Introduction to the Legal System

– Module II
Lecture 8 – Electoral Systems
 Electoral Systems

Form of
Government

Political System Electoral System

 Electoral Systems
• An Electoral System is the set of rules that govern
elections and the translation of votes into seats in
parliament (or for the presidency).
• An electoral system is made of:

– Electoral Laws: all rules and regulations dealing with

elections (franchise, timing, oversight, electoral
campaigns)

– Electoral Formula: the mechanism through which

votes are translated into seats
 Electoral Laws
• Suffrage/ political franchise:
– Limitations based on capacity, age,
citizenship, status
• Passive Suffrage: who can be elected
– E.g. different requirements in Italian Constitution
for Senate and Chamber
• Campaign Finance
– E.G. caps on individual contributions; accounting
and reporting duties
 Right to Vote
• Right to vote is a first generation, political right.
• Recognized in all liberal constitutions but
– There might be electoral laws that, while formally neutral,
actually hamper the ability of certain categories of citizens to
vote.
– E.G. Many Southern States in the US required literacy tests:
– The Voting Rights Act (1965) prohibited all such requirements
– Still today the strengthening of identification requirements has
been challenged because it arguably prevents minorities to
exercise their right to vote.
• Tension between ensuring the accuracy of the vote and not
creating too many obstacles to its free exercise.
 Other Political Rights

• to speak freely about political matters;

• to run for office;
• to associate in a political party;

• Relationship Democracy/Elections
• You need elections to have democracy but,
• in the absence of these rights you could have
elections without real democracy
– Formal v. Substantive notions of Democracy
 Electoral Formula
• The mechanism through which votes are translated
into seats
• Two Macro Systems:
1. Majoritarian Systems: the candidate obtaining more
votes than the others gets the seat
• Aka Winner-Take-All systems
• Typically each constituency elects only one member of parliament.
2. Proportional Representation (PR) Systems: each party is
assigned a number of seats proportional to the votes
obtained
• Typically each constituency elects more than one representative
 Electoral Formulas

1)Majoritarian 2)Proportional
Systems Representation

A) Plurality B) Majority D’Hondt Sainte-

Systems Systems Method Laguë
Method

Two Tier Alternative

Systems Vote
 1 A) Plurality Systems – aka First Past
the Post Systems
• Relative majority of votes is enough to get the
seat.
• Single Member Constituencies
• Each constituency elects only one MP
• Each Party presents only one candidate for each
constituency
– Often comes with primary elections
• E.G. UK House House of Commons, US House of
Representatives
1 A) First Past the Post Ballot
 1 A) First Past the Post – Effects
• Encourages Two-Party Systems rather than Multi-
Party Systems
• Disadvantages minority parties whose support is
spread around the country rather than
concentrated in certain areas
• System is very resistant to extreme parties
• http://www.bbc.com/news/election/2015/results
• https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2017/result
s/england
 1 B) Majority Systems
• Relative majority is not enough
• Candidates need an absolute majority to
obtain the seat: 50% +1 votes
• Single-member constituencies – each
constituency elects one representative
• But absolute majorities rarely arise at the first
round
different mechanisms to arrive at an
absolute majority:
 1B)I Two-Tier Systems: France
• If absolute majority is not reached at the first round
• there is a second round: run-off election or second
ballot.
• Only parties who obtained a number of votes above
a certain threshold on first round pass to the second
round
– E.G. France: threshold 12,5 %
– At the second round you only need relative majority
• https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Elections/Les-
resultats/Legislatives/elecresult__legislatives-
2017/(path)/legislatives-2017/FE.html
 1 B) II Alternative Vote
• Aka Instant Runoff Voting or Ranked-Choice
Voting
• Electors rank candidates in order of
preference
1 B) II Alternative Vote: Australia
 1 B) II Alternative Vote: Australia
1. At first only first preferences are counted
– If no absolute majority is reached through them..
2. the candidate with less 1st preferences is eliminated.
– Second preferences of the eliminated ballots are added to the first
preferences already counted
– If one candidate has now more votes than all remaining candidates
put together, she is elected – if not…
3. the new candidate with less preferences is eliminated, and the
second (or third) preferences of those ballots are counted and
allocated.
4. And so on… the process is repeated until one candidate has
more votes than the other remaining candidates put together
= 50 % +1 of the votes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J31QkzWmmUc
 2) Proportional Representation
Systems
• Candidates are elected from each constituency
proportionally to the number of votes each party
obtains.
• In PR systems you always have Plurinominal (or Multi-
Member) Constituencies.
– Constituencies typically correspond to subsections of the
country – e.g. regions
• Each party presents a list of candidates to the electorate
from which MPs are drawn
– closed list: Political Parties predetermine the order in which
candidates will be elected – citizens cant choose
– open list: Voters can select their preferred candidates –
these preferences determine the order of election.
 How to deal with fractions
• Proportional Allocation of Seats creates a
problem:
Fractions

