Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election

by John H. Humphreys

The returning officer had then to determine which candidates on each list should be declared successful. In the Carlskrona election this task was extremely simple, for the large majority of the voters had accepted the ballot papers provided for them by their parties. No less than 19,756 votes out of a total of 20,334 had been received for the Moderate list as printed by the party organization. The totals for each candidate were quickly ascertained. Moreover, it was possible to select all the successful candidates by the rule of the order of preference. More than six-sevenths of the Moderate votes having been recorded for the list as printed, the first six names on the list were declared elected. Of the Liberal votes, 8118 out of a total of 8732 were recorded for the party list as printed, and as this number constituted more than two-thirds of the total, the first two names on the list were declared elected. With regard to the Labour party, 3580 out of a total of 3617 votes had been recorded for the party list, and the first candidate on the list was therefore declared elected.

_The election of suppléants.

In common with all continental systems, supplementary members (suppléants) were chosen for the purpose of taking the place of an elected member who might die or retire before the council had run its course. The method adopted in Sweden is peculiar to itself. In Belgium the same rules serve for the election of the suppléants as for the election of members, and they are called upon to serve in the order in which they stand at the declaration of the poll. In Sweden it is held that each elected member must have a suppléant, or deputy, special to himself. The method of selection may be illustrated from the Carlskrona election. The candidate who was to be regarded as suppléant to Burgomaster Holmdahl (the first on the Moderate list) was chosen as follows: Holmdahl had received 20,334 votes, his name having appeared on every ballot paper of the Moderate party; the votes recorded for the unelected candidates on these papers were ascertained, the result being:—

Neuendorfs . . . . . 20,334
von Otter . . . . . 20,242
Strömberg . . . . . 19,913
Mattsson . . . . . 20,119
Johansson . . . . . 20,237
Andrén . . . . . . 20,170

Neuendorff being the candidate who had received the highest number of votes on these papers, was declared elected as suppléant to Holmdahl. A suppléant for Nordström, the second elected member, was then chosen from among the remaining five non-elected members. Nordström's votes were 20,235, and the votes recorded for the non-elected members on the same papers were:—

von Otter 20,143
Strömberg 19,913
Mattsson 20,055
Johansson 20,195
Andrén 20,071

Johansson, being highest with 20,195 votes, was declared suppléant to
Nordström.

This method of choosing the suppléant seems to be unsatisfactory. The party as such does not determine who shall be called upon to fill a vacancy in its ranks; whether a non-elected member succeeds to a vacancy as a suppléant depends very largely on accident. A good illustration occurred in the selection of a suppléant from the Labour list. The party's candidates were as follows:—

Kloo.
Karlsson.
Ostergren.
Olsson.
Ek.
Johansson.
Jensen.
Fagerberg.
Pettersson.

The first candidate on the list had been declared elected, and obviously, in the opinion of the party, the next favourite was Karlsson, and had there been a second seat awarded to the list Karlsson would have been declared elected. In determining, however, whether he should be declared elected as a suppléant, his position on the list did not count, and as the party list had been voted for without alteration by most of the Labour voters, five of the non-elected candidates were credited with the same number of votes. The choice of the suppléant was made by lot, and fell in this case upon Johansson, the sixth name on the list. It may be said that there is; considerable dissatisfaction with the method of electing suppléant candidates, and the Stockholm Dagblad, in its issue of the 29 May 1910, stated that the choice of suppléant, although there might have been many thousand votes given to every candidate, depended upon so small a difference in the totals received by each that even one ballot paper might determine the result. This is a detail in the system that can easily be remedied, and steps are already being taken to bring the election of suppléants into agreement with the election of ordinary members.