E L E C T O R A L   S Y S T E M S :

Majority-Plurality Systems

PR Systems (Proportional Representation)

MAJORITY-PLURALITY SYSTEMS

The distinguishing feature of plurality-majority systems is that they almost always use single-member districts. In a First Past the Post system, sometimes known as a plurality single-member district system, the winner is the candidate with the most votes, but not necessarily an absolute majority of the votes (see First Past the Post (FPTP)). When this system is used in multi-member districts it becomes the Block Vote (see Block Vote). Voters have as many votes as there are seats to be filled, and the highest-polling candidates fill the positions, regardless of the percentage of the vote they actually achieve. Majoritarian systems, such as the Australian Alternative Vote (see Alternative Vote) and the French Two-Round System (see Two-Round System), try to ensure that the winning candidate receives an absolute majority (i.e. over fifty percent). Each system, in essence, makes use of voters second preferences to produce a majority winner, if one does not emerge from the first round of voting.

 

FIRST PAST THE POST (FPTP)

To date, pure First Past the Post (FPTP) systems are found in the United Kingdom and those countries historically influenced by Britain. Along with the United Kingdom, the most analyzed cases are Canada, India, New Zealand, and the United States of America. However, New Zealand switched to a MMP system of Proportional Representation in 1993 (see New Zealand: A Westminster Democracy Switches to PR).

FPTP is also used by a dozen Caribbean nations; by Belize and formerly Guyana in Latin America; by ten Asian states (including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Malaysia); and by many of the small island nations of the South Pacific. Eighteen African nations, mostly former British colonies, use FPTP systems. In total, out of the 212 countries and related territories (see The Global Distribution of Electoral Systems) sixty-eight--just under one third--use FPTP systems.

In FPTP systems, the winning candidate is simply the person who wins most votes. In theory, a candidate could be elected with two votes, if every other candidate only secured a single vote. Alterations to this rule transform the system into the Block Vote, the Two-Round System, or the Single Non-Transferable Vote, and these systems are dealt with in more detail in Block Vote, Two-Round System and Single Non-Transferable Vote. However, one adaptation that can also be categorized as FPTP was used in Nepal in the early 1990s. There, due to the low level of literacy in much of the electorate, candidates ran under a party symbol, rather than as individuals. Voters chose between parties, rather than between candidates. Candidates for office were allowed to run in more than one district, if they wished. Any candidate elected in two or more seats would then have to choose which district they would represent. Partial elections were held to fill the vacated seats.

See the following case studies UK: Electoral System Experimentation in Cradle of FPTP, The Canadian Electoral System: A Case Study, India- First Past the Post on a Grand Scale and Papua New Guinea. First Past the Post (FPTP), like other plurality-majority electoral systems, is defended primarily on the grounds of simplicity and its tendency to produce representatives beholden to defined geographic areas. The most often cited advantages of FPTP are that:

It provides a clear cut choice for voters between two main parties. The built-in disadvantages faced by third and fragmented minority parties under FPTP in many cases makes the party system gravitate towards a party of the "left" and a party of the "right", alternating in power. Third parties often wither away, and almost never reach a threshold of popular support where their national vote achieves a comparable percentage of parliamentary seats.

It gives rise to single party governments. The "seat bonuses" for the largest party common under FPTP (i.e., where one party wins, for example, 45 percent of the national vote but 55 percent of the seats) means that coalition governments are the exception rather than the rule. This state of affairs is praised for providing cabinets unshackled from the restraints of having to bargain with a minority coalition partner. It gives rise to a coherent parliamentary opposition. In theory, the flip side of a strong single-party government is that the opposition is also given enough seats to perform a critical checking role, and present itself as a realistic alternative to the government of the day.

It benefits broadly-based political parties. In severely ethnically or regionally-divided societies, FPTP is praised for encouraging political parties to be "broad churches", encompassing many elements of society, particularly when there are only two major parties and many different societal groups. These parties can then field a diverse array of candidates for election. In FPTP Malaysia, for example, the governing coalition is a broad-based movement, and fields Chinese candidates in Malay areas and vice versa.

