the poll and those who have been elected are
eliminated. This process is continued till all the vacancies are filled.
Four or five ballots are sometimes required, and the proceedings become
very irksome. A sub-committee was recently appointed to investigate the
subject, and reported in favour of the Preferential System with one
count only. The process of elimination was considered too complicated to
be practicable. Now, the conditions presented by these elections, in
which a very large number of candidates are generally nominated, are
precisely those in which Preferential Voting lends itself most easily to
abuse. An insignificant minority may defeat a candidate who should be
elected, by placing him at the bottom of their lists.

A variation of the Block Vote may be suggested which is much simpler and
better. The preferential ballot papers should be used, and two counts
should be made. At the first count the primary half of the preferences
should be counted as effective votes, and the candidates should be
reduced to twice the number of vacancies. A second count should then be
made of the ballot papers, using the Block Vote. All or nearly all the
candidates would then obtain an absolute majority, and it is practically
impossible that any candidate should be eliminated by the first count
who would have had any chance of election in the second.

This plan is far superior to the original method. It is right that
members who vote for candidates who are hopelessly out of it should be
allowed to transfer their votes; but it is not right that members who
first help to elect some candidates at one ballot should have the same
voting power as others at subsequent ballots.

The Hare system is sometimes advocated for clubs on account of its
supposed just principle. Any live club which adopts it runs the risk of
disruption. It merely encourages the formation of cliques and sections;
any slight split would be accentuated and rendered permanent.

+The Limited Vote.+--The injustice of the Block Vote led to the
introduction of the Limited Vote, which allows the minority some share
of the representation. We have seen that the Block Vote forces each
party to try to return all the representation, and of course one party
only can succeed. But if neither party be forced to try to return more
than it is entitled to each party will get its correct share of
representation, providing both parties are equally organized. This leads
to the Limite