The _Gove system_ is a modified form of the Hare method. Instead of the voter naming the candidates whom he prefers, the candidates themselves before election announce to whom they will give their surplus vote.
The _proxy vote_ is simply an introduction of the corporation vote into legislative bodies. The candidates who are elected in the legislative assembly cast, not their individual votes, as at present, but the number of proxies they hold.
It will be seen that there are three principles involved in these several methods, the election by cumulation of votes, the election by quotas, and the vote by proxies. The cumulative vote was the first to be put into actual service, being used in England for the election of members of school boards, etc., and in this country in the so-called three-cornered districts for the election of members of the legislature. It still has the support of quite a number of persons, but its limitations are now coming to be recognized. John Stuart Mill, who was an advocate of the cumulative vote, declared it to be merely a makeshift in comparison with the quota system of Hare. The objection to the cumulative vote lies in the fact that if the districts are small only two parties can obtain representation, and these in an arbitrary way, while if the districts be larger, that is, if the number of representatives in the district be made greater, the waste and uncertainty is apparent. A party may decide to vote for four candidates when it has votes enough to elect six; or it may try for six when it has votes for only four. In either case it is deprived of a part of its just share in the representation. The proxy system contains some theoretical merits, but it is feared that in practice it would not work well at present. The tendency to hero-worship would prompt so many voters to give their proxies to a few favorites that the real voting strength of the assembly would be in the hands of two or three men, thus destroying its value as a deliberative body.
The real strength of proportional representation lies in some form of the quota principle, and the tendency in this country, as in Switzerland and Belgium, is toward the free list.
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