Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/209

 The names of the constituencies, as well as the surnames of the candidates, to be printed in alphabetical order, and in the last column to the right the total number of votes given to each candidate to be entered, and in the lowest line the total number of votes given in each constituency.

Under this modification the returning officers have only to receive and transmit the votes. Mr. Dobbs, after adopting as a basis that each elector shall have one vote, and must vote in the constituency where he resides, but that he may vote for any candidate in the kingdom, proceeds,—"The votes of each part of the United Kingdom are now conveyed to the Enumeration Offices in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Take London. As soon as the poll closes, the deputy returning officer, in the presence of the public, covers and seals the slit in the lid of his box. He then writes on a form the number of voting cards he has deposited in it; each clerk counts in the stamps in his register, and enters the amount on the form. The two numbers, if one clerk, or the number entered by the deputy and the total of the different clerks' number, should agree. Under no circumstances may a deputy open the box, or allow it to be opened. He is responsible for the conveyance of the box and written form to the chief returning officer of the constituency, who is waiting their arrival at an appointed place. As they come in, they are opened in the presence of the chief officer, and of such deputies, magistrates, election agents, and electors as may choose to be present, and transferred into one box sufficiently large to contain them, which, when it has received the contents of all the boxes, is locked and sealed. It is then delivered into the custody of the post officer who gives receipt, and thereupon the Post Office becomes responsible for its safe delivery at the Enumeration Office in London. The chief returning officers throughout the kingdom add up the totals entered on the forms, and send the forms in a packet by post, telegraphing the total to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, who, on receiving the