CHAPTER IX – Elections and Electoral Systems

Summarized by Dr. Bosworth (30/5/01)

Single Member Systems (SM) Advantages and Disadvantages

Proportional Representation Criticisms

Systems (PR), e.g. the

Mixed Member Proportional

Representation Systems (MMP)

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I. Introduction

Not every state that has elections is a democracy. However, every democracy must have elections. Also, some electoral systems are more democratic than others. At the same time, the most democratic electoral system, by itself, does not guarantee that wise sovereign decisions will be made either by the voters or by those they elect.

There are many varieties of electoral systems in the world but each can be seen as a variety of one of two types, or as a mixture of these two. These two are “single member district [plurality] … systems (SM) [used in the US and the UK], multiple member district “proportional representation … systems (PR – 211.5)” used in all continental European states except France and Germany. The most common mixture of these two is the “mixed member proportional … system (MMP – used, for example, in Germany and New Zealand)” (211.5).

Often, there is a relationship between different electoral systems and party systems. Thus, two party systems are most likely to exist in an SM system while a multi-party system usually exists in all other systems.

II. Single Member Systems (SM)

In the SM system, the whole state is divided into as many smaller geographical areas (districts) as members of the assembly to be elected, e.g. 435 for the US House of Representatives. In each district, the elected candidate is the one that receives more votes (i.e. a ‘plurality’) from the citizens in that district than any other candidate.

The following table of results for 5 different districts illustrates the way this system works:

Parties	District A	District B	District C	District D	District E
LP	*40%	35%	*38%	32%	*27%
SP	36%	*37%	37%	*33%	25%
CUP	6%	12%	4%	16%	13%
Greens	14%	13%	10%	12%	26%
CP	4%	3%	11%	7%	9%

The victor in each district is the one that has received the largest percentage of votes and is marked with an asterisk.*

This system encourages small parties to join with others to form a larger party in order to maximize the chance that they will have a member of the assembly that will represent their views, at least to some extent. This usually leads to the situation in which only one of the candidates from one of the two largest parties in the state has a realistic chance of being elected in each district.

An exception to this tendency arises when the supporters of smaller statewide parties are geographically concentrated in particular geographical areas of the country. There are no such cases in the US. However, in the UK, where the two major parties are the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, sufficient support for the Liberal Democrats can be found in certain areas of Scotland and the West Country so it can gain a plurality vote in those districts.

Still, most of the votes cast for the Liberal Democrat Party in other districts are effectively wasted. This means that while the Liberal Democrats are represented in the House of Commons, they are not represented in proportions to the percentage of their supporters in the country. In effect, therefore, each Liberal Democrat citizen’s vote does not count as much in the legislative assembly as does the vote from either a Labour or a Conservative Party supporter. It is this kind of inequality that proportional electoral systems seek to correct.

Nevertheless, supporters of SM usually argue that, unlike other systems, it allows each voter to know the one person who is responsible for representing him or her in the elected assembly. They say this is not so possible nor as clear in systems that are composed of multi-member districts. Supporters of SM say that it is easier for a voter, face to face, to hold one representative to account than to hold several or one of several representatives to account.

A second kind of single member electoral system, the Alternative Vote (AV) system, is not mentioned by Ch.9. It is used in Australia. It reduces the chances that voters will be dissatisfied with the one candidate that will be elected to represent each district.

It does this by allowing voters to put ‘1’ next to their first choice candidate, ‘2’ next to their second choice, ‘3’ next to their third choice, and so on for as many candidates as they wish. When the votes are counted, if one candidate gets a majority (50% + 1) of the first preference votes, then that candidate is elected.

However, if no candidate receives this many first preference votes, the candidate getting the smallest number of first preference votes is eliminated from the race. His or her votes are then given to the other candidates according to the second preference express by each voter. This procedure continues until one candidate is seen to have received majority support from the people who voted in that district.

Therefore, AV is a single member majority system.

