PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA
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		info@prsa.org.au	www.prsa.org.au	2010-04-24

The Gregory Fractional Transfer
*	Gregory fractional transfer (see Clauses 2.3 and 4.3 at this link) is the system of transferring surplus votes by examining all relevant papers prescribed, and transferring a fractional part of their vote value to the candidate indicated as the next available preference. It is named after its original proponent in 1880, J.B.Gregory. It has always been part of the Hare-Clark system. A good account of it, which mentions J B Gregory, of Melbourne, is shown in Paragraph 20 of the official report of Tasmania’s first state-wide Hare-Clark election in 1909.
*	Until its replacement in 1983 by a modification of the Gregory fractional transfer to provide for transfers from all ballot-papers, rather than just from first preference and last parcel papers as above - called the unweighted inclusive Gregory transfer - the inferior random sampling system included in the 1948 law that instituted PR for the Senate continued to be used for Senate polls. That primitive random sampling system continued in use for New South Wales local government polls for many years, but was ultimately replaced by the Gregory transfer. Random sampling still applies in polls for the lower house of the Irish Republic. A weighted inclusive Gregory transfer now applies for WA Upper House polls, and it has been advocated for Senate polls to replace the present unweighted inclusive Gregory transfer used there. The Victoria-Tasmania Branch of the PRSA has recognized the superior principles of the Meek system of PR counting in regard to transfers.
*	An article in The Argus in Melbourne dated 13th March 1879 refers to a John Burslem Gregory in attendance at the Marquis of Normanby’s Vice-Regal Levee. An article in The Argus in Melbourne dated 22nd November 1880, which mentions J B Gregory’s advocacy of preferential voting, refers to him as J B Gregory LL. B. It is likely to have been the same J B Gregory (Page 39) that, in 1884, was one of three men who raised the idea that eventually led to Wilsons Promontory in Victoria being made a National Park. Mr Gregory was, along with Professor Edward Nanson, an active member of the Senate of the University of Melbourne, as evidenced by an article in The Argus in Melbourne dated 23rd November 1886.
*	Further information on Hare-Clark is in the Tasmanian Section of A Brief History of the PRSA and its Purpose. Click here for HOME.