Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election

by John H. Humphreys

CHAPTER VII

THE SINGLE TRANSFERABLE VOTE

"The law regulating the form of voting may be thus expressed. Every vote shall be given on a document setting forth the name of the candidate for whom it is given; and if the vote be intended, in the events provided for by this Act, to be transferred to any other candidate, or candidates, then the names of such other candidate, or candidates, must be added in numerical order."—Thomas Hare, The Election of Representatives (Fourth edition, 1873)

The single transferable vote was the distinguishing characteristic of the scheme of electoral reform proposed by Hare in 1857, but it was associated with the proposal to treat the whole kingdom as a single constituency. The later advocates of this new method of voting have recommended its application to constituencies of more moderate size, such as counties and large towns, and in this form the system has found a more ready acceptance and has been used with success in parliamentary elections.

Its present application.]

The first application of the single transferable vote took place in Denmark[1] in 1855, and it is still being used under the Constitution of 1867 in the election of members of the Danish Upper House. It is also used, as provided by the South Africa Act of 1909, in the elections of the Senate of the United Parliament and in the election of the Executive Committees of the Provincial Councils. In each of these cases the electorates are small, and the electors possess special qualifications. The Danish Upper House is elected in two stages, the transferable vote being used only in the final stage in which electors of the second degree alone take part. In South Africa the members of the first Senate were elected by members of the local parliaments of the several Colonies,[2] and the Executive Committees of the Provincial Councils by members of the Councils. The system has, however, been subjected to the test of popular parliamentary elections in Tasmania and of municipal elections in Pretoria and Johannesburg.

Ever since the publication of Hare's scheme, proposals for proportional representation have been associated in English-speaking countries with the idea of a transferable vote. Hare's proposals were warmly endorsed by John Stuart Mill first in Representative Government, and again in a memorable speech delivered in the House of Commons on 30 May 1867, when he moved an amendment to the Electoral Reform Bill.[3] Mill's amendment was defeated, but he retained to the full his faith in the great value and need of the improved method of voting, as the following passage from his Autobiography shows: "This great discovery," said he, "for it is no less, in the political art, inspired me, as I believe it has inspired all thoughtful persons who have adopted it, with new and more sanguine hopes respecting the prospects of human Society, by freeing the form of political institutions towards which the whole civilized world is manifestly and irresistibly tending from the chief part of what seemed to qualify and render doubtful its ultimate benefits. … I can understand that persons, otherwise intelligent, should, for want of sufficient examination, be repelled from Mr. Hare's plan by what they think the complex nature of its machinery. But any one who does not feel the want which the scheme is intended to supply; any one who throws it over as a mere theoretical subtlety or crochet, tending to no valuable purpose and unworthy of the attention of practical men, may be pronounced an incompetent statesman, unequal to the politics of the future."[4]

An English movement.]

The English advocates of proportional representation who have succeeded Mill have equally favoured the single transferable vote. This system was embodied in the Bill introduced into the House of Commons in 1872 by Mr. Walter Morrison, Mr. Auberon Herbert, Mr. Henry Fawcett, and Mr. Thomas Hughes; it was advocated in the important debates which took place in the House of Commons in 1878 and 1879; and the Proportional Representation Society, founded in 1884 in view of the Electoral Reform Bill of that year, created, under the leadership of Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Leonard Courtney, a strong movement in its favour. Owing to the agreement between the leaders of the Liberal and Conservative parties in favour of single-member constituencies this movement had no immediate result. Since its revival in 1905 the Proportional Representation Society has continued to press the claims of the single transferable vote, and with some success. The practicability of the system was admitted by the Select Committee of the House of Lords appointed to examine the Municipal Representation Bill introduced into that House by Lord Courtney in 1907; the model elections organized by the Society in 1906, 1908, and 1910,[5] have to some extent familiarized the British public with its details; it found, as already mentioned, a place in the South African Constitution of 1909, whilst the Royal Commission on Electoral Systems reported in 1910 that "of schemes for producing proportional representation we think that the transferable vote would have the best chance of ultimate acceptance."

The system in brief.]