It excludes extremist parties from parliamentary representation. Unless an extremist minority party's electoral support is geographically concentrated, it is unlikely to win any seats under FPTP. This contrasts with the situation under straight PR systems, where a fraction of one per cent of the national vote can ensure parliamentary representation.

It retains the link between constituents and their Member of Parliament (MP). Perhaps the most often quoted advantage of FPTP systems is that they give rise to a parliament of geographical representatives: MPs represent defined areas of cities, towns, or regions rather than just party labels. Many proponents of FPTP argue that true representative accountability depends upon the voters of one area knowing who their own representative is, and having the ability to re-elect, or throw them out, at election time. Some analysts have argued that this "geographic accountability" is particularly important in agrarian societies and developing countries (see Holding the Government and Representatives Accountable).

It allows voters to choose between people, rather than just between parties. At the same time, voters can assess the performance of individual candidates, rather than just having to accept a list of candidates presented by a party, as can happen under some List PR electoral systems.

It gives a chance for popular independent candidates to be elected. This is particularly important in developing party systems, where politics revolves more around extended family ties, clan, or kinship, and is not based on strong party-political organizations.

Finally, FPTP systems are particularly praised for being simple to use and understand. A valid vote requires only one mark beside the name or symbol of one candidate, and the number of candidates on the ballot paper is usually small, making the count easy to administer for electoral officials.

Plurality-majority systems, with First Past the Post (FPTP) being the chief culprit, have been criticized for the reasons outlined below.

Excluding Minority Parties from Fair Representation

Here we take the word Fair to mean that a party which wins approximately ten percent of the votes should win approximately ten percent of the parliamentary seats. In the 1983 British general election, the Liberal-Social Democratic Party Alliance won twenty-five percent of the votes, but only three percent of the seats. In the 1981 New Zealand election the Social Credit Party won twenty-one percent of the vote, but only two percent of the seats. In the 1989 Botswana general election the Botswana National Front won twenty-seven percent of the votes, but only nine percent of the seats. This pattern is repeated time and time again under FPTP (see UK: Electoral System Experimentation in Cradle of FPTP and New Zealand: A Westminster Democracy Switches to PR).

Excluding Minorities from Fair Representation

As a rule, under FPTP, parties put up the most broadly acceptable candidate in a particular district so as to avoid alienating the majority of electors. Thus it is rare, for example, for a black candidate to be given a major party's nomination in a majority white district in Britain or the USA. There is strong evidence that ethnic and racial minorities across the world are far less likely to be represented in parliaments elected by FPTP. In consequence, if voting behaviour does dovetail with ethnic divisions, then the exclusion from parliamentary representation of ethnic minority group members can be destabilizing for the political system as a whole (see US: Ethnic Minorities and Single-Member Districts).

Excluding Women from Parliament

The "most broadly acceptable candidate" syndrome also affects the ability of women to be elected to parliamentary office, because they are often less likely to be selected as candidates by male-dominated party structures. Evidence across the world suggests that women are less likely to be elected to parliament under plurality-majority systems than under PR ones. The Inter-Parliamentary Union's annual study of "Women in Parliament" in 1995 found that on average women made up eleven percent of the parliamentarians in established democracies using FPTP, but the figure almost doubled to twenty percent in those countries using some form of Proportional Representation. This pattern has been mirrored in new democracies, especially in Africa.

Encouraging the Development of Ethnic Parties

In some situations, FPTP can encourage parties to base their campaigns and policy platforms on hostile conceptions of clan, ethnicity, race, or regionalism. In the Malawi multi-party elections of 1994, a history of colonial rule, missionary activity, and Hastings Banda's "Chewa-ization" of national culture combined to plant the seeds of regional conflict which both dovetailed with, and cut across, pre-conceived ethnic boundaries. The South voted for the United Democratic Front of Bakili Muluzi, the Centre for the Malawi Congress Party of Hastings Banda, and the North for the Alliance for Democracy led by Chakufwa Chihana. There was no incentive for parties to make appeals outside their home region and cultural-political base.

