PRELIMINARY REMARKS. MR. DUTCHER, in his recent work on Proportional Representation,* has shown, by elaborate statistics, that of the votes cast at important contested popular elections in the United States, over forty per centum are lost or overruled in the computation of results. Of the electors throughout the country who voted for representatives to the Fortieth Congress, no less than forty-two per cent. failed to obtain representation by their votes; and precisely the same percentage of voters failed in elections for representatives to the Forty-first Congress, and again in the elections to the Forty-second. For six continuous years the rate of actual representation in the popular branch of Congress was but sixty per cent. of the votes polled. At the session of the New York Legislature, in 1869, the voters unrepresented in the Senate were forty-one per cent. of the whole, and in the House forty-two; and at the session of 1871, in each House, forty-two. Mr. Hare is authority for the statement that the percentage of disfranchisement upon votes cast in Parliamentary elections is very nearly as great as in the above examples. He says: "Those who, disagreeing with the majority in their electoral districts, are now in Parliamentary elections outvoted and left without representation, "Minority or Proportional Representation, by Salem Dutcher, N. York, 1872." cannot ordinarily be taken at less than two-fifths of the whole electoral body."* It may be assumed that, in contested State and municipal elections in this country, the average proportion of unrepresented voters is as great as in elections for members of Congress and members of Parliament-in other words, that the average rate of virtual disfranchisement of voters in our contested popular elections is fully two-fifths of the total vote. This startling fact is the first one to be considered, and considered attentively, in any intelligent examination of the great subject of electoral reform in the United States; for all schemes for the amendment of popular representation in government must be insufficient and illusory which ignore it or underrate its enormous significance. For it means that our popular elections are unjust; it exposes the principal cause of their corruption, and it may instruct us, if we duly consider it, concerning those measures of change which will most certainly impart health, vigor and endurance to our political institutions. The plan for securing Proportional Representation presented in this volume, and other plans similar to it in character or object which have been proposed in recent years, strike at this great evil of disfranchisement in popular elections, and are intended to reduce it to its smallest possible dimensions. But the advantages of the plan set forth in the following pages will best appear by comparing it with the old one, which it is intended to supersede. Under the old plan of majority voting, whenever two "Memorandum on the History, Working and Results of Cumulative Voting," (prepared by Thomas Hare at the request of the English Government,) p. 14. or more persons are to be elected at one time to the same office and for the same term of service, the law assigns to the voter as many votes as the number of persons to be chosen, and then commands him to distribute them singly among candidates. It restrains and prevents him from exercising his own judgment as to the manner of polling his votes, and, in, fact, undertakes to judge for him and to determine in advance what will be, under all circumstances, a judicious exercise of his right of suffrage. But in this it must blunder extremely and constantly. For as the law maker cannot know the future, cannot from sheer ignorance take into exact account its ever-changing conditions, his injunction or command to the voter must be purely arbitrary, and must be often or commonly unsuited to the circumstances to which it shall come to apply. Hence the virtual disfranchisement and actual non-representation of a large part of the voters is a common fact in all constituencies, large and small, throughout the country, the inevitable consequences of which are deeply injurious and truly deplorable. Misgovernment, injustice, violence, corruption and discontent are created and increased by an unnecessary and absurd restriction upon electoral freedom; by a wholly gratuitous and impertinent interference of law with the free action of the citizen; by an open and palpable violation of the principles of self-government upon which all our political institutions are founded. Only when a constituency shall be unanimous, or nearly so, in opinion and action can the enforced distribution of votes singly among the whole number of candidates operate justly; in all other cases it must result in the non-representation of a part of the electors, and in consequent injustice and evil. But we turn from this view to the free vote, now proposed to us as an instrument for the improvement of elections and amendment of representation. Its advantages over the majority vote may be roughly stated as follows: 1. It reduces greatly the number of candidates at popular elections, because under it parties will usually nominate only the number they are entitled to and have power to elect. Surplus candidates will not commonly be run, and but few persons will be beaten in struggles for place. 2. It secures nearly complete representation of the whole body of voters in plural elections, by permitting each considerable interest of political society to take to itself its just share of representation by its own votes. 3. It reduces enormously the expense of election contests, not the legal charges borne by the public, but voluntary outlays by parties and candidates. These will no longer be required to subsidize the floating vote-the balance-of-power vote-the mercenary or impressionable vote of a district or constituency, as the indispensable condition of success. Whether applied to legal elections or to primary ones; to elections to office or to nominations for office, in this regard its effect will be the same-to produce, comparatively, cheap elections. 4. It is a powerful check upon all forms of corruption and undue influence at elections, because it takes away the motive, or most of the motive, to corrupt or pervert them in rendering all ordinary efforts to that end unavailing and useless. 5. It produces satisfaction to voters in gratifying their desire for representation, and thus increases their attachment to the government under which they live. 6. It permits the representation of a greater variety of opinions and interests in legislative bodies, without impairing the right and power of the majority to rule. 7. It will often continue fit and able men much longer in public service than is now possible, because they will not hold their places subject so much to fluctuation of power between parties as to changed preferences in their own party. 8. It will greatly reduce party violence, and give a kindlier tone to social relations among the people, without producing stagnation or indifference to public affairs. In this, as in other cases, justice means peace, but it does not mean stagnation; for it is beyond question that reformed voting "wakes to newness of life," to activity and interest in public affairs, large numbers of persons who, under majority-voting, are inert because disgusted or discouraged by their exclusion from representation. Upon this point Mr. Buxton spoke wisely and soundly in Parliament in the Reform debates of 1867.* 9. It discourages election cheats, whether in the giving, receiving, counting, or returning of votes, because by it the effect of cheating is greatly reduced. And, for a like reason, it also discourages the trading of votes, or bartering of the electoral privilege. 10. It is adapted to the bolting of nominations by an aggrieved interest, for such interest, if of respectable size, can represent, by its own votes, without disturbing or changing the whole result of an election.† 11. It renders elections more independent of each other. No one will much influence another; each one will be determined upon its own merits, or upon the issues directly * Appendix, p. 279. † See case of Northumberland borough election, post, 251. |