Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/230

 laws by which those duties are to be regulated, have now to be stated.

Some of the registrar's clerks being provided with, tables of the names of the candidates arranged alphabetically, at the head of distinct columns, like the tabular book before described, the number of votes expressed on the returning officers' certificates to have been given for every candidate may be called over, and speedily entered under the names of the respective candidates, thereby showing how many votes every candidate has received, according to those certificates. This process, when completed—which it would probably be in an hour or two,—will show that many candidates who have been returned as elected by the constituencies which they named first in the gazetted list, have received votes in other constituencies. This will doubtless be the case to a great extent with all men of high character and eminence. In all such cases, the names of the members so previously returned will be cancelled upon the voting papers in which their names are repeated, in the manner directed by Section XIX.

The registrars have then to address themselves to the cases in which no returns of members have been made. The numbers of votes expressed in the certificates of the returning officers have now ceased to be guides, as to many candidates; for by displacing the names of the members who have been already returned, the names of other candidates are brought forward to the first place on many of the voting papers, which will make so many additions to the votes now to be counted for such other candidates. The extent of this alteration will be readily ascertained by the use of the tabular books which have been mentioned. Every clerk having the charge of the voting papers of a constituency will in a few minutes ascertain the numerical variation effected in those