Electoral System

Question 1

What does electoral system include?

Answer 1



• Electoral System includes Electoral Rules (franchise rule, eligibility rule for candidates, rules for party, election campaign rules, etc, Electoral Formula How votes are converted into seats), District(Constituency) Magnitude Numbers of seats per constituency), and Ballot rules Ballot box or EVM, how vote are casted, etc)

Question 2

Factors affecting choice of electoral system

Answer 2

• Size & Socio-cultural diversity of the political system
• Literacy- Democratic and political
• Political Culture
Nature of the party system
Socio-economic context
• Power politics, consensus and compromise among ruling elites
• Historical experiences, traditions, practices, lesson learnt

Question 3

What is an electoral system?

Answer 3

system are institutional rules, norms, procedures and structures by which representation are decided in democratic political system. Most important of those rules are for conversion of votes into seats. As per Gallagher, Electoral System are set of rules that structure how voters cast express his choice) votes in election and how these votes are then converted into seats. In a nutshell, rules of voting and conversion of votes into seats won by political parties constitute electoral system.

Question 4

Electoral system can be categorised into three what are they?

Answer 4

Majoritarian- 1st past the post system

Proportional representation PR

Misri presentation

Question 5

What is District magnitude?

Answer 5

Electrical systems include district magnitude as well, that is number of seats per constituencies. Two types are Komen single member district and multiple member district. 

Question 6

Which act specify the electoral system

Answer 6

Representation of the people act, 1951

Question 7

What is divergents law

Answer 7

EPTP results into Two-party system o called Duverger’s Law
• This is due to dis-proportionality in built into FPTP, which is unfavourable to 3” and other smaller parties.
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Also, due to strategic voting phenomenon in FPTP, 3rd party loses its due votes

Question 8

What is a band wagon effect?

Answer 8

Many undecided voters me vote for candidates, most likely to win that is they simply ride on the bandwagon

Question 9

Other name of FTPT system

Answer 9

Single member simple plurality system

Question 10

Features of FTPT

Answer 10

Features of FPTP:
• Single member constituency
• Generally, in FPTP, single member district (SMD) rule is followed.
• Hence, this system is also known as Single Member Simple Plurality system; simple plurality denotes that winning candidate does not need absolute majority, the candidate getting most votes among all candidate wins the seat.
• Simple, straight-forward, easy to understand
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Winning formula is most simple
Unlike single transferrable voting (STV) or AV (Alternate Voting), FPTP is easy to understand for both voters and candidates.
• Dis-proportionality
o No co-relation between vote and seat percentage
• For example, in 2014 general election, BJP got 282 seats (51% of seats) with 31% of votes; In first general election Congress won 364 of the 489 seats (74%) with 45% of votes.
A party may win more seats with fewer popular votes than its opponents, as happened in 2018 MP assembly election, where BJP despite getting 41.02 % ( in comparison to 40.89% by Congress), got lesser seats than those by Congress.
This is due to ‘winner take it all’ feature of FPTP. Even by getting one vote more than the 2” candidate, the 1” candidate wins the whole constituency.
• Quick vote counts and result declaration
• Unlike STV or AV, there are no preference transfer in FPTP.
• Hence, vote counts and result declaration is quick
• Clear geographic link between voter and representatives o only one candidate wins from the constituency • Voting to candidate is direct, no party list or preferential voting
• Due to above two conditions, there is clear link between voter, representatives, and constituency in FPTP; geographic link between the representative and the constituency and personal link between the voter and the representative.
•It gives way to ‘strategic voting’ phenomenon
о
Voters may give their votes, against their first choice, to that candidate which has chance of defeating the candidate the voters don’t want.
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This is because votes to losing candidates are wasted in FPTP.
• FPTP results into Two-party system
called Duverger’s Law
• This is due to dis-proportionality in built into FPTP, which is unfavourable to 3rd and other smaller parties.
• Also, due to strategic voting phenomenon in FPTP, 3rd party loses its due votes
• Generally, FPTP produces clear decisive mandate
• In FPTP, winning party wins big
• This is also because of ‘bandwagon ‘effect. Many undecided voters may vote for candidates most likely to win. That is, they simply ride on the bandwagon.
• Encourages broad based centrist parties
• Since such party tries to accommodate interests of all segment of population, it attracts votes from all segments/sections.
On the contrary, extreme or single issue-based parties are unduly punished in FPTP.
• Since FPTP was the Electoral system adopted by UK, most of post-colonial states who were part of the British colonial empire, adopted FPTP.
• Despite this, FPTP is not the most popular Electoral system. Majority of countries have adopted proportional representation and its variants.

Question 11

PR system generally produces which type of govt

Answer 11

Coalition govt

Question 12

FTPT system produces which govt

Answer 12

Two party system

Question 13

Proportional representation was first used in mid-19 century by whom

Answer 13

It was first used in Denmark by Karl André And in Britain by Thomas hare and John Stuart Mill

Question 14

In India, STVPR system is used for election of whome

Answer 14

President, vice president and Rajya Sabha members

Question 15

There are multiple variants of the PR system. Methods currently in use Include what

Answer 15

the single-transferable-vote method (STV),
the party-list system, and
the additional-member system or Mixed-member proportional representation (MMPR). MMPR is actually a mixed or hybrid system. This include features of both single member plurality system (SMP) and party list system of PR.