In contrast to the AV system, the French, Second Ballot system (also not mentioned in Ch.9) elects one member from each district by requiring a second vote to take place one week later if no candidate receives a majority of the votes in the first election. In the second ballot, the candidate receiving a plurality wins. However, the victorious candidate also often gains a majority in the second ballot because all candidates receiving less than 12.5% in the first election are eliminated from the second election.

III. III. Proportional Representation Systems (PR)

Real PR systems attempt to make sure that the number of elected members in the assembly will accurately reflect the proportion of voters who have supported each candidate or party.

All existing PR systems use multi-member districts. “In some cases, such as the Netherlands and Israel, the whole country [is] one district” (213.3).

One or other variety of the simplest type of PR is used in many European states: “the party list system”. In this system, voters are simply required to vote for one of the lists of candidates offered by each political party. Subject to some variations, depending on the exact mathematical formula used, if one of the parties receives 60% of the votes in a 10 member district, the top 6 candidates in its list will be elected. For example, the d’Hondt formula used in Turkey, Northern Cyprus and elsewhere, disproportionately favors the largest part over the smallest.

The following table of results illustrates how the d’Hondt system of calculation works. The first candidate to be elected is the one at the top of the list of the party with the highest number of votes. This is party LP in the example below. Then that party’s votes are divided by two and the result is compare with the total number received by the party receiving the second largest number of total votes. In the example below, the number resulting from this division is less than the total received by party SP. Therefore, SP’s candidate is the second one to be elected. Next, SP’s total is also divided by two. Because the remaining figure for party LP is now largest, it gets the third seat. As a result, its total vote is now divided by 3 and the resulting figure is compared with the other numbers. This process continues until ten candidates have been elected:

District: A Number of seats: 10 Number of valid votes: 82400

Threshold: none ‘V/2’ means total vote divided by 2.

Parties	Votes	%	V/2	V/3	V/4	V/5
LP	32960 (1)	40	16480 (3)	10986 (6)	8240 (8)	6592 (10)
SP	29664 (2)	36	14832 (4)	9888 (7)	7416 (9)	5933
CUP	4944	6	-	-	-	-
GP	11536 (5)	14	5768	-	-	-
CP	3296	4	-	-	-	-
total	82400	100	-	-	-	-

(1) first seat goes to LP (6) sixth seat goes to LP

(2) second seat goes to SP (7) seventh seat goes to SP

(3) third seat goes to LP (8) eighth seat goes to LP

(4) fourth seat goes to SP (9) ninth seat goes to SP

(5) fifth seat goes to GP (10) tenth seat goes to LP

“There are many variations of [the party list] system in different countries. For example, in Sweden, 39 of the 349 seats in the Parliament are parceled out [later] to [help to] rectify” (213.8) any disproportionalities between the parties that would otherwise remain from accepting only the candidates elected from all the smaller districts.

A second type of PR system, not mentioned by Ch.9, is used in Ireland and Malta: the Single Transferable Vote (STV). Like the above mentioned Alternative Vote (AV) system, it allows each voter to put as many candidates as s/he might wish in number order of preference. Unlike the simple version of the above d’Hondt system, this method treats all parties equally and allows voters as well as the party organization to determine which of its candidates will have the best chance of being elected.

Girdner suggests that PR systems “tend to lead to more parties than needed for a workable system” (213.9). He probably has in mind the difficulty of forming a government led by a prime minister with majority support in the elected assembly when there are many parties.

He seems approvingly to report that many countries, deal with this “fractionalization or splintering” by adopting a “threshold” (214.1). This means that if a party receives less than a specified percentage of the vote (e.g. 5% in Germany, 10% in Turkey), that party can receive no representation in the assembly.

Such thresholds do usually reduce the number of parties in the assembly but it does not guarantee that the assembly will therefore find it easy to decide on one person as prime minister. Recent experience in Turkey illustrates this point. What is certain, however, is that such thresholds make the elected assembly less representative (in the sense of being less proportional). Therefore, the make its state less democratic.

