Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election

by John H. Humphreys

The new constituencies required by the South Africa Act of 1909 have been arranged with the utmost care,[13] but had the delegates to the South African National Convention adhered to their original proposal to abandon single-member constituencies, they would have secured for South Africa, among other invaluable benefits, complete security from the gerrymander, any possibility of which begets suspicion and reacts in a disastrous way upon political warfare. The gerrymander is nothing more or less than a fraudulent practice. But the United States is not the only country in which such practices take place. Their counter-part in Canada was described by Sir John Macdonald as "hiving the grits," and even in England, without any change of boundaries, practices have arisen within the last few years which have had their birth in the same motives that produced the American gerrymander. In boroughs which are divided into more than one constituency there is a considerable number of voters who have qualifications in more than one division. A man may vote in any division in which he has a qualification, but in not more than one. He may make his choice. In Edinburgh for many years, on both sides of politics, there has been a constant transfer of voters from one register to another in the hopes of strengthening the party's position in one or other division. It was even alleged that the precise moment of a vacancy in West Edinburgh (May 1909) was determined by the desire to ascertain the strength of the Unionist party in that division, to discover how many Unionist votes should be transferred for the purpose of improving Unionist prospects or of defeating the designs of their opponents. This allegation may be wholly unfounded, but the single-member system encourages such a proceeding, and the statement at least indicates how the voting power of a division may be manipulated. The mere possibility of such an action arouses the suspicion that it has taken place. Similar practices have, it is stated, been pursued in Bristol. Votes have been transferred from one division, where one of the parties was in a hopeless minority, for the purpose of strengthening its position in other divisions. An examination of the figures of the election in Birmingham in 1906 shows that in one division, Birmingham East, the Unionists narrowly escaped defeat. They won by a majority of 585 only. In the other divisions the Unionists won by very large majorities. Must not the possibility of transferring surplus votes in strong constituencies to strengthen the position in weak constituencies prove an irresistible temptation to the agents responsible for the success of the party? They are entitled to make use of all the advantages at their disposal. In this way a new and more subtle form of the "gerrymander" has arisen in England, and if we are to redeem English political warfare from proceedings which approximate very closely to sharp practices, we must so amend our electoral system as to give due weight to the votes not only of the majority but of the minority as well.

The Block Vote

The analysis of the results of majority systems would not be complete without some reference to the use of the "block" vote in the London County Council, the London Borough Council, and other elections. In the London County Council elections each constituency returns two members, and each elector can give one vote to each of two candidates. The Metropolitan boroughs are divided into wards returning from three to nine members, each elector giving one vote apiece to candidates up to the number to be returned. [14] Both in the London County and London Borough elections the majority, as in a single-member constituency, can obtain the whole of the representation. All the defects which arise from parliamentary elections again appear, and often in a more accentuated form. The figures of the two London County elections, 1904, 1907, disclose a catastrophic change in representation similar to that which characterized the General Election of 1906:—

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTION, 1904

Seats in
Parties. Votes. Seats proportion
Obtained. to Votes.

Progressive and Labour 357,557 83 64
Moderate 287,079 34 52
Independent 12,940 1 2

Progressive majority over
Moderates 70,478 49 12

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTION, 1907
Seats in
Parties. Votes. Seats proportion
Obtained. to Votes.

Moderate 526,700 79 67
Progressive and Labour 395,749 38 50
Independent 6,189 1 1

Moderate majority over
Progressive and Labour 130,951 41 17