He illustrates a gerrymander which actually made one Democratic vote equal to five Republican votes. We have quoted this description of the methods of the gerrymander not so much because the evil has attained any magnitude in Australia as because it offers a warning of the probable result of adopting the single-membered district system for our Federal legislature.
With enlarged or grouped electorates the periodical revision of boundaries would be entirely obviated, because the size of the electorate may be kept constant, and the number of representatives varied. Under such a system all unfairness would disappear, and the gerrymander would be impossible. Representation would automatically follow the movements of population.
[4] Bryce, "The American Commonwealth," vol ii, p 325
[5] Bryce, "The American Commonwealth," vol. ii., note on p. 81.
[6] Governor Gerry contrived an electorate which resembled a salamander in shape.
THE HARE SYSTEM OF PROPORTIONAL DELEGATION.
The single transferable vote, generally known as the Hare system, was first invented by a Danish statesman, M. Andrae, and was used for the election of a portion of the "Rigsraad" in 1855. In 1857 Mr. Thomas Hare, barrister-at-law, published it independently in England in a pamphlet on "The Machinery of Representation." This formed the basis of the scheme elaborated in his "Election of Representatives," which appeared in 1859.