructions to his staff, and took pains to see that the staff were fully prepared for its work, and there is not the least doubt that the town clerks and under-sheriffs would meet any changes in electoral methods with the determination to carry out their part of the work as successfully as possible. The first elections in Tasmania and the Transvaal with the single transferable vote proceeded with perfect smoothness, and this was due to the excellent preparations made by the returning officers.

Time required for counting votes.

One of the minor objections urged against proportional representation is that a considerable time must elapse between the close of the poll and the declaration of the result. It will not be possible to announce the figures on the day of the election. It is doubtless desirable that the result of an election should be ascertained without unnecessary delay, but it is far better to wait a day in order to obtain a true result than to adhere to an electoral system which gives a false result, and on which a government may have to be based for a period of five years. With most proportional systems only one day's delay occurs. The Under Sheriff of Somerset has estimated that it might take him two days before he could complete the return for that county, as it would probably take half the first day to verify the contents of the ballot boxes. On this point the verdict of the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems is as follows: "On the whole it is probably safe to say that in a constituency where 60,000 or 70,000 votes are cast, such as would have to be contemplated in this country, the results should be declared with efficient arrangements in the course of the second day after the poll. Where the constituency was compact, e.g., in the case of a large town like Birmingham or Manchester, the count of first votes could be finished on the night of the election, and the remaining operations of elimination and transfer completed in a long day's work on the following day; but a longer time would have to be allowed in the case of extensive rural districts."[1] It has also been alleged that there may be a greater number of petitions for the recounting of votes under the transferable vote system. But neither Tasmanian nor South African experience gives any ground for this statement, and as the Tasmanian Agent-General has pointed out, there is as much difference between the counting of votes under the improved system and under the existing rough and ready method as there is between book-keeping by single and book-keeping by double entry; the sorting of the votes is carefully checked at each operation, and all errors in the counting of votes must be rectified before any new stage in the process can be entered upon.

Fads and sectional interests.

The objection that a proportional system is too complex for English electors and returning officers thus completely breaks down. But it remains to consider whether the other objections which have been raised against proportional representation are of sufficient weight as to render its introduction undesirable. It is repeatedly asserted that proportional representation will encourage the undue representation of faddists and of sectional interests. For example, Professor Edward Jenks alleges that, "If we had such a vast constituency as Manchester, or Liverpool, under the proportional system we should certainly have a member for teetotalism, a member for vegetarianism and the like, and each of these, in all probability, would be instructed rigidly to oppose everything inconsistent with the special ideal of its constituents."[2] Now under a system of proportional representation a candidate in any constituency, were it Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow, would have to secure about 10,000 votes before he could be sure of being returned, and it is incredible that in any of these constituencies so large a number of voters would support candidatures such as those described by Professor Jenks, or that political feeling is so weak that Liberal, Conservative, and Labour candidates would be set aside in favour of candidates standing for a single interest only. The character of the objection shows that the true working of a system of proportional representation is completely misunderstood, for a proportional system reduces fads and sectional interests to their proper proportions; it is the existing system of single-member constituencies which confers excessive power upon insignificant sections of the whole. Were there 10,000 electors in Manchester who, as suggested, would regard vegetarianism as of greater importance than any other political question, and were these electors scattered throughout the city, then there would be an average of more than 1500 such electors in each of the existing divisions. A body of 1500 voters in a division of Manchester prepared to place their particular fad above all other political questions have now the power of determining the result of the election in that division; the 10,000 electors similarly minded would have the power of extracting a pledge in support of their proposals, and probably an effective pledge from the successful candidate in each division. Under a system of proportional representation they might possibly secure a few seats, but under the present system they can affect the election in every constituency. It is well known that a large number of members of Parliament pledge themselves at election time to the support of movements with which they are not fully in accord. Probably their seat depended upon the answer which they gave to the leaders of some small body of electors holding the balance in the constituency.