those stamped with the highest numerals. But if the
hundred stamped with the lowest numerals or any other hundred had been
taken the second choices would be different.

Strictly speaking, however, this is not a chance selection--it is an
arbitrary selection. The returning officer must transfer certain
definite papers; if he were allowed to make a chance selection it would
be in his power to favour some of the candidates.

Sir John Lubbock points out that the element of chance might be
eliminated by distributing the second votes proportionally to the second
choices on the whole 1,100 papers, and that it might be desirable to
leave any candidate the right to claim that this should be done if he
thought it worth while.

+2.--The Hare-Clark Method.+--The Hare system has been in actual use in
Tasmania for the last two elections. It is applied only in a six-seat
electorate at Hobart and a four-seat electorate at Launceston. The rules
for distributing surplus votes proportionally were drawn up by Mr. A.I.
Clark, late Attorney-General. The problem is not so simple as it appears
at first sight. There is no difficulty with a surplus on the first
count; it is when surpluses are created in subsequent counts by
transferred votes that the conditions become complicated. Mr. Clark
adopts a rule that in the latter case the transferred papers only are to
be taken into account in deciding the proportional distribution of the
surplus. Suppose, as before, the quota to be 1,000 votes, and a
candidate to have 1,100 votes, 550 of which are marked in the second
place to one of the other candidates. Then the latter is entitled to 50
of the surplus votes, and a chance selection is made of the 550 papers.
The element of chance still remains, therefore, if this surplus
contributes to a fresh surplus.

+3.--The Droop-Gregory Method.+--This method, advocated by Professor
Nanson, of the Melbourne University, is claimed to entirely eliminate
the element of chance. The Gregory plan of transferring surplus votes is
defined as a fractional method. If a candidate needs only nine-tenths of
his votes to make up his quota, instead of distributing the surplus of
one-tenth of the papers all the papers are distributed with one-tenth of
their value. Reverting to our former example, if a candidate is marked
second on 550 out of 1,100 votes, the quota being 1,000 and the surplus
100, then instead of selecting 50 out of the 550 papers, the whole of
them would be