Exaggerating "Regional Fiefdoms"

This is where one party wins all the seats in a province or district. In some situations, FPTP tends to create regions where one party, through winning a majority of votes in the region, wins all, or nearly all, of the parliamentary seats. This both excludes regional minorities from representation and reinforces the perception the politics is a battleground defined by who you are and where you live, rather than what you believe in. This has long been put forward as an argument against FPTP in Canada (see The Canadian Electoral System: A Case Study).

Leaving a Large Number of "Wasted Votes"

Votes which do not go towards the election of any candidate are often referred to as 'wasted votes.' Related to "regional fiefdoms" above is the prevalence of wasted votes, when minority party supporters begin to feel that they have no realistic hope of ever electing a candidate of their choice. This can be a particular danger in nascent democracies, where alienation from the political system increases the likelihood that extremists will be able to mobilize anti-system movements.

Being Unresponsive to Changes in Public Opinion

A pattern of geographically-concentrated electoral support in a country means that one party can maintain exclusive executive control in the face of a substantial drop in popular support. In some democracies under FPTP, a fall from sixty percent to forty percent of a party's popular vote nationally, may represent a fall from eighty percent to sixty percent in the number of seats held, which does not affect its overall dominant position. Unless seats are highly competitive, the system can be insensitive to swings in public opinion.

Open to the Manipulation of Electoral Boundaries

Any system with single-member districts is susceptible to boundary manipulation, such as unfair gerrymandering or malapportionment of district boundaries (see Boundary Delimitation Index). This was particularly apparent in the Kenyan elections of 1993 when huge disparities between the sizes of electoral districts--the largest had 23 times the number of voters as the smallest--contributed to the ruling Kenyan African National Union party's winning a large parliamentary majority with only thirty percent of the popular vote.

TWO-ROUND SYSTEM

The final type of plurality-majority system used for parliamentary elections is the Two-Round System (TRS), also known as the run-off or double-ballot system. Each name indicates the central feature of the system: that it is not one election, but takes place in two rounds, often a week or a fortnight apart. The first round is conducted in the same way as a normal First Past the Post (FPTP) election. If a candidate receives an absolute majority of the vote, then they are elected outright, with no need for a second ballot. If, however, no candidate receives an absolute majority, then a second round of voting is conducted, and the winner of this round is declared elected.

The details of how the second round is conducted vary in practice from state to state. The most common method, as used in the Ukraine, is for the second round of voting to be a straight "run-off" contest between the two highest vote-winners from the first round; this is called a majority-runoff system (see Ukraine - The Perils of Majoritarianism in a New Democracy). It produces a result that is truly majoritarian, in that one of the two candidates will necessarily achieve an absolute majority of votes and be declared the winner. A variant on this procedure is used for legislative elections in France, the country most often associated with the TRS. For these elections, any candidate who has received the votes of over 12.5% of the registered electorate in the first round can stand in the second round. Whoever wins the highest numbers of votes in the second round is then declared elected, regardless of whether they have won an absolute majority or not. Unlike straight majority-runoff, this system is not truly majoritarian, as there may be up to five or six candidates contesting the second round of elections. We therefore refer to it as a majority-plurality variant of the TRS.

TRSs are used to elect over thirty national parliaments and are an even more common method for electing presidents. Along with France, many of the other independent nations which use TRS are territorial dependencies of the French Republic, or have been historically influenced in some way by the French. In francophone Sub-Saharan Africa, the Central African Republic, Mali, Togo, Chad, Gabon, Mauritania, and the Congo, and in North Africa, Egypt use the system. Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Kiribati and the Comoros Islands also use TRSs for their legislative elections, as do the post-Soviet bloc states of Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Unsurprisingly, in Western Europe, France is joined by Monaco in using TRS. Albania and Lithuania run TRS elections alongside List PR elections as part of their parallel systems, while Hungary uses TRS to decide the results of the majoritarian district electoral component of its Mixed Member Proportional PR system.

