electoral systems

Question 1

why is Britain an electoral system laboratory

Answer 1

• westminster elections use FPTP with single member plurality
• northern ireland uses STV
• scotland wales and london assembly uses mixed member proportional system
• AV used for london mayor vote

Question 2

what are the 3 main types of electoral system

Answer 2

1) majoritarian
- generally single member constituencies
- examples: FPTP, two rounds systems and AV

2) proportional
- multi-member constituencies
- examples: closed list PR, Open list PR and STV

3) mixed: mix or PR and majoritarian
- examples: mixed member proportional or mixed member majoritarian

Question 3

what are the features of FPTP

Answer 3

-1 mp elected for each constituency
- everyone gets 1 vote
- candiate with the most votes win (blair got 32% dont need a maj)
- not very representative due to the large dispersed support that parteis need to have across the country to gain power in parliament
- political apathy and low turnout

Question 4

in 2015 how many votes did it take conservatives v the green party to gain a seat?

Answer 4

34,000 for tory
1,147,000 for green party (support concentrates in brighton)

Question 5

majoritarian two round system

Answer 5

1 MP in each constituency
- if no one wins 50% of the vote (which is hard to do in 1st round) the top two candaites do through to the second round
used in france

Question 6

what is the alternative vote system?

Answer 6

• 1 MP per constituency
• citizens rank candiates from 1-5
• if no one wins 50% of the vote the candiate with the fewest votes is elimiates and their other preference voters are redistibuted until somone gets 50%

still majoritarian but far more presentative than FPTP

Question 7

what is the difference between closed and open list PR?

Answer 7

• close list PR is party based
• Open list PR is candiate based

Question 8

closed list

Answer 8

• multi member consituncies
• each parties presents a list of candiates and citizens vote for a party
• seats are allocated in each constituency in proportion to the votes recieved in that constituency
• party control over lists can be dangerous tho

Question 9

turkey 2015 elections example

Answer 9

turkey uses a closed list system
- the HDP in 2015 won enough votes to gain 6 seats so their 6 top ranked candiates were elected
- the AKP won enough to gain 2 seats so their 2 top candiates were elected

Question 10

open list PR

Answer 10

• same as closed list but instead citizens can vote for candiate or a party from the lists presented
• seates allocated in propotion to votes

ex lativa each party has their own ballot paper
citizens take it into their rooms and either vote for a party of candiate on that particalr parties paper

Question 11

how many days did Belgium go without a government?

Answer 11

589 days
but due to belgium being federal the states just continued without a central governemnt

Question 12

STV

Answer 12

• each par presents a list of candidates
• citizens make their preference votes form 1-5
• if a candidate reaches the droop quota they are elected
• if no one reaches this quota then the candiates with the lowest votes are eliminated and their lower preference votes are redustibuted until the quota is met

Question 13

mixed member proportional systems

Answer 13

• citizens get 2 votes 1 for reigonal and one for local representatives
• the parties who dont do as well in the local round (round 1) are compnesated to make it easier for them to get votes in the second round over those who dominated in the 1st round due to the dhont formula

used in scotland

Question 14

mixed member majoritarian systems

Answer 14

party list seats are allocated seperatley in proportion ot he votes recieved by parties ( there is no compensating the parties who lost out in the first vote like the proportional system)

used in japan

Question 15

what scale is used to calculate how disproportionate an electoral system is?

Answer 15

ghalleghers-index is an equation used to calcaute the difference between votes and seats in eaach party and electoral system

the closer to 0 the more proportional the distbution of seats in is relation to their votes share

Question 16

example of proportionate and dispoportionate systems according tot he ghalleger index?

Answer 16

• Uk elections in 1983 had an extremly high score of 17.45
• germany altered their electoral system after scoring close to 7. in 2017 their score was only 1.95

Question 17

what is district magnitude?

Answer 17

• the number of members elected in a district
• in single member constituencies generated by systems like FPTP, AV or the two rounds system have a district magnitude of 1
• in proportional systems the larger the districts the more proportional they are for example a district of 3 representatives mean that candidates need at least 25% of the vote to be elected. this means that parties who get less than 10% of the vote share won’t be elected and their votes will be wasted
  whereas in a district with 9 representatives those parties are more likely to be elected with less wasted votes

Question 18

what study emphasies the importance that electoral systems have on turnout

Answer 18

balis and carr in 1990 established that what electoral system is used with directly affect turnout
- PR systems hae higher turnout on average becuase people feel like thier vote has more impact and their say matters
whereas in majoirtarian systems people believe that unless voting for a main party thei vote doesnt matter and will be wasted

Question 19

example of belgium in 2010

Answer 19

• 11 parties gained representation but no gropu gpt more than 2% due to deep cleaveges in society preventing commn ground voting
• this ed to the 589 days without a governemnt
• however after this di dupo formed a cabinet with 6 different parties

Question 20

what are the two trades offs of the political effects of electoral systems?

Answer 20

trade off 1: parliamentary representation v governemnt accountability

trade off 2: cohesive parties v accountable politicians

Question 21

trade off 1 explained

Answer 21

should there be a stable single party government with maximised governemnt accountability and high clarity or should the makeup or parliament represent votes of citizens but with fragile coalitions?

Question 22

duvergers law

Answer 22

in references to trade off 1:

• french political scientst made the preposition that:
• majoritarian systems equals two party system
• proportional systems equals multi member system

the reasons being:
- mechnaicial: majoritarian systems have big parteis who win more seats than their vote share and small parties win less seats than their vote share

• psycological: majoritarian systems people vote strategically for the bigger parties is their preffered parteis have no chance fo winning in a constutency (tacial voting

Question 23

cox’s correction of duverger

Answer 23

• argues durveges logic only works at a constituent level
• argues that the number of competitative candidates should be the number of seats plus one
• in geographically heterogenious societeis such as canada which has single member constuencies actually creates a multi-party system!

Question 24

how can PR systems be modified to limit the number of parties in parliament and let the big parteis dominate?

Answer 24

1) small multi member distrists with a low magnitude = more seats for big parteis to win (seen in spain)
2) high electoral threshold ( ex 5% of votes minimum to win )
3) winners bonus (greece)
4) mixed member majoirtarianism (as seen in japan)

Question 25

summarise dulverger’s law and cox’s criticism

Answer 25

• dulverger argues hat due to mechancial and phsycological reasons majoirtarin systems always have 2 party systems and proportional alway have multi members

however cox argues this is only true at a constiuency level
it can be see that in majoritain systems like canda can create culi party systems
and in proptional systesm there can be limits put on place to favour the main parties

Question 26

trade off 2 explained

Answer 26

trade off between open or close list PR:

should parties be highly centeralised and cohesive in a close list but with less indivdual accountability or should citizens be able to chose between politicans in the same political party which increases accountability but leads to uncohesive parties as mavericks will come out fo parties straying from their ideals

Question 27

how do mixed member systems work?

Answer 27

citizens have 1 rounds of votes:
1) single member constituency level vte
2) a party list vote for your reigonal/national candiates

mixed member propotional compnesates parties who lost out in the first round to boost their represenativness in the national level

whereas mixed majoirtarin systems party seats are allocated seperatley with no atttempt to compensate smaller parties

Question 28

example of spain for district magnitiude:

Answer 28

• in 2004 35/52 constituencies had 7 seats and only 6 had 10 seats with no additional or leveling seats.

-median representatives were 5 making it disproportionate and unrepresentative of smaller parties

Question 29

downside to having a strong district magnitude

Answer 29

the large number of representatives weakens the link between constituents and representatives