Also in answer to the case for thresholds, Girdner and others may wish to consider the argument that there is a way that a “workable” and stable system can be saved at the same time as retaining the clear democratic advantages of a pure PR system. This can be done both

1) 1) by requiring the head of state to appoint a prime minister when a working majority does not yet exist in the assembly, and

2) 2) by requiring the existing prime minister to stay in office either until his or her maximum term is completed or until s/he is removed by the election of a new prime minister by the assembly.

These ‘constructive vote of no confidence’ arrangements are in the constitution of both Germany and Spain. Thus, against Girdner, it can be argued that with such arrangements, no amount of party fragmentation should be called “excessive” (214.7).

[Feel free to ask Dr. Bosworth for a copy of his essay explaining this argument more fully. It also describes Associational Proportional Representation (APR), a system that claims to combine all of the advantages of all of the other systems without loss, as well as guaranteeing that no votes need be wasted.]

Again, any PR system can easily be made less proportional simply by not allowing parties to be represented in the assembly that have not received an arbitrary percentage or “threshold” of citizens’ votes. In the TRNC, for example, there is a 5% threshold. This percent is higher than what might be called the mathematically required threshold of 2%. It is 2% because there are 50 seats in the TRNC’s Assembly. Thus, proportionally, each deputy could represent one 50th of the voters, i.e. 1/50 = 2%.

III. Mixed Member Proportional Representation Systems (MMP)

MMP is a proportional system that includes some of the advantages of the SM system.

The MMP system tries to “combine the best of both the single member district and proportional representation systems. In [its] parliament, part of the members are elected by SM and part by PR. In the new system adopted in New Zealand in 1993, for example, 65 members ... are elected from constituencies [districts] using SM and 55 are elected by PR from party lists.” (214.8). [See the Case Study (226.8) for more details about the system in New Zealand.]

Germany was the first to use such a system but it is now used also in “Hungary, Bulgaria, Russia, Mexico, Japan, and Italy” (215.0).

The “system works as follows .... [Each voter has two votes, the first for the local candidate to represent his or her district, and the second to express his/her party preference. Thus, first] a portion of the members of parliament are elected [from all the districts] using the single member district electoral system. Then the [number of] seats won by each party [in this way is compared with] the number of seats [that it would be allotted if a simple PR system were being used. Each party that has not yet received its full portion of seats simply as a result of the SM method is then given the balance of its quota of seats from the highest remaining candidates on its country wide party list. Thus, by using one method or the other, each party is guaranteed the total proportion of representation it deserves as determined by the percentage of votes given to it by the second votes of all citizens.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Each System

The determination of advantages or disadvantages depends on which scale of values one is using. Some people believe that such evaluative decisions are inescapably ‘subjective’. However, some of the political philosophers you will study either in the Political Theory or in the History of Political Thought course argue that some value preferences can be defended ‘objectively’.

Perhaps Girdner is referring to such evaluative objectivity when he suggests that MMP resulted from the “analyses of electoral systems by political scientists” (217.8).

This possibility of objectivity implies that a class discussion of the following conflicting, proposed advantages or disadvantages may be productive:

1. SM is “less democratic” (216.) because it is less proportional. Therefore, its assembly and government is less likely to reflect “public opinion” (216.1).

SM’s exclusion of opposition opinions can be made more complete by “gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing the electoral districts so that a certain party or ethnic group has a greater chance, or even a certainty of winning” (216.6).

2. The sections of society that discover that they have very little or no practical chance of being represented in a SM system are more likely either to become “apathetic” (216.2) and thus choose not to vote in the future, or, choose to organize to over through the system violently.

3. SM makes it more difficult for any portion of candidates, or of minority parties, to be elected that are fundamentally critical of any currently dominant social values. For this reason, SM makes it easier for the existing elites to maintain their current advantages.

Thus, if you favor an existing middle class, capitalist society, you will be happy that SM tends to eliminate alternative “ideological ... views” (216.9) from the debates in the assembly, e.g. “right-wing and left-wing points of view” (215end).

