Comparative Electoral Systems Mid-Term

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Plurality/FPTP

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A candidate only needs more votes than any other to win election. Often in single-member districts. Known colloquially as First-Past-the-Post.

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Block Vote

Back 2

Multi-member plurality in which voters have as many votes as there are open seats ; highest polling candidates get seats.

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Party Block Vote

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Like normal block vote, only voters choose between party lists and the list with plurality/majority of votes fills the seats in the district.

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Criticisms of FPTP

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*Can encourage development of parties based on clan, ethnicity, or region which exclude outside groups by making in-group appeals broad enough to insure election.
*Regional fiefdoms; "safe districts" which exclude minority represenation
*Wasted votes: can lead to voter alienation and become dangerous by leading to rise of extremist groups being seen as representative of alienated minorities.
*Can cause vote-splitting
*Lack of proportionality can cause unresponsiveness to changes in public opinion
*Can lead to gerrymandering or malapportionment

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Criticisms of Block Vote

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*When voters cast all votes for candidates of a particular party the system tends to exaggerate the disproportionality of FPTP
*Can cause party fragmentation due to intraparty competition

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Aspects of Indian Electoral System

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*Bicameral Parliamentary System
-Lower House elected in SMDs by FPTP
-Upper House appointed by subunit legislatures
*FPTP chosen to heal rifts in high fragmented society
*Candidates encourage multiple candidacies in opposition to divide their opponents' support; can cause disproportionality and small pluralities for win
*Prior to '77 governments generally finished out five year terms
*'77-'97 few, if any gov'ts finished terms
*'97-Now coalition gov'ts tend to finish out terms
*Certain castes and tribes are guaranteed representation through dedicated districts in which only they can run for office, but any resident can vote

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Prospects for Indian electoral reform

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*In 2000 a constitutional commission on electoral reform found that any necessary changes could be brought about through normal legislative channels
*Second round suggested which was shot down followed by suggestion of "none of the above" option on ballots and abolition of provision allowing one candidate to run in more than one district

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Aspects of Palestinian System (Block Vote)

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*Election of President by single round FPTP easily approved
*Legislative electoral system not so easily agreed upon:
-No unanimity amongst Palestinians on accepting Interim Agreement with Israel
-Party system was in infantile stage
-Needed to create unity to move forward in negotiations with Israel
-Historical electoral precedents had to be accounted for
-Importance placed on speed, simplicity, transparency, and confidence; votes to be counted at polling centers
-Perception of extant natural boundaries and above led to block vote in districts with M of 1-12 and minority districts for Christians and Samaritans
*'96 election went well.

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Advantages of Party Block Vote

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*Simple
*Encourages strong parties
*Encourages parties to include minorities

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Disadvantages of PBV

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Like FPTP:
*Disproportionality

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Aspects of Alternative Vote (AV)

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*Usually SMDs
*Voters rank candidates in order of preference
*Candidate with majority of 1st preference wins
-If no majority candidate candidate with lowest first preferences is dropped and votes added to their second preferences; check for majority then, if repeat previous step until a candidate with majority is found.
*Used primarily in Oceania, but also in subnational levels and to elect Ireland's President

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Advantages of AV

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*Enables supporters of long shot candidates to influence outcome of election, avoiding wasted votes
*Can allow diverse but related interests to combine and win representation
*Encourages broad, centrist politics
*Majority support increases legitimacy

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Disadvantages of AV

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*Like most majoritarian/pluritarian systems, can cause disproportionality
*Centrism doesn't always happen; depends on social conditions
*Doesn't work well in large, multi-member districts

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Papua New Guinea's Electoral System

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*One of few developing nations with unbroken history of democratic elections
*Went from AV, to FPTP, back to AV
*Highly fragmented society
*AV promoted interethnic cooperation and centrist, broad appeal candidates
*Switch to FPTP led to plurality only, and representatives of largest clans winning; no need to cooperate or appeal broadly
*FPTP led to division and some violence
*Great example of effect of electoral system on a society

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Proportionality

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The number of parties and their relative size to vote share

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"Core" focus of electoral politics

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Interparty, though intraparty dimension is getting new focus

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Duvergerian Agenda

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Understanding the effect an electoral system has on the number of parties. Dominant theory in electoral politics.

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Duverger's Law

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FPTP in SMDs encourages two party system. PR promotes multi-party system.

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Psychological effect

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As pertains to Duverger's law: Response of voters to the mechanical effect of the electoral system. In FPTP: Not wanting to waste votes, changing votes from a sure loser to a potential winner.

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Mechanical effect

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As pertains to Duverger's law: "The direct effect of electoral rules." In FPTP: parties tend to coalesce into broad ideological umbrella parties in order to achieve most votes.

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D'hondt formula

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1. Sort parties by number of votes
2. Assign first seat to party with most votes
3. Divide first seat party's votes by 2, if still more than second total vote winner, give first party second seat; if not second seat goes to second party
4. Continue on in such a fashion until seats are filled

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Flexible List Systems

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*Preference votes are not the sole criterion
*Voters who do not provide preferential vote delegate to parties what order candidates on a list get seats

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Quasi-List

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*Finland, Chile, Poland
*Voters indicate preference vote only and then all candidate votes are pooled at party level and seats are allocated

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Latent Lists

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*Voters must make a preference vote
*There are party lists but they cannot be voted on (though they likely affect order in which seats are awarded)

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Advantage of Quasi-List

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Harder for candidates to win a seat through small intimate networks as in open list where many don't bother with preference voting

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Advantages of PR

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*Minority representation (including women)
*In higher magnitude, reduces all or nothing approach

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Personal Vote

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Candidates running as representative of geographic area promote personal vote as "face of the party;" increased interaction between MPs and constituents, more likely to take into account regional issues

