Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/235

 the first is still unchosen and there is a possibility of his being elected, it becomes necessary to introduce another rule for ascertaining on which of the remaining candidates the choice of the remaining electors has fallen. Let it be supposed that 1,227,274 voters (the whole number on the register in 1857, as before stated) had polled at a general election,—that number being divided by 654, the quota would be 1,876; and let it also be supposed that by the process of appropriation of votes, up to this stage of the election, 300 candidates have received the quota and been returned. In this state of things 354 members are still wanting to complete the House; and as the election of 300 members has necessarily disposed of 562,800 votes, every elector of that number being represented by the man whom he has chosen,—there remain 664,474 votes unappropriated, and which are applicable to the election of the 354 members yet to be elected. Let it also be supposed that there were originally 1,800 candidates,—somewhat less than three for every seat, and therefore that of these candidates 1,500 still remain whose success or failure is undetermined.

To obtain as nearly as possible an equal quota for all, it is necessary to adopt a process for eliminating the names of the candidates having the smaller number of votes. This was first done by cancelling their names, one by one, and thus raising on every voting paper the next name in succession to the place of the cancelled candidate, and thereby at each step bringing some other and uncancelled candidate nearer to the attainment of the quota. Following out this idea, it was, in the first edition of this work, proposed, at this stage of the election, to cancel on the voting papers, first the name of every candidate who had not, on the unappropriated voting papers, a number of votes, including both actual or contingent votes, amounting to the quota; and if (as was most probable) the appropriation made after that process should still fail to complete the House, then to compute the number of all actual and contingent votes for