Sir Thomas Hare was a political scientist who is most known today for his ideas about single transferable vote. Single transferable vote, or ranked choice voting, is a method of multimember district proportional representation in which voters rank candidates in order of preference so that candidates are elected once they pass a specified electoral quota. From there, any surplus votes that a candidate receives past the quota are apportioned to the remaining candidates until all of the open seats in the governing body are filled.
According to Hare and other developers of this theory, single transferable vote should allow election results to accurately reflect electors’ preferences and also provide representation to minor parties. The single transferable vote formula is also called the Hare system in a nod to the work Hare put into developing it. Hare’s written works, The Machinery of Representation and Treatise on the Election of Representatives: Parliamentary and Municipal, outline his ideas for the British electoral system and proportional representation.
Sir Thomas Hare’s presence in Mill’s autobiography provides insight into his support for proportional representation. Since Hare played a critical role in the development of single transferable vote, which is a method of proportional representation, examining his work provides the intuition behind the theory for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. As a result, readers can develop a better understanding of what Mill’s political stance was and what he advocated for in this sphere.
Watch this video to learn more about the Hare system: https://youtu.be/vliOEQTE_ao
Sources:
“Hare System (Ranked Choice Voting).” Office of the Assemblies, Cornell University, assembly.cornell.edu/elections/hare-system-ranked-choice-voting.
Hare, Thomas. “A Treatise on the Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal.” Google Books, Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, books.google.com/books/about/A_Treatise_on_the_Election_of_Representa.html?id=lWcPAAAAYAAJ.
Hare, Thomas. “The Machinery of Representation.” Google Books, W. Maxwell, books.google.com/books/about/The_machinery_of_representation.html?id=8SBcAAAAQAAJ.
“Single Transferable Vote.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/single-transferable-vote.