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Number of Seat Winning Parties

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p=(MS)^1/4

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Largest Seat Share

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S1=(MS)^-1/8

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Social Cleavages

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Positively correlates to number of parties

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Simple PR Advantages and Disadvantages

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Advantage: It's simple (uh, duh!)
Disadvantage: Varying District Magnitudes (M) means different quality of representation from district to district; malapportionment

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Malapportionment

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Any system where one group has significantly more influence than another, such as when voting districts are unevenly spread out across a population

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Complex PR Advantages and Disadvantages

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Advantages: More fully proportional, yet still room for regional representation; avoids wasted votes
Disadvantages: complex, can be hard to understand

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Taagepara's Simply Systems

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*Legislature of (S) seats, elected in districts with (M) seats, with (E) number of districts
*Extreme cases: E=1, M=S; M=1, E=S

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Average Magnitude

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Avg M=S/E

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Effective Number of Parties

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N=1/(Sum of [Si]^2)

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Party vs. Candidate Centered FPTP Elections (Party)

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*MPs vote party line
*Less time in district, pork, casework
*Candidates spend very little, party funds campaigns
*UK and Canada

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Party vs. Candidate Centered FPTP Elections (Candidate)

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*Rep.'s break party line
*Routine trips to district, pork, and casework
*Candidates spend lots of time fundraising and spending
*US

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Packing and Cracking

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Packing a type of voter into a district, resulting in large majorities of a partisan sort.
Cracking voters of a partisan type across districts in order to prevent consolidation of their vote.

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Aspects of Israeli Electoral System

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*One national district of 120 seats (M=S, E=1)
*Many parties due to social cleavages
*Highly proportional
*Very low threshold (2%)
*Smaller extreme parties in coalition or confidence/supply agreements can act as the hinge on the veto gate, gain undue power
*Closed list PR
*Always coalition gov'ts

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Disadvantages of Israeli System

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*Multi-party coalitions make legislating difficult, small parties often have disproportional amount of power
*Due to nat'l closed list PR there is little direct agent-principle interaction and a feeling of disconnect between voters and MKs
*Many voters feel unable to affect change through voting

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Multi-Member District continuum from party to candidate centric

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Closed List PR > Semi-Open List PR > Open List PR > STV > SNTV

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Single Transferable Vote (STV)

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*Voters can rank candidates regardless of party affiliation

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Closed Ballots

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*Party Centered
*Competition tends to be more interparty
*Strong Party cohesion (usually)
*Elections are about the party

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Open Ballots

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*More candidate centered
*Personal Vote
*More individual accountability
*Intraparty competition

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Effects of Ballot Structure

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*Ballot structure can either promote or constrain voters' ability to control legislators and shape the particular balance between individual and collective accountability.
*Can affect party cohesion
*Can affect level of "face time" constituents get.

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Level of wealth

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*Wealth distribution in a democracy is skewed, so that mean income is higher than median.
*Narrow Interest is the wealthy.
*Broad interest is the middle and lower classes.
*Redistribution means progressive redistribution.

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Economic Sector

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*Narrow interests are state employees or those enjoying protective state measures.
*Broad interests would be everyone else whose primary interest is low consumer prices and working to that end.
*Redistribution is regressive where government interference in the form of protective regulatory and trade policies favor the domestic industries.

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Access to economic rents

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*Redistribution characterized by rents extracted from state coffers by politicians in the form of fiscal transfers and regulatory protection for favored groups (ex: f-ing lending agencies, Pharma, etc.)
*Regressive redistribution giving money to special interests from broad interests

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Affects of electoral system on policy making

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*SMD can be more efficient, creating single party governments; can also lead to corruption and selfish motives.
*PR can lead greater representation and public works projects and social welfare; can lead to overgrazing of public financial commons and free riding.

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Aspects of Spanish electoral system

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*Majority of districts have low M
*Strong regionalism
*Spain's PR system is largely majoritarian due to low magnitudes.
*Closed list PR
*Malapportionment is common due to guaranteed 2 seats per district, so representation is not equal, and also because districts were drawn in 19th century and do not reflect.
*System was designed to limit number of parties, but parties have flourished because of how well regional parties have done, like the Catalan and Basque parties.

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Threshold of Exclusion

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T(Excl.)=100%/(M+1)
Highest vote share a party can obtain and fail to win a seat.

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Threshold of Representation

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Lowest vote share needed for seats. (Depends on number of competitors and how well they do.)

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Effective Threshold

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T(Eff.)=75%/(M+1)
M(Eff.)=(75%/T)-1
If M is low, T(eff.) is high.

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Seat Product

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N(sub s)=(MS)^(1/6)

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Least Squares Index

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Disproportionality is equal to the square root of (the sum of the squared differences of seat and vote share over 2). VOTE AND SEAT SHARE NOT VALUES (a percentage as represented by a number 0-1)

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Droop

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[v/(M+1)]+1
Equation determines the quota necessary to attain a seat in a system that uses the Droop Quota.
Often in Droop quota systems there is a remainder vote that makes up for what would be wasted votes over quota amounts.

Front 58

South African system

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*Closed List PR
*Bicameral legislature
*Lower house S=400
-200 elected in provinces with M of 4-46
-200 from national lists to compensate for disproportionality
*No legal threshold
*Highly proportional
*No floor crossing, unless Presidentially approved
*ANC dominates as national liberation movement and party

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Finland's System

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*200 member unicameral legislature
*Elected by Hare Quote, Largest Remainder
*No legal threshold
*Use primaries
*Fifteen constituencies, one has only one seat.
*Preference votes only.
*Fragmented party system due to large constituencies.