EUROPEAN PLAN

Following in the footsteps of its offspring of the Pacific, The House of Commons has adopted a revised voting plan. Approval by the House of Lords will codify an electoral system based on Australian models.

The new arrangement, known as alternative voting, is a type of preferential election where each person marks his first and second choices. The latter are counted as first votes in the cases where the designated first choices are for candidates who are definitely out of the running due to the small number of counts which they have polled. Thus all ballots have a definite value in determining who shall be elected, and none are lost by the wayside because they have given first and only preference to minority candidates. In short, it is an admirable though not infallible, way of preventing a three or four cornered election from being won by a man with only a minority vote to his credit.

Results of the frequent three cornered elections in America reveal a pressing need for a similar system. The recent Republican mayoralty contest in Chicago is an excellent example of the ineffectiveness of the present methods. Victory was assured to one faction because a split opposition permitted a minority vote to elect. Under the alternative plan, the votes which were lost on the third candidate might have given victory to the second. That a minority man should be elected to office is almost a refutation of the fundamental principal of American Democracy.