Two-Round System-Advantages

First and foremost, the Two-Round System (TRS) allows voters to have a second choice for their chosen candidate, or even to change their minds on their favoured choice between the first and the second rounds. It thus shares some features with preferential systems like the Alternative Vote (AV)(see Alternative Vote), in which voters are asked to rank candidates, while also enabling voters to make a completely fresh choice in the second round if they so desire.

Secondly, it encourages diverse interests to coalesce behind the successful candidates from the first round in the lead-up to the second round of voting, thus encouraging bargains and trade-offs between parties and candidates.

TRS also enables the parties and the electorate to react to changes in the political landscape that occur between the first and the second rounds of voting. In addition, TRS systems lessen the problems of "vote splitting", the common situation under First Past the Post (FPTP) elections where two similar parties "split" their combined vote between them, thus allowing a less popular candidate to win the seat. Finally, because electors do not have to rank candidates with numbers to express their second choice, TRS may be better suited to countries with widespread illiteracy than systems which use preferential numbering like the AV or the Single Transferable Vote (see Single Transferable Vote).

Two-Round System-Disadvantages

It is perhaps surprising that Two-Round Systems (TRS) are the third most popular among the 211 country cases analyzed in this guide. The system places considerable pressure on the electoral administration to run a second election soon after the first, significantly increasing the cost of the overall election process and the time between the holding of an election and the declaration of a result; this can lead to instability and uncertainty.

The TRS also places an additional burden on the voter, and sometimes there is a sharp drop-off in turnout between the first round and the second. In addition, the TRS shares many of the disadvantages of a First Past the Post (FPTP) system, without its countervailing simplicity. Research has shown that the TRS in France produces the most disproportional results of any Western democracy.

 

 

PR SYSTEMS

The rationale underpinning all proportional representation (PR) systems is to consciously reduce the disparity between a party's share of the national vote and its share of the parliamentary seats. If a major party wins forty percent of the votes, it should win approximately forty percent of the seats, and a minor party with ten percent of the votes should also gain ten percent of the parliamentary seats. The use of party lists helps to achieve proportionality, whereby political parties present lists of candidates to the voters on a national or regional basis (see List PR). However, it can be achieved just as easily if the proportional component of an MMP system compensates for any disproportionality arriving out of the majoritarian district results (see Mixed Member Proportional). But preferential voting can work equally well: the Single Transferable Vote, where voters rank-order candidates in multi-member districts, is another well-established proportional system (see Single Transferable Vote).

PR systems are a common choice in many new democracies. Over twenty established democracies, and just under half of all "free" democracies, use some variant of PR (see The Global Distribution of Electoral Systems). PR systems are dominant in Latin America and Western Europe, and make up a third of all the systems in Africa.

While seats are often allocated within regionally-based multi-member districts, in a number of countries (e.g. Germany, Namibia, Israel, Netherlands, Denmark, South Africa, and New Zealand) the parliamentary seat distribution is effectively determined by the overall national vote.

The formula used to calculate the allocation of seats after the votes have been counted can have a marginal effect on PR electoral outcomes. Formulae can be either by "highest average" or "largest remainder" methods. However, district magnitudes and the threshold for representation are of more importance to overall PR results. 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, and the greater chance small minority parties will have of gaining representation. In Israel, the threshold is 1.5 percent, while in Germany it is 5 percent. In the Seychelles a ten percent threshold is imposed for the twenty-three PR seats. In South Africa in 1994, there was no legal threshold for representation, and the African Christian Democratic Party won two seats out of 400, with only 0.45 percent of the national vote. Other important choices involve the drawing of district boundaries (see Boundary Delimitation Index); the way parties constitute their PR lists (see Open, Closed and Free Lists); the complexity of the ballot paper (e.g. the range of choice given to the voter--between parties, or between candidates and parties--see Way of Voting); arrangements for formal or informal "vote-pooling"; and the scope for agreements between parties, such as that provided by systems which use apparentement (see Apparentement).

