THE ELECTIONS

Southland Times, Issue 18837, 2 June 1920, Page 5

THE ELECTIONS

ANALYSIS OF THE VOTING. CHRISTCHURCH PAPER’S FIGURES. According to the corrected returns as presented in a recent Gazette. 550’,327 votes were cast in European constituencies at the General Election in New Zealand last December, of which 542,740 wen? valid votes. There were 133,093 electors who did not vote, so that only 80,5 per cent, of the electorate exercised its voting privileges. The election was conducted on the primitive system of “first past the post, wins,” and out of the 76 candidates elected by European constituencies no fewer than 27 were returned by a minority of the electors voting in their respective electorates. The parties shared these minority members as follows; — Reform Party 15 Liberal Party 7 Labour Party 4 Independents 1 27 An analysis of the votes cast for the various parties gives the following interesting result; — NEW ZEALAND.

The votes cast for elected Reform candidates totalled 158,355, or 29.17 per cent, of the valid votes cast. Had the election been conducted on a scientific basis the state of the parties in the now Parliament would have been approximately as follows; Reformers 28 Liberals 21 Labourites 19 Independents 8 Total 76

Instead of this total under the archaic system 'of election adopted, the Reform Party gained 45 seats, and other parties were Qotrespondingly reduced in representation. The government of the country is in the hands of representatives whose political convictions arc shared by only 36.3 per cent, of the voters, constituting 24.7 per cent, of the electorate.—Lyttelton Times.

No. of Percentage Votes Cast, of Total. Reform 197,220 36.3 Liberal 153,941 28.4 Labour 135.355 25.0 Independent 55,224 10.3 Total 542,740 100.0 NORTH ISLAND. Reform 135.937 42.3 Liberal 72,745 22.7 Labour 77,134 24.0 Independent 35,244 11.0 Total 321,060 100.0 SOUTH ISLAND. Reform 61.283 27.7 Liberal 81.196 36.7 Labour 58,221 26.2 Independent 20,980 9.4 Total 221,680 100.0