of the new Portuguese republic promised in 1910 a drastic revision of the existing franchise. Italy disfranchises non-commissioned officers and men in the army while under arms, as do France and Brazil. The United Kingdom and Denmark, disqualify those in actual receipt of parish relief, while in Norway, apparently, receipt of parish relief at any time is a disqualification, which, however, may be removed by the recipient paying back the sums so received. In some countries, e.g. Brazil, the suffrage is refused to members of monastic orders, &c., under vows of obedience. Apart from those countries where a modicum of education is necessary as a test of right to the franchise, there are others where education is specially favoured in granting the franchise. In the United Kingdom the members of eight universities (Oxford, Cambridge, London, Dublin University, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St Andrews) send nine members to parliament; in Hungary members of the professional, scientific, learned and other classes (over 80,000) are entitled to vote without any other qualification; in Brunswick the scientific classes elect three members to the legislative chamber; in Saxony, members of scientific or artistic professions have extra votes; in Italy, members of academies and professors are qualified to vote by their position; while in the Netherlands legal qualifications for any profession or employment give a vote.
Many objections have been urged of late years to the principle of according a plurality of votes to one individual on account of superior qualifications over others which he may be considered to possess. In the United Kingdom, where, roughly speaking, the principle of representation is that of taxation, the possession of qualifying property in any number of electoral districts will give a vote in each of those districts. Whether those votes can be actually registered will of course depend on certain circumstances, such as the distance of the districts apart and whether the elections are held on the same day or not. The Radical party in the United Kingdom have of late years been hostile to any system of plurality of votes (whether gained by educational, property or other qualifications), though it may be said that the tendency of some recent electoral systems has been to introduce a steadying principle of this nature. In 1906 a bill was introduced for reducing the system of plural voting in the United Kingdom; it passed through the House of Commons, but was rejected by the House of Lords. The most remarkable system of plural voting was that introduced in Belgium by the electoral law of 1894. Under it, every citizen over thirty-five years of age with legitimate issue, and paying at least 5 francs a year in house tax, has a supplemental vote, as has every citizen over twenty-five owning immovable property to the value of 2000 francs, or having a corresponding income from such property, or who for two years has derived at least 100 francs a year from Belgian funds either directly or through the savings bank. Two supplementary votes are given to citizens over twenty-five who have received a diploma of higher instruction, or a certificate of higher secondary instruction, or who fill or have filled offices, or engaged in private professional instruction, implying at least average higher instruction. Three votes is the highest number allowed, while failure to vote is punishable as a misdemeanour. In 1908-9 the number of electors in Belgium was 1,651,647, of whom 981,866 had one vote, 378,264 two votes and 291,517 three votes. In some other countries weight is given to special qualifications. In the town of Bremen the government is in the hands of a senate of 16 members and a Convent of Burgesses (Bürgerschaft) of 150 members. These latter are elected by the votes of all the citizens divided into classes. University men return 14 members, merchants 40 members, mechanics and manufacturers 20 members, and the other inhabitants the remainder. So in Brunswick and in Hamburg legislators are returned by voters representing various interests. In Prussia, representatives are chosen by direct electors who in their turn are elected by indirect electors. One direct elector is elected from every complete number of 250 souls. The indirect electors are divided into three classes, the first class comprising those who pay the highest taxes to the amount of one-third of the whole; the second, of those who pay the next highest amount down to the limits of the second third; the third, of all the lowest taxed. In Italy electors must either have attained a certain standard of elementary education, or pay a certain amount of direct taxation, or if peasant farmers pay a certain amount of rent, or if occupants of lodgings, shops, &c., in towns, pay an annual rent according to the population of the commune. In Japan, voters must pay either land tax of a certain amount for not less than a year or direct taxes other than land tax for more than two years. In the Netherlands, householders, or those who have paid the rent of houses or lodgings for a certain period, are qualified for the franchise, as are owners or tenants of boats of not less than 24 tons capacity, as well as those who have been for a certain period in employment with an annual wage of not less than £22, 18s. 4d., have a certificate of state interest of not less than 100 florins or a savings bank deposit of not less than 50 florins.
The method now adopted in most countries of recording votes is that of secret voting or ballot (q.v.). This is carried out sometimes by a machine (see Voting Machines). The method of determining the successful candidate varies greatly in different countries. In the United Kingdom the candidate who obtains a relative majority is elected, i.e. it is necessary only to obtain more votes than any other candidate (see Representation).
VOTING MACHINES. The complications in the voting at American elections have resulted in the invention of various machines for registering and counting the ballots. These machines are in fact mechanical Australian ballots. The necessity for them has been emphasized by election practice in many parts of the United States, where in a single election there have been from five to ten parties on the ballot, with an aggregate of four hundred or five hundred candidates, making the paper ballots large and difficult to handle. The objections to the paper ballot are further emphasized in the results obtained. The number of void and blank ballots is seldom less than 5% of the number of voters voting, and is often as high as 40%. This lost vote is often greater than the majority of the successful candidate. In close elections there is an endless dispute as to whether the disputed ballots do or do not comply with the law. The election contest and recount expenses frequently exceed the cost of holding the election, and the title of the candidates to the office is frequently held in abeyance by a protracted contest until after the term of office has expired. A number of ways have been devised for marking the Australian ballot for identification without destroying its legality. The X is a very simple and well-known mark, yet in the case of Coulehan v. White, before the Supreme Court of Maryland, twenty-seven different ways of making the mark “X” were shown in the ballots in controversy, and all of them were a subject for judicial consideration, on which the judges of even the highest court could, find room for disagreement. Wigmore in his book on the Australian ballot system points out thirteen ways of wrongly placing the mark, and forty-four errors in the style of the mark, besides many other errors tending to invalidate the ballot, all of them having frequently occurred in actual practice. These errors are not confined to the illiterates, but are just as common among the best-educated people. The ballots can and have frequently been altered or miscounted by unscrupulous election officers, and the detection of the fraud is frequently difficult and always expensive.
Voting machines were devised first by English, and later with more success by American inventors. The earlier machines of Vassic, Chamberlain, Sydserff (1869) and Davie (1870) were practically all directed toward voting for the candidates of a single office by a ball, the ball going into one compartment or the other according to the choice of the voter. The use of the ball is in accordance with the original idea of ballot, which means “a little ball”; and because of the requirement of many of the constitutions of the states of the United States, that “elections shall be by ballot,” many American inventors
