Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election

by John H. Humphreys

These figures doubtless show that even in West Australia, when the transferable vote is applied to single-member constituencies, a considerable number of the electors will not indicate a preference for any candidate other than for that of their own party, but similar abstentions occur at the second ballots in France, where it is found that a considerable percentage of the electors usually refrain from going to the poll on the second occasion. The Labour Party in Queensland has sometimes issued instructions to its supporters to abstain from marking preferences for the purpose of keeping the party solid and absolutely separate from other parties. Such action necessarily increases the percentage of abstentions. Nor can any remedy for action of this kind be found in making the marking of preferences compulsory. Even in Belgium, where "compulsory voting" is in force, the compulsion only extends to an enforced attendance at the polling place. The act of voting is not compulsory, for a blank unmarked ballot paper may be dropped into the voting urn. The compulsory marking of preferences when the elector has none may still further vitiate the results of elections in a most undesirable way, whilst abstention from preference marking merely deprives those abstaining of a privilege which they might exercise if they chose. It is quite conceivable that an elector after voting for the candidate of his choice may be indifferent to the fate of the remaining candidates and, if so, an enforced expression of opinion on his part would not be of any real value, and should not be counted in determining the result of an election.

Mr. Deakin's failure to carry the alternative vote.

Does then the alternative, or contingent vote, as used in West Australia, solve the problem of three-cornered fights—the problem of three distinct parties seeking representation in Parliament? When a single seat is being contested it is doubtless sufficient if the member elected represents the average views of his constituents, but a General Election based on such a system would yield results no more satisfactory than those of the second ballots. Neither the second ballot nor the contingent vote are acceptable after their true effects are understood, a fact which explains the failure of Mr. Deakin's Government to carry their Preferential Ballot Bill in 1906. Several of the seats held by the Australian Labour Party—as in the elections of Jarrow, Colne Valley, and Attercliffe—were won by a minority vote; the Melbourne Age published the following list of seven constituencies in Victoria where Labour members represented only a minority of the voters:—

Non-Labour Labour
Constituencies. Votes. Votes

Geelong . . . . 1,704 1,153
Ballarat West . . . 2,038 1,034
Jika Jika . . . . 1,366 1,183
Williamstown . . . 1,931 1,494
Bendigo West . . . 1,654 1,248
Grenville . . . . 1,457 1,268
Maryborough . . . 1,929 1,263

Totals . . . 12,079 8,643

Preferential voting would have placed these seats at the mercy of a combination of the other parties, and, somewhat alarmed by the too eager advocacy of the measure on the part of the Age, the Labour Party, which had voted for the second reading of the Bill, procured its defeat on the first division in committee. It is impossible to defend the present system by which the Labour Party, which numbered two-fifths of the voters in these seven constituencies, obtained all seven seats, but, on the other hand, it cannot be alleged that a system of preferential voting, which would have enabled the other parties to have deprived these electors of all representation, was a satisfactory solution of the difficulty. In neither case would justice be done to the claims of three parties to representation.

Probable effect of the alternative vote in England.

A consideration of the possible results of the introduction into the English electoral system of second ballots or the transferable vote in single-member constituencies will show that neither reform will solve the problem presented by the rise of a new party. It is obvious that the Labour Party could by a combination of Conservative and Liberal voters be deprived of representation in all constituencies save those in which they had the support of an absolute majority of the electorate. Nor would the conditions remain the same as they are to-day. In many constituencies in which the Liberals have allowed a straight fight to take place between Tariff Reform and Labour candidates, the Liberal Party would intervene; and should combinations at the polls result in the defeat of Labour candidates, what would be the effect upon the temper and spirit of Labour voters who found themselves under an "improved" voting system less able than before to secure representation in Parliament? Would there not possibly arise a disposition on the part of the disfranchised minority to pursue on the next occasion a wrecking policy such as has distinguished the second ballots both in Belgium and in France? Even apart from precipitate action which might arise as the result of ill-feeling, the alternative vote would afford an opportunity for a predetermined policy on the part of a minority to create dissension between the opponents. The manipulation of the alternative vote would be easily understood. An angry minority of electors could be instructed beforehand to use it, as we know from experience they have used the second ballot on the Continent. Would politicians, following an exclusive electoral policy, hesitate to avail themselves of the weapon which the alternative vote would place in their hands for the purpose of annihilating any section they especially disliked, in the same way as the Liberal Party in Belgium was destroyed by Catholic and Socialist combinations at the second ballots? We cannot escape the conclusion which all experience yields, that both these electoral methods place the representation of any party at the mercy of either temporary or permanent coalitions of other parties. To an even greater degree than under the existing régime, the result of a General Election would fail to reflect public opinion.

The advocates of the alternative vote assume, with but little justification, that this method will be free from the bargainings that have distinguished the second ballots on the Continent. The bargainings naturally take place between the first and second ballots, because that is the most suitable time for the striking of bargains, for the strength of parties is definitely known. With the alternative vote such transactions would take place before the election, upon the basis of the probable position of parties as ascertained by the party agents. Even if experience should show that the transferable vote did not lend itself so easily as the second ballot to the perpetration of those bargains which are detested by all Continental statesmen, yet it is probable that the successful candidate would, like the deputy elected under the system of second ballots, become "the prisoner of the minority." The figures of the election would disclose to what extent the member returned had owed his success to the smallest minority. This minority would be only too conscious that it held the key of the situation, and the member would doubtless be exposed to the same intolerable pressure as has been brought to bear upon members of the French Chamber of Deputies. In any case the position of the elected member would be most unsatisfactory. Were a Labour member returned with the assistance of Tariff Reform votes, would not the parliamentary relations between the various parties become as embittered as when the Unified Socialist candidate at Uzès was enabled by Reactionary votes to capture a Radical seat? What recriminations would accompany the election of a Conservative candidate whose victory was due to Labour votes given to him as an expression of resentment at the action of Liberals in other constituencies? What would be the relations between the Liberal and Labour parties if in a constituency now represented by a Labour member, a Liberal candidate, with the aid of Conservative votes, displaced him? These strained relations would not only exist within the House of Commons itself, but also and perhaps in a more pronounced form in the constituencies themselves. Such conditions would not only invite the sarcasm of all critics of democracy, they would produce the much more serious effect of crippling the successful working of parliamentary institutions.