 

ALLOCATION OF SEATS

A slightly different way to the simple division in Overview of looking at the range of choice within Proportional Representation (PR) systems is to differentiate systems by whether they use one or two "tiers" to allocate seats, and by whether the lists are open, closed, or free (panachage). Countries that allocate seats only on one tier may do it by using national lists, as in Namibia and the Netherlands, or entirely by regional lists, as in Finland (see Finland: Candidate Choice and Party Proportionality) and Switzerland (see Switzerland). The Single Transferable Vote (STV) has almost always been used as a one-tier system (as in Ireland--see Ireland: The Archetypal Single Transferable Vote System).

Two-tier allocations may entail both national and regional lists, as in South Africa (see South Africa: Election Systems and Conflict Management), regional lists only as in Denmark, a national PR list and a single-member district component as in Germany (see Germany: The Original Mixed Member Proportional System) and New Zealand (see New Zealand: A Westminster Democracy Switches to PR), or regional lists and a single-member district component as in Bolivia (see Bolivia: Electoral Reform in Latin America). Malta created a two-tier system out of its STV system in the mid-1980s by providing for some extra compensatory seats to be awarded to a party if it wins a majority of the votes but fewer seats than its rivals (see Malta: STV With Some Twists).

 

LIST PR

Most of the seventy-five Proportional Representation (PR) systems identified in The Global Distribution of Electoral Systems use some form of List PR; only nine examples use MMP or Single-Transferable Vote (STV) methods.

In its simplest form, List PR involves each party presenting a list of candidates to the electorate, voters voting for a party, and parties receiving seats in proportion to their overall share of the national vote. Winning candidates are taken from the lists in order of their position on the lists.

 

List PR-Advantages

In many respects, the strongest arguments for Proportional Representation (PR) derive from the way in which the system avoids the anomalous results of plurality-majority systems, and facilitates a more representative legislature (see First Past the Post-Disadvantages). As a number of examples in the developing world in this book show, for many new democracies, particularly those facing deep societal divisions, the inclusion of all significant groups in the parliament can be a near-essential condition for democratic consolidation. Failing to ensure that both minorities and majorities have a stake in these nascent political systems can have catastrophic consequences (see South Africa case study South Africa: Election Systems and Conflict Management).

PR systems in general are praised for the reasons outlined below.

Faithfully Translate Votes Cast into Seats Won

PR systems avoid some of the more destabilizing and "unfair" results thrown up by plurality-majority electoral systems. "Seat bonuses" for the larger parties are reduced, and small parties can gain access to parliament without polling huge amounts of votes.

Create Few Wasted Votes

When thresholds are low, almost all votes cast within PR elections go towards electing a candidate of choice. This increases the voters' perception that it is worth making the trip to the polling booth at election time, as they can be more confident that their vote will make a difference to electoral outcomes, however small.

Facilitate Minority Parties' Access to Representation

Unless the threshold is unduly high, or the district magnitude is unusually low, any political party with even a few per cent electoral support should gain representation in the legislature. This fulfils the principle of inclusion, which can be crucial to stability in divided societies, and has benefits for decision-making in all democracies.

Allow Parties to Present Diverse Lists of Candidates

The incentive under List PR systems is to maximize the national vote, regardless of where those votes might come from. Every vote, even from an electorally weak area, goes towards filling another quota, and thus gaining another seat. While this point should not be overemphasized, the experience of South Africa suggests that List PR gives the political space which allows parties to put up multi-racial, and multi-ethnic, lists of candidates.