Question 16

PR system have multiples variants

Answer 16

•Party List PR:
Voters vote for party which declares list of party candidates who would be allotted
seats won by the party
• Generally entire nation is one constituency
Open party list vs Closed Party list:
Closed party list: Party declares list of candidates in order of preference;
voters are allowed only to choose party.
• For example, a party wins 10 seats on the basis of total vote’s percentage. Then, first 10 names from top in the party list will be nominated against these seats.
• Open party list: Parties declares their list of candidates without any preference order. voters choose party and then give their choice of candidate.
Ex: Israel, most of European nations
• Single-Transferable-Vote (STV) system
• Multi member constituency; 3-8 seats;
fixed quota of votes, calculated by different formulas, required to be obtained by the winning candidates
Voters cast single vote with preference, that is, give rank 1,2,3,4…to each candidate;
] preference ( 1$ rank) votes of all candidate counted; candidates getting more votes than the quota are declared winner.
•
If no candidate gets the required quota, preferences of bottom most candidates transferred to other candidates till required numbers of winning candidates are found.
• EX: Republic of Ireland and Malta

Question 17

Formula is used for seat reservation in PR

Answer 17

The two main formula of the largest
reminder rule and highest average rule

Question 18

Features of proportional representation system

Answer 18

• Proportionality means that numbers of the seats won by a party is proportional to the votes obtained by it.
• Thus, there is direct relationship between the seats won by a party and the votes obtained by it.
• However, Proportionality is never perfect. It depends upon many factors; these are:
• District Magnitude (numbers of seats in a constituency) : more the numbers of seats in a constituency the more is proportionality.
Therefore, in many countries entire nation is one constituency.
• Voting threshold: Parties have to win a minimum percentage of votes to get any seat. For example, suppose the vote threshold is 5 %. It means any party must get at least 5% of total votes to be eligible to be allotted seats in proportion to votes obtained.
Thus, more the vote threshold the less is proportionality
• Formula used for seat conversion
•the two main formula are the largest-remainder rule and the highest-average rule.
• variants of PR system
• Proportionality varies in STV, Party list, MMPR, etc.
Multimember Constituencies:
• Proportional representation systems use multimember constituencies, that is, more than one candidate is elected from a single constituency
• In some cases, like in Germany, entire nation is a single constituency.
PR system generally produces coalition Government
Smaller parties also get seats proportion to their vote’s percentage. Hence, large numbers of parties are represented in parliament. Hence, difficult for a single party to get majority of seats. Therefore, coalition Government is the feature of PR system
Complex and time consuming
•PR uses complex statistical methods to convert votes into seats and maintain proportionality.
• This makes PR system complex and declaration of election results time consuming.

Geography link between the representatives and constituency is broken

Question 19

Best example of mixed representation system

Answer 19

German parliament Bundestag 

Question 20

Country is using mixed representation system

Answer 20

Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Hungary, Russia and Ukraine.
All together about nine countries

Question 21

Other name of misrepresentation

Answer 21

Mixed member proportional representation( MMPR) or additional members system

Question 22

Explain mixed representation system

Answer 22

In the mixed representation system, the total seats in the legislative body are divided into two parts. For one part of the seats, the voters elect representative from their constituency through majoritarian or simple plurality system such as FPTP. While for the remainder of the seats, voter cast their vote through the party list system of proportional representation.
Thus, in this hybrid system, voter cast two votes- one for candidate representing their constituency and second vote for the political party as per the party list. It should be noted that the total seat distribution in the legislative body is, however, decided only on the basis of the votes received in the party list PR system. For the constituency wise simple plurality voting generally single member are represented from each constituency; whereas for the party list the multi member constituencies are the norm.

Question 23

What is vote threshold

Answer 23

• Vote Threshold:
• in many countries vote threshold is also applied in this system, that is, a party must get at least a certain percentage of total votes or some minimum numbers of constituency seats to get seats in proportion to the votes obtained through PR system.
For example, in Germany, a party should get 5% of the total votes in the party list or it should win at least 3 constituency seats. In New Zealand, a party must win at least one constituency seat to be eligible to get seats in the proportion to votes obtained through the party list PR system.

Question 24

Features of the mix, representation, system

Answer 24

Features of the mixed representation system are:
• Two- vote system:
• voters cast first vote for the candidate representing his or her constituency and second vote for non-constituency representatives through party list PR system.
• Division of numbers of seats between constituency and non-constituency seats varies from country to country. For example, in Italy and Japan, respectively, roughly three-fourths and three-fifths of all seats are constituency seats. Whereas in Germany 50% of total seats are constituency seats.
• The seat sharing formula in the legislative body is decided only on the basis of votes received through the second vote, that is, the party list PR system.
• The system combines the benefit of clear geographic and personal linkage of representative with the constituency and voters as well as the proportionality of the PR system.
• The system uses all the votes cast to the parties and no vote is wasted. For this, different formulas are used.

• To maintain proportionality multiple methods are used. Two most common formula or methods for this are the largest remainder method and the highest average method.
o Parties winning more seats than the proportion of votes, their seats are adjusted using overhang seat formula. On the contrary, some parties receive extra seats called ‘balance seats’ to maintain proportionality. In some cases, the size of the legislative body is increased to maintain the proportionality.