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Candidate, would be utterly puzzled if told to arrange 5 or 6 names in order of merit. But a much stronger objection is the difficulty, of deciding to which of the remaining Candidates the surplus votes shall go: e.g. if 8,000 be the quota needed to return a Member, and if 6,000 lists be headed 'A B,' and 4,000 'A C,' which 2,000 are to be transferred? Mr. J. Parker Smith, in a Pamphlet entitled "Preferential Voting," says (at p. 2), "The course which is exactly fair to B and C is that the votes which are transferred should be divided between them in the same proportion as that in which the opinions of the whole number of A's supporters is divided." (This would require, in the above instance, that 3-5ths of the 2,000, i.e. 1,200, should be taken from the 'A B' lists, and 2-5ths, i.e. 800, from the 'A C' lists.) He adds, "This principle avoids all uncertainty, and is indisputably fair." He then proceeds to show that if, instead of counting and arranging the surplus votes, they be taken "in a random order," the chances are very great that they will come out nearly in this proportion. And he further adds (at p. 4), that "the element of chance will not be of importance as between the
