Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election

by John H. Humphreys

Total 890,990 200 200.0

An exactly mathematical distribution is, of course, not to be expected from this, any more than from any other method which does not adopt the system of treating a whole country as a single constituency. As to the mechanism of the system it only remains to add that the process of counting was found to be very lengthy. In the Nyland division, where the results were ascertained sooner than in any other case, the elections were held on 15 and 16 March, but the result was not announced until the 2 April. To people accustomed to the greater rapidity of ordinary electoral methods this will seem a serious drawback. Possibly improved arrangements may shorten this long interval between the elections and the announcement of the result.

It would obviously be premature to attempt to estimate the political effects of the Finnish system as compared with other systems of proportional representation.

Elector's freedom of choice.

The Finnish system has been in operation since 1907, and the whole political circumstances of Finland have undergone so many striking changes, and so many new factors are at work that to disentangle particular causes and effects is an impossibility. But plainly the Finnish machinery gives a greater freedom to the elector than the Belgian system. The Finnish system in fact encourages the electors to arrange the candidates of a party in the order preferred by the electors themselves, and not in the order dictated by the party managers. There is no "party ticket" for which the elector can vote blindfold. He must choose the schedule that he prefers; he can even rearrange that schedule, or, if he chooses, can make one of his own. No doubt the schedule itself is ready made for him, but it contains three names only, and is not the equivalent of the Belgian "list." On the other hand, the elector who chooses to vote for a schedule within a compact adds, whether he likes it or not, to the total votes of the compact, and so may help to return not the candidate of his choice, but the candidates preferred by the majority of the party with which he is in sympathy. An illustration of this fact may be taken from the Nyland poll. The old Finnish party were alive to the possibilities of the situation, and combined their lists with great skill so as to attract votes. They placed their favourite candidates in nearly every schedule, but not at the head of the schedule. At the head of the schedule they placed some man of local popularity, usually a peasant proprietor, whose name was not repeated in many, if any, other schedules. Thus the local favourite attracted votes to the schedule, but in the race for the highest numbers of comparison the candidates whose names appeared on few schedules were left behind those whose names appeared on many schedules even in the lower places.

A portion of the official ballot paper showing the compact put forward by the Swedish People's Party is printed on the opposite page. In one corner of the ballot paper was a blank schedule in the following form.

THE ELECTOR who does not approve of any of the preceding lists should write here the names of his candidates in the order in which he wishes them to be elected.

CANDIDATES

Name…………………………………………….

Profession or Occupation…………………………..