Encourage the Election of Minority Representatives

When, as is often the case, voting behaviour dovetails with a society's cultural or social divisions, then List PR electoral systems can help ensure that parliament includes members of both majority and minority groups. This is because parties can be encouraged by the system to craft balanced candidate lists, which appeal to a whole spectrum of voters' interests. For example, the South African National Assembly elected in 1994 was fifty-two percent black (eleven percent Zulu, the rest of Xhosa, Sotho, Venda, Tswana, Pedi, Swazi, Shangaan, and Ndebele extraction), thirty-two percent white (one-third English, two-thirds Afrikaans), seven percent Coloured and eight percent Indian. The Namibian parliament is similarly diverse, with representatives from the Ovambo, Damara, Herero, Nama, Baster, and white (English and German speaking) communities.

Make it More Likely that Women are Elected

PR electoral systems are often seen as more friendly to the election of women than plurality-majority systems. In essence, parties are able to use the lists to promote the advancement of women politicians, and allow the space for voters to elect women candidates without limiting their ability to vote with a mind on other concerns. As noted earlier, in single-member districts most parties are encouraged to put up a "most broadly acceptable" candidate, and that person is seldom a woman. While much of the evidence for a link between PR and women's representation comes from Western democracies, there is some preliminary evidence to suggest that a similar pattern is being followed in new democracies, such as those in Africa (South Africa, Mozambique), and in Central and South America (Argentina, Brazil, and Costa Rica).

Restrict the Growth of "Regional Fiefdoms"

Because PR systems reward minority parties with a minority of the seats, they are less likely to lead to situations where a single party holds all the seats in a given province or district.

Lead to More Efficient Government

It has been argued, in relation to established democracies, that governments elected by PR methods are more effective than those elected by First Past the Post (FPTP). The Western European experience suggests that parliamentary-PR systems score better with regard to governmental longevity, voter participation and economic performance. The rationale behind this claim is that regular switches in government between two ideologically polarized parties, as can happen in FPTP systems, makes long-term economic planning more difficult, while broad PR coalition governments help engender a stability and coherence in decision-making which allows for national development.

Make Power-Sharing More Visible

In many new democracies, power-sharing between the numerical majority of the population who hold political power and a small minority who hold economic power is an unavoidable reality. Where the numerical majority dominates parliament, negotiations between different power blocks are less visible, less transparent, and less accountable. It has been argued, in particular in Africa, that PR, by including all interests in parliament, offers a better hope that decisions are taken in the public eye, and by a more inclusive cross-section of the society.

 

List PR-Disadvantages

The majority of the criticisms of Proportional Representation (PR) are based around two broad themes:

  • the tendency of PR systems to give rise to coalition governments with their attendant disadvantages; and
  • the failure of some PR systems to provide a strong geographical linkage between an MP and the MP's electorate

The most cited arguments against using PR are that it leads to:

Coalition governments, which in turn lead to legislative gridlock and the subsequent inability to carry out coherent policies at a time of most pressing need. There are particularly high risks during an immediate post-transition period, when new governments have huge expectations resting upon their shoulders. Quick and coherent decision-making can be impeded by coalition cabinets and governments of national unity which are split by factions.

A destabilising fragmentation of the party system. PR reflects and facilitates a fragmentation of the party system. It is possible that such polarized pluralism can allow tiny minority parties to hold larger parties to ransom in coalition negotiations. In this respect, the inclusiveness of PR is cited as a drawback of the system.

In Israel, for example, extremist religious parties are often crucial to government formation, while Italy has endured fifty years of unstable shifting coalition governments (see Electoral Reform in Israel).

A platform for extremist parties. In a related argument, PR systems are often criticized for giving a parliamentary stage to extremist parties of the left or the right. It has been argued that the collapse of Weimar Germany was in part due to the way in which the PR electoral system gave a toe-hold to extremist groups.

Governing coalitions which have insufficient common ground, in terms of either their policies or their supporter base. These "coalitions of convenience" are sometimes contrasted with stronger "coalitions of commitment" produced by other systems (e.g. the Alternative Vote), in which parties tend to be reciprocally dependent on the votes of supporters of other parties for their election.

