Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/231

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THE DUTIES OF THE REGISTRARS.
179

papers by the cancellation of the first names upon a certain portion of them, and can report the result of such alteration,—that is to say, what additions are thereby made to the votes given for other candidates. Additions will continue to be made in like manner as the other quotas are completed, and thus the name of every candidate having the quota will soon be ascertained. The completion of such quotas must then be certified by the registrars to the returning officers of the several constituencies, where votes for such candidates have been polled.

XXIII. The registrars respectively, as soon as it appears by the voting papers appropriated to the respective candidates (according to the rules herein contained), that the quota of votes has been polled for any candidate, shall forthwith transmit a certificate of that fact to the returning officers for the respective constituencies in which votes have been polled for such candidate or candidates, stating therein the number of votes of every constituency respectively which have been appropriated to make up such quota.

The duty of the registrars, as well as of the returning officers, with regard to setting apart the voting papers appropriated to every candidate, as soon as the appropriation has been finally made, and also with regard to the cancellation of the names of the same candidates, wherever they occur, on the remaining voting papers, has already been prescribed.[1] The same clause also points out the order in which the voting papers shall be taken, up to the point at which they cease to be under the jurisdiction of the returning officers. It is now necessary to prescribe other rules as to the order in which the votes shall be appropriated to the candidates, in cases which cannot be dealt with by any particular returning officer, because the representation of two or more constituencies is involved. In these arrangements,—after disposing of the votes of the particular constituency or constituencies for which a candidate has offered himself,—it is important that there should, in the subsequent appropriation, be a prescribed order to be followed without possibility

  1. Clause XIX., p. 161.