Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/222

 The Norwich voters are here supposed to have voted some perhaps for one of their candidates, some for two, some for three or more. Some voters may even have inserted all the names in the order of their preference. In the business of appropriation, according to Law XIX., taking the quota at 2,000, the first votes given to A will be reduced to that number, and the surplus of the first votes distributed to the next names on the various papers. The same process will take place with B, distributing the surplus of his first votes and any others which B may have acquired from the distribution of A's surplus, in like manner. But 4,000 Norwich voters are now exhausted, and in doing this, perhaps a large portion of the papers on which the names of G, D, E, and F stood, may have been exclusively appropriated to A or B, and served to complete the number required for their return.

Now it may be that C, D, and E are candidates of much local popularity, but without any considerable fame beyond the walls of the city, whilst F might be a person of an eminent political, scientific, or literary reputation, or a Norfolk gentleman regarded by some of the citizens as one of the worthies of their county. F, from these causes might have numerous votes in Norfolk, in the metropolis, in the universities, or in other parts of the kingdom, and thus be returned, although no more than 500, or a smaller number, of the citizens of Norwich had given him their first votes, or their second or third votes after A or B. It then becomes the duty of the returning officer under the foregoing clause—on receiving the registrar's certificate that F has, and that C, D, and E have not, obtained a quota or comparative majority — to return F as well as A and B as members for the city of Norwich.

It is probable in the supposed case of Norwich, as in that of Aberdeen, that many of the voters for the non-candidates who have failed, may have placed the names of some of the three successful candidates in a lower place on their voting