The inability to throw a party out of power. Under a PR system, it may be very difficult to remove a reasonably-sized party from power. When governments are usually coalitions, it is true that some political parties are ever-present in government, despite weak electoral performances from time to time. In the Netherlands, the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) remained the leading partner in government for seventeen years despite a declining vote share (see The Netherlands).

A weakening of the link between MPs and their constituents.When simple List PR is used, and seats are allocated in one huge national constituency as in Namibia (see Namibia - National List PR in Southern Africa) or Israel (see Electoral Reform in Israel), the system is often criticized for destroying the link between voters and their member of parliament. Voters have no ability to determine the identity of the persons who will represent them, and no identifiable representative for their town, district, or village; nor do they have the ability to easily reject an individual if they feel they has behaved poorly in office. This factor has been particularly criticized in relation to some rural-based developing countries, where voters' identification with their region of residence is sometimes considerably stronger than their identification with any political party.

On a related point, national closed-list PR is criticized for leaving too much power entrenched within party

headquarters and wielded by senior party leadership. A candidate's position on the party list, and therefore likelihood of success, is dependent on currying favour with party bosses, whose relationship with the electorate is of secondary importance.

Furthermore, the use of a PR system presumes some kind of recognized party structure, since voters are expected to vote for parties rather than individuals or groups of individuals. This makes List PR particularly difficult to implement, and probably less meaningful, in those societies which do not have parties, or have very embryonic and loose party structures (see Jordan - Electoral System Design in the Arab World).

Lastly, PR systems often have a barrier to surmount because they are still unfamiliar systems to many countries with English or French colonial histories, and because some variants are seen as being too complex for voters to understand or for the electoral administration to implement.

 

MIXED MEMBER PROPORTIONAL

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) systems, as used in Germany (see Germany: The Original Mixed Member Proportional System), New Zealand (see New Zealand: A Westminster Democracy Switches to PR), Bolivia (see Bolivia: Electoral Reform in Latin America), Italy, Mexico, Venezuela, and Hungary, attempt to combine the positive attributes of both majoritarian and Proportional Representation (PR) electoral systems. A proportion of the parliament (roughly half in the cases of Germany, Bolivia, and Venezuela) is elected by plurality-majority methods, usually from single-member districts, while the remainder is constituted by PR lists. This structure might on the surface appear similar to that of the Parallel systems described earlier; but the crucial distinction is that under MMP the list PR seats compensate for any disproportionality produced by the district seat results. For example, if one party wins ten percent of the national votes but no district seats, then they would be awarded enough seats from the PR lists to bring their representation up to approximately ten percent of the parliament.

In all but one of the seven countries using MMP, district seats are elected using FPTP, while Hungary uses the Two-Round system previously described. Italy's method is considerably more complicated, with one-quarter of the parliamentary seats being reserved to compensate for wasted votes in the single-member districts. In Venezuela there are 102 FPTP seats, 87 National List PR seats and 15 extra compensatory PR seats. In Mexico 200 List PR seats compensate for the usually high imbalances in the results of the 300 FPTP seats, but an extra provision states that no single party can win more than 315 parliamentary seats, and if they receive less than sixty percent of the vote the maximum becomes 300 seats.

 

Mixed Member Proportional-Advantages

While Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) retains the proportionality benefits of Proportional Representation (PR) systems, it also ensures that voters have geographical representation. They also have the luxury of two votes, one for the party and one for their local MP.

 

MMP-Disadvantages

One problem of Mixed Member Proportional System (MMP) is that the vote for their local MP is far less important than the party vote in determining the overall allocation of parliamentary seats, and voters do not always understand this. Furthermore, MMP can create two classes of MPs.

It should also be remembered that in translating votes into seats, MMP can be as proportional an electoral system as pure List PR, and is therefore bedevilled with all the previously-cited advantages and disadvantages of PR.