• Of course when you have a great number of votes

and a few seats, a perfect proportional is not
possible:
– E.G. allocation would require to give ½ seat to some;
1, ½ to others, etc.
• Different mathematical methods try to deal with
the problem of the allocation of fractions.
 D’Hondt Method
• When allocating seats according to this formula,
the first seat goes to the party obtaining more
votes.
• Then the number of votes of that party is divided
by a divisor equal to s + 1 (where s is the number
of seats already allocated to that party)
• The process is repeated until all seats have been
allocated.
• E.G. elections for the European Parliament in
England use the D’Hondt Formula
 D’Hondt Method: an Example
2014 British Election for EU Parliament –
South-East District
Votes UKIP Conservative Labor Green LibDem
Seats:
Divider
UKIP: 4
1 751.000 723.000 342.000 211.000 187.000 Con: 3
2 375.500 361.500 171.000 105.500 93.500 Labor: 1
Green: 1
3 250.000 241.000
LibDem: 1
4 188.000 180.000
• You have to assign 10 seats.
1. You first assign one seat to the party with more votes: UKIP, and divide the original number of vote by 2= (s + 1).
2. Who has more votes now? The Conservatives. You assign them a seat and divide their votes by 2 = (s +1)
3. Who has more votes now? UKIP again. You assign them a seat and divide their original number of votes by 3 = (s
+1)
4. Who has more votes now? Conservatives. You assign them a seat and divide their original number of votes by 3 =
(s+1)
5. Who has more votes now? Labor. You assign them a seat and divide their original number of votes by 2 = (s+1)
6. Who has more votes now? UKIP. You assign them a seat and divide their original number of votes by 4 = (s+1)
7. Who has more votes now? Conservatives. You assign them a seat and divide their original number of votes by 4
=(s +1).
8. Who has more votes now? Green. You assign them a seat and divide their original number of votes by 2 = (s +1)
9. Who has more votes now? UKIP. You assign them a seat and divide their original number by 5 = (s+1)
10. Who has more votes now? LibDem. You assign them the last and tenth seat
 D’Hondt Formula
Seats they would get in exact Seats assigned through
Libdem: proportion D’Hondt
0,8

Green: 1 Green
1 LibDem
1
UKIP:3,4 UKIP
Labour 4
Labor:
1,5 1

Conserv
Conserv
ative
ative:
3
3,3
 Saint-Laguë Formula
• Similar to the D’Hondt Method
• But with a higher dividend = 2s +1 (1,3,5,7)
• N.B. With this method the dividers are always
odd. In some systems, the initial divider might
be different than one.
 Same Example with Saint-Laguë
Formula
Votes UKIP Conservative Labor Green LibDem
Divider
1 751.000 723.000 342.000 211.000 187.000
3 250.000 241.000 114.000 70.000 62.300
5 150.200 145.000
7 107.00 103.000

• Different Results • With respect to the D’Hondt

Formula we have 1 less seat
UKIP: 3 seats for UKIP and 1 more seat for
Conservative: 3 seats Labour
Labor: 2 seat
Green: 1 seat
LibDem: 1 seat
 D’Hondt v. Sainte-Laguë
• Typically it is said that the D’Hondt method helps
larger parties (it has a lower divisor)
• While Sainte Laguë helps smaller parties.
• Sainte-Laguë systems normally include minimum
thresholds:
– e.g. only parties obtaining more than 5 % votes get
seats
• N. B. rarely systems are purely proportional:
growingly common are majoritarian correctives
such as majority bonuses.
Comparing Majoritarian and
Proportional Systems
 First Past the Post
• Advantages • Disadvantages
• Excluding minority parties from fair
• Simplicity representation
• Governability • Wasted Votes
• Coherent Parliamentary Opposition • Regional Fiefdoms
• Excludes extremist parties (unless they • May encourage development of ethnic,
are territorially concentrated) or independentist parties
• Strong link of the MP with the territory: • Open to the manipulation of electoral
boundaries: gerrymandering
Geographical Representation
• Far less likely to give representation to
• It encourages plural political parties racial, ethnic minorities or women: s.c.
(discourages sectorial divisions) Most-broadly acceptable candidate
syndrome
• Slow response to major change in
support
 Proportional Representation
• Advantages • Disadvantages
• Faithful translation of seats into • Complexity
votes (no wasted votes) • Inefficient Coalition Governments
• Minority Parties are adequately • Destabilizing Fragmentation of Party
represented System
• More Diverse Lists of Candidates • Blackmailing power of small (often
– Good for minorities and women extremist) parties. (e.g. Israel, Italy)
• No regional fiefdoms • allow an entry point into parliament to
• Visible Power-Sharing Important for extremist parties
new democracies • Lack of link between candidate and
territory – less accountability
• may create dominant governing parties in
charge for decades (e.g. Italy; the
Netherlands)
 Hybrid or Mixed Systems
• Strong tendency to combine majoritarian and
proportional elements.
• E.g. Germany –Mixed Member Proportional
– Post-War Constitution combines a personal vote in
single-member districts with the principle of
proportional representation.
– Ensuring representation of diverse social and
political forces in parliament + guaranteeing link
with the territory.
 Where Do We Find rules on Electoral
Formula?
• Mostly these are determined through ordinary Law
– not in the Constitution
– Why?
– idea that the electoral systems need to adapt to the
changing political reality
– Many European countries are currently transitioning
from Two-Party to Multi-Party System
• Some countries have provisions in the
Constitution, but this is the exception:
– E.G. Spain
– 1978 Constitution (Section, 68.1 para 3): “The Election
in Each Constituency Shall Be Conducted on the Basis of
Proportional Representation”
 Factors to consider in the choice of
Electoral System
• New Democracy v. Consolidated democracies
• Ethnic Divides
• Presence of independentist parties
• E.G. Generally, new democracies coming from an
authoritarian past will opt for inclusive systems:
– Proportional representation
– Idea that these countries are not ready for the robustly
adversarial rhetoric of a First Past the Post System.
– In many developing countries First Past the Post Systems
are said to trigger breakdown of democracy as the
excluded minorities try to overthrow the system