Preferential voting

“ Neither second ballots nor preferential voting can solve the problem of three parties seeking representation. They may preserve the outward form of the distinguishing characteristic of the present system—that each successful candidate should secure the support of the majority of the electors voting—but this apparent conformity to the requirements of majority representation is only secured at the cost of destroying the sincerity of the parliamentary system and of rendering the composition of the House of Commons still more unstable than it is to-day. ”

“ This custom of declaring successful the candidate receiving a plurality constitutes a defect in our representative system, since a plurality candidate may represent only a small minority of those actually voting.
Several attempts have been made to remedy this defect. In some southern states it is the practice to require an absolute majority for election. If no aspirant receives a majority, a second ballot is taken on the two candidates standing highest on the list. In a number of northern cities, the evil of plurality voting has been attacked through the preferential voting device. ”

“ Apart from this expression of opinion, we have this convincing testimony to the capacity of working men electors that they have been among the first to put improved electoral methods into practice. The Northumberland miners and Canadian Trades Unions are familiar with the use of the single transferable vote in the election of their officers; the Labour Party in Victoria has made use of preferential voting in the selection of its parliamentary candidates. ”

“ 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. ”

“ PREFERENTIAL VOTING. A more radical movement would abolish primaries altogether and settle elections upon one day by preferential voting. The voter indicates his second choices, and any further choices he may care to indicate. ”

“ An objection, which occurs to every one who considers schemes of Preferential Voting, is that an element of chance is introduced into the result by the methods for the transfer of the superfluous votes of successful candidates. Supposing one part of the supporters of A, a successful candidate, have put down B as their second choice, and the remainder C, and that a certain number of A's votes are superfluous, and have to be transferred, how is it to be determined what number of AB votes, as they may be called, and what number of AC votes shall be transferred? ”

“ The primary is an advance on the secret caucus with its choice of men for the highest office by a few partisan politicians only, whose business it is to keep party lines strong and to make them carry their candidate into office. The primary, however, we see, is a very expensive method and open to many dangers, and progressive students of political methods are not satisfied with it. Why can we not move, and strongly, for preferential voting? ”

“ Indeed, if there were no prior convention, where, unless the election were unanimous, would be the obligation on the minority to submit to the choice of the majority? How have a hundred men who wish for a master the right to vote on behalf of ten who do not? The law of majority voting is itself something established by convention, and presupposes unanimity, on one occasion at least. ”

“ The amendment provides that no person who has voted in a primary election may thereafter be placed on the ballot as an independent candidate in the general election. This is a 'procedure with respect to voting' with substantial impact. One must forego his right to vote in his party primary if he thinks he might later wish to become an independent candidate. ”

“ But once a State has decided to use the process of popular election and 'once the class of voters is chosen and their qualifications specified, we see no constitutional way by which equality of voting power may be evaded.' Gray v. ”

“ One's vote is diluted if it is not, as it should be, of the same practical effect as everyone else's. Of course the mere fact that an election practice satisfies the constitutional requirement of "one person, one vote" does not establish that there has been no vote dilution for Voting Rights Act purposes, since that looks not merely to equality of individual votes but also to equality of minority blocs of votes. ”

“ For reasons to follow, I am of the opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to restrict the authority of the States to allocate their political power as they see fit, and therefore that it does not authorize Congress to set voter qualifications, in either state or federal elections. I find no other source of congressional power to lower the voting age as fixed by state laws, or to alter state laws on residency, registration, and absentee voting, with respect to either state or federal elections. ”

“ My personal observation in the United States and Canada had impressed me with the dangers inseparable from the election of Federal Legislatures by local majorities—sometimes by minorities—where money and influence could be employed, particularly where a line in a tariff spelt a fortune to a section of the people, in the manipulation of the floating vote. Parties may boast of their voting strength and their compactness, but their voting strength under the present system of voting is only as strong as its weakest link, discordant or discontented minorities, will permit it to be. ”

“ People are forbidden by law to hire conveyances for carrying voters to the poll, but they are allowed to borrow them, with the result that constituencies on an election day swarm with carriages of peers and other rich people, who have nothing whatever to do with the district, and who yet affect by this influence the voting. ”

“ I put to one side the problems of "political" [p242] questions involving the distribution of power between this Court, the Congress, and the Chief Executive. We have here a phase of the recurring problem of the relation of the federal courts to state agencies. More particularly, the question is the extent to which a State may weight one person's vote more heavily than it does another's.
So far as voting rights are concerned, there are large gaps in the Constitution. Yet the right to vote is inherent in the republican form of government envisaged by Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution. ”

“ This would so far give reality to the electoral rights of the otherwise virtually disfranchised minority. But it is important that not those alone who refuse to vote for any of the local candidates, but those also who vote for one of them and are defeated, should be enabled to find elsewhere the representation which they have not succeeded in obtaining in their own district. It is therefore provided that an elector may deliver a voting paper containing other names in addition to the one which stands foremost in his preference. His vote would only be counted for one candidate ”

