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different parties, but only as between different individual Candidates of the same party." Now all this rests on the assertion that this mode of dividing the surplus votes, whether effected by counting or left to chance, is "indisputably fair:" and this assertion I entirely deny. The following instance will serve the two purposes, of showing that this method may easily lead to gross injustice, and of showing that the difficulty may easily arise between candidates of opposite parties.
Take a town of 39,999 Electors, returning 3 Members, so that 10,000 votes will suffice to return a Member; let there be 4 'red' Candidates, A, B, C, D, and one 'blue,' Z; and let there be 21,840 lists "A B D," 10,160 "A C B," and 7,999 "Z." There can be no shadow of doubt that, as a matter of justice, A, B, C ought to be returned, since there are more than two full quotas who put 'A B' first, and, over and above these, more than one quota who put 'A C' first. Let us see what, under the Society's present rules, would be the most probable result.
The 32,000 lists headed "A" are of two kinds, bearing to each other the ratios of the numbers 273, 127. Hence the certain event,
