e him to
express preferences where he does not feel any? The Professor has
therefore invented "the principle of the bracket." If the elector cannot
discriminate between the merits of a number of candidates he may bracket
them all equal in order of favour. Indeed, where he does not indicate
any preference at all, the names unmarked are deemed equal. Therefore,
if he does not wish his vote transferred to any candidate, he must
strike out his name. It is pointed out that a ballot paper can thus be
used if there is any kind of preference expressed at all, and the risk
of informality is reduced to a minimum. All the bracket papers are to be
put into a separate parcel, and do not become "definite" till all the
candidates bracketed, except one, are either elected or rejected; the
vote is then transferred to that candidate. And as bracketed candidates
will occur in original papers, surplus papers, and excluded candidates'
papers at every stage of the count, the degree of complication in store
for the unhappy returning officer can be imagined.

The whole of these intricate provisions are founded on a patent fallacy.
Preferences are not expressed in the Hare system, as in true
preferential voting, that they may be given effect to in deciding the
election, but simply in order to allow the elector to say in advance to
whom he would wish his vote transferred if it cannot be used for his
first choice. The elector is allowed to express his opinion about a
number of candidates, certainly, but after being put to this trouble
only one of his preferences is used. And which one is used depends
entirely on the vagaries of the system. The principle of the bracket
illustrates this fact; if the elector has no preference the system
decides for him. If his first choice just receives the quota the other
preferences are not even looked at. Again, of all the electors who vote
for rejected candidates, those who are fortunate enough to vote for the
worst (who are first excluded) have their second or third preferences
given effect to, and few of their votes are wasted; but the votes of
those who support the best of them (who are last excluded) are either
wasted or given to their remote preferences. In Mr. Hare's original
scheme, for instance, the votes of the last 50 candidates excluded would
have been nearly all wasted, unless some hundreds of preferences were
expressed.

Another claim on which great stress is laid is that by the process of
transfe