However, one reason why MMP is sometimes seen as less preferable than straight List PR is that it can give rise to what are called "strategic voting" anomalies. In New Zealand in 1996, in the constituency of Wellington Central, some National Party strategists urged voters not to vote for the National Party candidate, because they had calculated that under MMP his election would not give the National Party another seat in parliament, but simply replace another MP from their party list. It was therefore better for the National Party to see a candidate elected from another party, providing he was in sympathy with the National Party's ideas and ideology, than for votes to be "wasted" in support of their own candidate.

 

SINGLE TRANSFERABLE VOTE

Political scientists have long been advocated the Single Transferable Vote (STV) as one of the most attractive electoral systems. However, its use for national parliamentary elections has been limited to a few cases--Ireland since 1921 (see Ireland: The Archetypal Single Transferable Vote System), Malta since 1947 (see Malta: STV With Some Twists), and once in Estonia in 1990. It is also used in Australia for elections to the Tasmanian House of Assembly, the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, and the federal Senate (see The Alternative Vote in Australia); and in Northern Ireland local elections. In the nineteenth century, Thomas Hare in Britain and Carl Andru in Denmark independently invented the core principles of the system. STV uses multi-member districts, with voters ranking candidates in order of preference on the ballot paper in the same manner as the Alternative Vote (see Alternative Vote). In most cases this preference marking is optional, and voters are not required to rank-order all candidates; if they wish they can mark only one.

After the total number of first-preference votes are counted, the count then begins by establishing the "quota" of votes required for the election of a single candidate. The quota is calculated by the simple formula:

Quota = (votes + 1)/(seats + 1)

The first stage of the count is to ascertain the total number of first-preference votes for each candidate. Any candidate who has more first preferences than the quota is immediately elected. If no-one has achieved the quota, the candidate with the lowest number of first preferences is eliminated, with his or her second preferences being redistributed to the candidates left in the race. At the same time, the surplus votes of elected candidates (i.e., those votes above the quota) are redistributed according to the second preferences on the ballot papers. For fairness, all the candidate's ballot papers are redistributed, but each at a fractional percentage of one vote, so that the total redistributed vote equals the candidate's surplus (except in the Republic of Ireland, which uses a weighted sample).

If a candidate had 100 votes, for example, and their surplus was ten votes, then each ballot paper would be redistributed at the value of 1/10th of a vote. This process continues until all seats for the constituency are filled.

 

Single Transferable Vote-advantages

As a mechanism for choosing representatives, the Single Transferable Vote (STV) is perhaps the most sophisticated of all electoral systems, allowing for choice between parties and between candidates within parties. The final results also retain a fair degree of proportionality, and the fact that in most actual examples of STV the multi-member districts are relatively small means that an important geographical link between voter and representative is retained.

Furthermore, voters can influence the composition of post-election coalitions, as has been the case in Ireland, and the system provides incentives for inter-party accommodation through the reciprocal exchange of preferences. STV also provides a better chance for the election of popular independent candidates than List PR, because voters are choosing between candidates, rather than between parties (although a party-list option can be added to an STV election; this is done for the Australian Senate- see The Alternative Vote in Australia).

 

Single Transferable Vote-Disdvantages

The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is often criticized on the grounds that preference voting is unfamiliar in many societies, and demands, at the very least, a degree of literacy and numeracy. The intricacies of an STV count are themselves quite complex, which is also seen as being a drawback.

STV also carries the disadvantages of all parliaments elected by PR methods, such as under certain circumstances increasing the power of small minority parties. Moreover, at times the system, unlike straight List PR, can provide pressures for political parties to fragment internally, because at election-time members of the same party are effectively competing against each other, as well as against the opposition, for votes.

Many of these criticisms have, however, proved to be little trouble in practice. STV elections in Ireland (see Ireland:

The Archetypal Single Transferable Vote System), Malta (see Malta: STV With Some Twists) and Tasmania (see the Alternative Vote in Australia) have all tended to produce relatively stable, legitimate governments comprised of one or two main parties.

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