Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/208

 the voting papers. By adding up the number of votes given for each candidate, as is done at the foot of every column in the above table,—the state of the poll at that particular polling place would be known at any moment. If a certain number of lines were ruled horizontally across the tabular book, and each number written on one line, as soon as each column was full the number of votes shown in it would be ascertained even without the labour of counting. The computation of the entire result, when the register and voting papers are brought to the place of election, at which the returning officer or his assessor officiates, would be purely mechanical, and the work of a few minutes.

[In a modification of this system, in which it is proposed that the votes for the 298 constituencies of England and Wales should be transmitted to an Enumeration Office in London, to be under the superintendence of the Clerk of the Crown, and presided over by the chief officers of State, the following tabular form of record and publication is suggested. It is here introduced as suitable and convenient for the use of the registrars, in a later stage of the computation, under the system now proposed:—