“ Those principles apply here. For to repeat, wealth or fee paying has, in our view, no relation to voting qualifications; the right to vote is too precious, too fundamental to be so burdened or conditioned. ”

“ This Bill was strongly opposed on the ground that the reform was partial in character. If, said the opponents of the measure, it is unfair that one elector should have twelve votes whilst another elector has but one, it is equally unfair that the vote of an elector in one constituency should be twelve times as valuable as the vote of an elector in another constituency. The justice of the argument must be admitted, and explains why the rejection of the Plural Voting Bill by the House of Lords aroused comparatively little public feeling. ”

“ There is no question our U.S. Constitution empowers State legislatures to execute free, legal, and fair elections. Unfortunately, in several States, the clear authority of those State legislatures to determine the rules for voting was usurped by Governors, secretaries of state, and activist courts. Our laws and Constitution should always be followed, especially in a time of crisis. ”

“ An election for these offices may never be held in compliance with Congress' commands. And of course, the Court's decision respecting relief does not only control these particular cases. There may have been hundreds of officials throughout the South who began serving long terms in office his November under procedures that have not been federally approved. As a result of this part of the Court's decision, the Voting Rights Act may never play the full role that Congress intended for it. ”

“ Gray, though not determinative here, since involving the weighting of votes in statewide elections, established the basic principle of equality among voters within a State, and held that voters cannot be classified, constitutionally, on the basis of where they live, at least with respect to voting in statewide elections. ”

“ The question whether power is shifted among officials answerable to the same or different constituencies is quite distinct from the question whether the power voters exercise over elected officials is affected. Intraconstituency changes may have a large indirect effect on the voters while interconstituency changes may have a small indirect effect, but in neither case is the effect a change in voting for purposes of the Act. The test adopted by the District Court does not provide the workable rule we seek. ”

“ There is no such overmastering consideration of expediency attaching everywhere and always to the form of voting, still less is there any such principle to be drawn from the 14th Amendment, as requires the two sides of a vote on prohibition to be treated with equal favor by the state, the subject-matter of the vote being wholly within the state's control. ”

“ In the analogous area of legislative apportionment, we have often tolerated a temporary dilution of voting rights to protect the legitimate interests of the States in fashioning their own election laws, see, e.g., Lucas v. ”

“ How then can one person be given twice or 10 times the voting power of another person in a statewide election merely because he lives in a rural area or because he lives in the smallest rural county? Once the geographical unit for which a representative is to be chosen is designated, all who participate in the election are to have an equal vote-whatever their race, whatever their sex, whatever their occupation, whatever their income, and wherever their home may be in that geographical unit. ”

“ The whites, who had been harassed in the registration and who feared race conflicts at the elections, considered whether they ought not to abstain from voting. By staying away from the polls, they might bring the vote cast in each State below a majority and thus defeat the proposed conventions for, unless a majority of the registered voters actually cast ballots either for or against a convention, no convention could be held. ”

“ If the purpose of a particular election were to be the determining factor in deciding whether voters are entitled to equal voting power, courts would be faced with the difficult job of distinguishing between various elections. We cannot readily perceive judicially manageable standards to aid in such a task. It might be suggested that equal apportionment is required only in 'important' elections, but good judgment and common sense tell us that what might be a vital election to one voter might well be a routine one to another. ”

“ It is quite true that "in every country voting for a man is an inadequate way of expressing one's views of policy, because the candidate is sure to differ in one or more questions from many of those who belong to the party." [4] But if, in the first place, the incentive to limit the number of candidates be removed and the field of choice widened, and if, in the second place, each elector be allowed to vote for several candidates instead of one only, the defect would be remedied. Now, the reform makes both these provisions, and the importance of the improvement can hardly be overrated. ”

“ The Reform Bill now (1912) prepared by the government will destroy the last vestige of property qualifications for voting. It will destroy plural voting, which now allows a freeholder to vote in every district where he holds land. In some districts the absentee voters hold the balance of power. [40] Votes for women are also promised. This increased electorate will not be conservative in its convictions. Along with this will come the abolishing of the custom that compels candidates to bear the election expenses; the payment of members of Parliament has already begun ”

“ In holding that the guarantee of equal voting strength for each voter applies in all elections of governmental officials, we do not feel that the States will be inhibited in finding ways to insure that legitimate political goals of representation are achieved. We have previously upheld against constitutional challenge an election scheme that required that candidates be residents of certain districts that did not contain equal numbers of people. ”

“ Moreover, it renders strict party organization even more necessary, since each party must arrange to use its voting resources to the best advantage. Consider the three-seat electorate, for instance. The minority will, if it is wise, nominate two candidates only; and the majority may nominate either two or three. But if the majority does divide its votes among three candidates it runs the risk of securing one only. ”