PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1072, 20 July 1912, Page 3

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

There was a good attendance of the public in the supper room of the Town Hal! last night, to listen to the address on proportion- representation, by R. McN: . Esq. The lecture was one of a series to be held under the auspices of the Foxton Literary and Debating Society. Dr. Mandl occupied the chair and in intrr’.;cing * 1 ” —~Md he remembered Mr -<ab when standing as a candidate for Parliament, many years ago, advocating that members should be returned to Parliament under such a system as he would advocate that night. Mr McNab, in opening, referred to the various systems in vogue in different parts of the world for returning the people’s representatives to Parliament, He explained how, under the present system, thousands of people were disfranchised and the minority were not represented. Under the proportional system of voting every vote had its value. He explained how the system would work in an electorate where four members were to be returned out of twelve candidates. The audience was grouped into three party supporters, representing Liberals, Unionists and Nationalists. The Liberals represented a majority of those grouped, the Unionists a less proportion and the Nationalists a still less proportion. Ballot papers were distributed and when the papers were collected and counted it was found that two Liberals, one Unionist and one Nationalist had been returned. Whereas, under the single vote system, the Liberals would have captured all the seats. The method adopted in the proportional system ot voting suggested by the speaker, is to divide the number of voters entitled to vote by the number of candidates to be returned. For instance, say a constituency of 12,000 electors had to return three members, each candidate would have to receive 4000 votes. If one candidate received, say six thousand votes —two thousand in excess of the number required—such excess would be re-distributed among the voters’ second choice. When the second candidate received his quota, his excess would go to the voters’ third choice and so on until the required number were elected. The votes for those candidates which were not sufficient in the first count to put them m the running, were transferred to the voters’ second choice. All that was required of the voter was to mark his or her preference on the ballot paper in the order desired. The returning officer did the rest. A number of questions were asked and answered. Mr McNab said that a system such as this would possibly be used in connection with the election of members to the Upper House.

On the motion of Mr Hornblow, the lecturer was accorded a very hearty vote of thanks, which was carried by acclamation.

A similar vote to the Chairman terminated a very instructive meeting.