described in the gazetted list as a candidate, shall be forwarded by the returning officers to the registrars as aforesaid, notwithstanding they may exceed in number the quota.
The powers and duties of the returning officer thus differ in cases where the number of votes polled by the constituency affords the quota to one or more of the candidates, and in the cases of the smaller constituencies, or where great differences of sentiment prevail, and the total number of votes given, or given for any particular candidate, is insufficient to complete the quota. In the first case he will return the candidates having the majorities, supposing each to make up at least the quota,—as duly elected, and will transmit the surplus votes to the registrar; and in the latter cases he will transmit the whole of the voting paper to the registrar, without doing more than certifying the numbers polled for every candidate, awaiting the certificate of the registrar as to the fact of any of the candidates having or not having his quota supplied by votes from other places.
Aberdeen may be taken as an example of one of the first-class constituencies. At the last election there were two candidates; and supposing that to be the case, and that under a system such as that which has been suggested some of the voters give a preference to, and place at the head of their voting papers the names of, some candidates for other places, the computation of numbers at the close of the poll might stand as it is represented in the following certificate and letter, in which the returning officer of the city of Aberdeen is supposed to communicate the result to the registrar at Edinburgh.
Sir,—I certify that, at a poll this day taken for a member to serve in Parliament for the city of Aberdeen, 1,850 of the electors of the said city have given their votes for William Henry Sykes, Esq., and that the said number of votes forms a majority of the electors of the said city, or is a greater number thereof than has polled for any other candidate.
I also certify, that the said William Henry Sykes having, as aforesaid, more than the number of 1,840 votes, which number of 1,840 is the quota of votes specified in the certificate, signed by the Registrars of voters for England, Scotland, and Ireland, and contained in the London Gazette,
