XVII. The returning officer of every constituency shall, at the close of the poll, and as soon as is practicable after the voting papers have been collected, ascertain and certify to the registrar the aggregate number of votes which has been polled by the constituency of which he is such returning officer,[1] and he shall then ascertain and declare the number of voters which has been polled in the same constituency for the several candidates respectively, counting for such purpose only the votes for the candidates whose names are placed at the head of or first on the respective voting papers; and when the returning officer shall have received from the registrars their declaration of the quota of voters at such general election as aforesaid,[2] if one or more candidate or candidates shall have so polled in such constituency the quota or quota of votes, then the said returning officer shall (after setting apart the said quota or quotas as hereinafter directed) forthwith return the candidate or candidates for whom the majorities or greater numbers of voters of the said constituency shall have polled (he or they having such quota or quotas as aforesaid) as the member or members to serve in Parliament for such constituency.
XVIII. The candidate, whose name is placed first in the voting papers of the constituency for which he is a candidate, shall be the candidate for whom the votes in such voting papers respectively shall be taken; and if the quota of such candidate shall not be made up by such votes, then the votes in the voting papers of the same constituency in which he shall be placed second, and then third, and so on successively, shall be taken for him in case all the names standing higher in any such voting paper shall have been cancelled as hereinafter directed.
The next law prescribes the order in which every voting paper is to be appropriated.
XIX. All the votes on voting papers in which any candidate is named alone shall be appropriated to him; and if such votes be less in number than the quota, then the votes on voting papers in which he is named first, or first after any cancelled name or names shall be so appropriated, and if such votes shall exceed in number the quota required, the number of the said quota and no more (except as otherwise hereinafter provided) shall be appropriated to such candidate, and such quota shall be made up by taking—first, the voting papers that contain the uncancelled name of no other candidate ; and next, the voting papers that contain the uncancelled names of one, two, or other number of candidates, successively, taking always the voting papers respectively containing a smaller, before those containing a larger number of such uncancelled names; and when it shall appear that two or more of such voting papers contain an equal number of
