BALLOT ACT (1872) AMENDMENT BILL, (Hansard, 3 July 1907)

§ *MR. DUNN (Cornwall, Camborne)

asked leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Ballot Act of 1872, and to provide for the taking of a second ballot at Parliamentary and other elections. He did not think there was any apology needed for his action in view of the fact that they were on the eve of a very interesting election, which in itself demonstrated the necessity for some such amendment of the law as he was proposing. The mischief with which he sought to deal was a growing one. At one time there were only two-Parties—historic Parties—in the State—the Liberal and the Conservative. Then there grew up the Nationalist Party, confined, no doubt, to Ireland; and now they had a fourth Party the Labour Party, and the result in the pending election would undoubtedly be that the candidate who was elected would not represent the majority of the electors voting at the election. The other day there was a contest at Cockermouth, the result of which was proclaimed a great victory for the Tariff Reform Party, yet the successful candidate at such election did not poll a majority of the electors who voted. Even the Conservative Party were divided between Free Traders and Tariff Reformers, and these differences would eventually break through the walls of the caucus and claim a settlement at the polls. That was the mischief which this Bill sought to remedy, During the last twenty years several attempts had been made in that House to remedy this-matter. Five Bills had been introduced. A Bill for the provision of second ballots was introduced in 1894, and in 1895 the same Bill was reintroduced. This Bill provided for a second ballot to be taken between the two candidates obtaining the highest number of votes where the first of such candidates had not an absolute majority. In 1898 another attempt was made, and he noticed that the Bill was presented by the President of the Board of Trade and the President of the Board of Education; therefore, he asked for their sympathetic 721 consideration of this present attempt. The Bill of 1898 provided for a second election. If the top candidate had not an absolute majority, all the candidates had to go to the second poll. He must mention a Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Tyneside last session dealing with transferable votes—a most excellent and useful attempt to alter the existing system. The great objection to the schemes of the previous Bills to which he had just referred, with the notable exception of that of the hon. Member for Tyneside, was that a second election was necessitated with all the turmoil and expense connected therewith. That had always proved a great objection to the adoption of any system of second ballot. The Bill of the hon. Member for Tyneside obviated the second election, but the method adopted therein was not of voting by cross, but of voting by numbers. It would be difficult probably to induce the House to abandon the system of voting by cross, a system which had become rooted in this country, in favour of other systems, however advantageous they might be in theory. The present Bill retained the system of voting by cross and also obviated the necessity of a second election. The mode adopted was exceedingly simple. The voter would be provided with a ballot paper, but such ballot paper would have upon it two copies of the ballot form, one copy headed "First ballot" and the other headed " Second ballot." There would be but one paper, not two papers. When a voter bad recorded his vote, exactly as at present, upon that portion of his "ballot paper entitled "First ballot" he could, if he desired—the matter was quite optional—vote upon that portion of his paper entitled " Second ballot," for the purpose of indicating which candidate he would desire elected if the candidate for whom he had already voted was unfortunate enough to find 'himself at the bottom of the poll. This procedure was an exceedingly simple one, and its adoption would in no way place upon the voters any complicated or difficult system of voting. They next came to the count. The procedure here might be a little more difficult but it would be undertaken by experts, and consequently they need have but little fear of difficulties or complications arising. In order to explain matters they would 722 assume an election in a single Member constituency where there were three candidates. They would suppose that the three candidates were Brown, Smith and Robinson—he would not define their politics, but leave hon. Members to do that. When the voting papers were unfolded the count would proceed in exactly the same way as at present, the votes given in the first instance upon that portion of the ballot paper entitled "First ballot" being counted first. The result he would assume to be as follows:—

Brown	2,642
Smith	2,800
Robinson	2,000

It would thus be observed that 8,442 effective votes have been recorded. There would be, of course, a few spoilt papers, but no heed need be taken of them. An absolute majority of those who had effectively voted would be 4,222, that was half, 4,221, plus 1. If Brown had obtained an absolute majority he would be declared elected and there would be an end of the matter, but as would be seen, Brown had not obtained an absolute majority. As a consequence, Robinson would be excluded from the poll under the operation of this Bill. His papers would be examined, and the votes given thereon in the alternative would be added to Brown and Smith, as the case might be. For instance, one voter would have voted for Robinson on his first ballot, and Brown on his second. This would now be counted as a vote for Brown. Another voter would have done quite the opposite, namely, for Robinson in the first instance, and Smith in the second. This would be counted as a vote for Smith. A good many voters would probably not have taken the trouble to fill up their second ballot at all, and these would be treated as blank. Of the 2,000 votes, however, given to Robinson in the first instance, they found that the second ballot gave votes as follows: for Smith, 1,000; for Brown, 500; blank or spoilt, 500. These 1,000 votes added to the original votes given to Smith made his total 3,800, and the 500 votes thus given to Brown with the votes already counted for him make his total 3,142, the final poll therefore being:

Smith	3,800
Brown	3,142

Smith thus being declared elected by a majority over Brown of 658 votes. Under the present system Smith would not have 723 been elected at all, but Brown would have been elected. And if he had been a member of the Tariff Reform League it was presumable that his election would have been treated as a great Tariff Reform victory. It might be said that giving a voter two ballot forms was likely to enhance the number of spoilt papers, but provisions were contained in the Bill to render these chances as remote as possible. Although the procedure, both for voting and counting, was a simple one in practice it was a difficult one to put into legal language, and he would therefore urge hon. Members to forgive any apparent intricacy in the wording of the Bill should the House sanction its introduction. He was not so sanguine as to believe that the Bill would become law this session. Ho only hoped that before long the House would seriously take into consideration the question of a second ballot. The present was certainly a time when the House should speak the will of the country, and if there were any Members present elected by minorities instead of majorities the usefulness of the House as a means of ' expressing the popular will would be impaired.