THE CUMULATIVE VOTE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 196, 2 November 1871, Page 7

THE CUMULATIVE VOTE.

An explanation has been asked of the term " cumulative vote," as used in the recent debate in the Assembly on the Education Bill, and we publish the following extract on the subject : — " We trust that, in any reform of our electoral system, advantage will be taken of the experience acquired, both in England and America, of the admirable working of the cumulative principle. Theoretically it has received the approval of some of the greatest statesmen and thinkers of tbe present day because it is an eminently democratic principle, and is the inevitable corollary of universal suffrage ; since, as Mr. John Stuart Mill has pointed out, ' even the government of mere numbers requires in the strict sense of the word, unless that every number should tell in proportion to its amount' while there can be no true representation of tbe people, and no popular government, every minority in the constituency is represented by a minority in the representative body. But practically the principle has been tested both m the mother couutry and in the United States, and its working has given unqualified oatiefriction. As our readers are aware, the Imperial Education Act of 1870 contained a clause by which electors were enabled to give thoij* vofces cumulatively in electing members of school boards ; each elector being entitled to as many votes as there were members to be chosen and. being at liberty to bestow them all upon one candidate, or to distribute them otherwise *as be might think fit. In America, we find the cumulative vofce introduced into poliric.il, municipal, university, and mercantile elections, and approved of by men of all parties and all grades of society. As we mentioned some months since, the principle has been adopted in the New Constitution of the- State of Illinois, each constituency returning three members, and each elector possessing three votes, which he can either be^ stow upon one candidate, or divide between two, or distribute amon^ three. The result is, as acknowledged by Eepublicans and Democrats, that these two parties were never before so proportionally represented in the State Legislature. At the lrst election of •' overseers " for the University, of Harvard, a similar plan was resorted to with similar success. Not long ago a modification of ifc was tried in the State of New York, when six Associate Judges of her highest Court had to be elected ; each elector being allowed four votes. In Pennsylvania, last year, the Bloomsburg town election was conducted on the cumulative principle. Six councillors and a president had to be chosen. Under the old plan of majority voting, we are told, it is doubtful whether "a Single Democrat would bave been ctesen, because, nahv-j'fcListaucltng fckcU; party is the most numerous in the town, the working men— who constitute about a sixth of the ratepayers — have been accustomed to cast in their vote for the Eepublicans. But the cumulative vote led to tbe return of four Democrats, two Eepublicans, and one Republican working man ; and the Council, as thus constituted, represents with the utmost accuracy the state of feeling in. the town."