Thus, if PR were adopted in the US, it would help to “break up the near dictatorship of the business and middle class” (216.9).

This is to say that PR makes it more “possible to challenge entrenched [minority] interests in the political or economic structure” (217.7).

4. If a PR system is not combined with the above mentioned ‘constructive vote of no confidence’ procedure in a parliamentary system, then SM would tend to make it easier to form “stable governments” (215.9).

5. In any case, SM usually makes it easier to form a one party executive rather than a “coalition government” (215.9).

6. Any one-party governments that are produced in SM systems often represent much less than 50% of the voters, e.g. Thatcher’s second, so-called ‘majority’ government in the UK was elected by 43% of the voters.

7. PR wastes fewer votes than SM.

8. PR allows parties both to “more precisely delineate” (217.0) and to stick to their views and still win some seats. This can raise the level of debate both in the assembly and among the citizens.

9. “Unpopular governments [in parliamentary systems] may ... be disposed of [even more] easily under PR” (217.1).

10. “PR encourages consensual decision-making, rather than majoritarian decision-making” (217.2), i.e. an attitude of attempting to satisfy everyone, in contrast to not caring about what a minority wants when you already know that you have the majority vote on your side.

11. Under PR, “small parties can gain more influence than they should have ... [e.g.] the Right wing religious parties in Israel. But this can ... be solved” (217.5) by the other parties refusing to allow this to happen when they are forming a coalition government.

12. The selection of candidates in a simple party-list PR system is entirely determined by each political party machine rather than by the ordinary voters. However, some varieties of the party-list systems (e.g. the TRNC’s) and all the STV systems allow voters to influence the choice as to which of a party’s candidates will have the best chance of being elected.

One Elitist Criticism of “One Person, One Vote” State Elections

“ Elections are often criticized on the basis that they give everyone an equal voice in choosing leaders. Even those who are illiterate are given the same weight in the ‘one man, one vote’ system and so the system comes to be based on ‘numbers’ [rather than on wisdom]” (218.5). Elites often make the argument that those who are more educated are more capable of making a good decision at the ballot box.

However, Antonio Gramsci [in Italy, 1920s], pointed out” (218.7) that, regrettably, elites, in any case, are usually able to “control public opinion, the press, and the other media, and largely produce the ideology and images that others come to believe in. This ideological hegemony of the dominant classes means, in every society, that the dominate elites will largely be able to shape public opinion, while the voice of the poor, workers, and uneducated is indeed much smaller” (218.9), both per person and as a whole.

Girdner sees this elitist view as being held by many of the “urban middle class in Turkey who resent that they are sometimes outvoted by the larger populations voting in the gecekondus. Greater democratization comes to mean for them, that they are losing more of their traditional hold on Turkish politics” (219.1).

A Criticism of Some Electoral Systems by Liberal and Socialist Supporters of Full Democracy

Such supporters “cynically refer to elections under ... capitalist system as ‘one dollar, one vote’” (2119.5).

Money largely defines who the elite is because money can directly and indirectly buy political influence if not sovereign power. Directly, money can buy

1) 1) advertising time on the TV and the radio,

2) 2) advertising space in newspapers and on the internet, and

3) 3) skilled propagandists (i.e. “professionals” -- 223.7) to present their case to the voting public.

Indirectly, money pays for the appropriate education of its members so they can more efficiently organize the elite’s collective political activities.

Such elites are often successful at “depoliticizing” (220.7) the “underclass” (219.7) by using the media that they own to divert the consciousness of this class into “sex” (220.7) and “sport” (221.0). This helps most people not to think too much about society’s power structure, and thus prevents them from seeing the main source of their own deprivations.

Since there is both this kind of elite in the US and it also has an SM electoral system, Noam Chomsky claims that “there is, in practice, only one party in America, the ‘business party’. The Republican Party is [its] right wing ... while the Democratic Party is [its] left wing.