Proportional Representation: A Study in Methods of Election

The Liberal, Conservative, and Labour parties are all agreed that a large measure of electoral reform is long overdue, but hitherto the various parties have contended only for s...

"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 vo...

It was stated in the first chapter that the rise of the Labour Party as a political force, with an organization wholly independent of those of the older parties, would make a ch...

Although the fear lest proportional representation should weaken the party system is now the most serious obstacle in the way of its acceptance by the practical politician, yet...

"Parties form and re-form themselves; they come together, dissolve, and again come together; but in this flux and reflux a stability reigns such as we observe amid similar pheno...

List systems of proportional representation are based upon the block vote or _scrutin de liste_--the method of election generally used on the Continent of Europe and in the Unit...

It cannot be a matter for surprise that the methods of election adopted in the early stages of representative institutions fail to respond to the needs of the more complex polit...

"I therefore agree that it is impossible to defend the rough and ready method which has been hitherto adopted as a proper or satisfactory explanation of the representative princ...

The first and immediate consequence arising from present electoral methods is the growth of false impressions of the true tendencies of public opinion, impressions that are stil...

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority that succeeds by force or fraud in carrying elections. To break off that point is to avert the danger. The com...

"It is necessary," said Burke, "to resort to the theory of government whenever you propose any alteration in the frame of it, whether that alteration means the revival of some f...

List methods of proportional representation have been favoured on the Continent, the transferable vote in English-speaking countries, and the question naturally arises, whence t...

Electoral problems awaiting solution--Simplification of the franchise--Redistribution--Should be automatic--Secures neither one vote one value nor true representation--The probl...

Its present application--An English movement--The system in brief--Large constituencies--The single vote--The vote made transferable--How votes are transferred--The quota--A sim...

The Belgian electoral system--The Franchise--Compulsory voting--Partial renewal of Chamber--The presentation of lists--The act of voting--The allotment of seats to parties--The...

Three-cornered contests--The second ballot--Experience in Germany, Austria, Belgium, France--The bargainings at second ballots in France--The "Kuh-Handel" in Germany--The positi...

Proportional representation and the two-party system--Burke's view of party and party discipline--Narrow basis fatal to a large party--Proportional representation and party disc...

False impressions of public opinion--become the basis of legislative action--Loss of prestige by the House of Commons--Unstable representation--Weakened personnel--Degradation o...

The exaggeration of majorities--The disfranchisement of minorities--The under-representation of majorities--A "game of dice"--The importance of boundaries--The "gerrymander"--Th...

The spread of Representative Government--The House of Commons and sovereign power--The demand for complete sovereignty--Complete sovereignty demands complete representation--Str...

The essential features of a sound electoral method--Constituencies returning several members--Proportional representation of the electors--Experience in Denmark, Switzerland, Be...

The question of practicability--The elector's task--The returning officer's task--Time required for counting the votes--Fads and sectional interests--The representation of local...