ELECTORAL SYSTEMS

ELECTORAL SYSTEMS

1. PLURALITY-MAJORITY

   • Single Member Plurality (First Past the Post)
     • Tendency for: 1.) 2 party systems 2.) stable single-party majorities
       • Electoral constituencies are single-member districts (each constituency has ONLY ONE REPRESENTATIVE)
         • Plurality-based SMD, the candidate who receives the most votes wins the seat
           • Votes casted for other candidates are effectively wasted (assuming the candidate you voted for lost)
             • Votes casted for INDIVIDUALS
               • SMD can affect power within parties themselves since public cares more about the candidate than the political party
                 • EXAMPLES: US, Canada, India, Nigera
   • Single Member Majority (Two Round OR Run-off systems)
     • Candidates MUST win majority of votes to win office ( >= 50%)
       • If no winner in first round, a second round is held between the top 2 candidates
         • VOTERS VOTE 2 TIMES!!!
           • Requires candidates to gain "true" majority support and undermines the accession of extremist candidates
             • EXAMPLES: France, Portugal, Brazil,
               • FRANCE ELECTION 2002 WAS THE FIRST TIME AN EXTREMIST MADE IT TO THE SECOND ROUND OF VOTING (thank god he lost)
   • Alternative Vote
     • Voters vote once/ single district
       • Voters rank candidates by preference
         • lowest rank is eliminated if no candidate wins an outright majority
           • The lowest rank is dropped and the ballots that ranked that candidate are recounted, except instead of counting the voters 1st preference (the lowest rank) they count the 2nd preference.
             • This process continues until someone gets the majority of the votes.
               • Need sophisticated software because this is very math based.
                 • EXAMPLE: Australia

2. Proportional Representation

   • Multimember districts instead of single member districts
     • the % of votes a party receives determines how many seats the party will gain. NUMBER OF VOTES PROPORTIONAL TO NUMBER OF SEATS
       • Enables even a small % of the vote to receive representation.
         • Single Transferable Vote (STV)
           • Voters rank candidates by preference
             • Instead of 1 candidate being elected there will be multiple candidates elected since it's a multi-member district.
               • Candidates must reach a certain number of votes (quota) (changes each election) in order to win a seat in office. (This is instead of winning majority of the votes )
                 • Before the lowest rank is dropped, if there is a candidate who passes the quota, they win a seat in office and the surplus votes are redistributed to the other candidates based on their 2nd preference
                   • The lowest rank is dropped and the votes from that candidate are redistributed to the remaining ones.. This is done by looking at the second preference on the ballots of those who voted for the lowest rank.
                     • The cycle continues until there are no more seats open.
                       • EXAMPLE: Ireland
         • List Proportional Representation (List PR)
           • District magnitude = the size of a district
             • For a party to get seats, they MUST go above the "threshold" (Thresholds vary per country)
               • CLOSED LIST
                 • Parties come up with a list of candidates in order of who they want
                   • Public votes for a PARTY and the number of votes the party receives is proportional to the number of seats given to party.
                     • EXAMPLES: Israel, Iraq , Argentina
               • OPEN LIST
                 • Public chooses candidates within parties to sit in office
                   • Public votes for a candidate within a party. The number of candidates that win for each party represents the number of seats given to the party.
                     • EXAMPLE: Japan, Denmark, Switzerland, Greece
               • The greater the number of representatives to be elected from a district and the lower the required threshold for representation in the legislature, the more proportional the electoral system will be.
                 • The greater the chance small minority parties will have of gaining representation.
                   • ADVANTAGES: Few wasted votes, easier for women reps. to be elected, inclusiveness, proportionality, no need to draw boundaries, no need to hold by-elections, higher voter turnout, restricts growth of single party regions.
                   • DISADVANTAGES: Weak geographic representation, accountability issues, lots of power given to political parties, inability to throw a party out of power.

3. OTHER

   • Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV)
     • Semi-PR system and "winner takes all"
       • Each voter casts one vote for one candidate in a multi-candidate race for multiple legislative seats
         • Candidates receiving the most votes win the seats
           • EXAMPLE: Afghanistan 2005 (America's doing)

4. Mixed Systems

   • Majority / PR system
     • Hard to compare because each system is different.
       • Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)
         • Voters get 2 votes: one for a PARTY, and one for a CANDIDATE
           • The more PARTY VOTES a party gets , the more seats it will have in parliament.
             • The CANDIDATE WITH THE MOST VOTES is elected to be the seat for that district/ electorate.
               • Vote for the candidate you like the most in your district AND for the party you want to be most represented in Parliament.
                 • EXAMPLES: New Zealand, Germany
                   • Germany = OVERHANG VOTE . the overhang vote is like a bonus because if there are more candidates voted into parliament than seats available, the party and all the other parties will receive however many seats necessary to ensure all elected candidates have a seat in parliament.
       • Parallel Systems (Mixed Member Majoritarian MMM)
         • "winner takes all' AND Proportional Representation but the two "don't touch" each other
           • No compensation seats . The two systems don't interact like they do in MMP
             • Same process as MMP except COUNTRIES CAN CREATE THEIR OWN RATIO
               • EXAMPLE:Palestine
                 • Palestine = 1 single district for PR, and 16 districts for Majority. Their PR is closed list