Electoral Systems Flashcards
What do elections do?
Bottom up:
- Produce politicians
- Make governments
- Representation
- Influence policy
- Educate voters
Top down:
- Build legitimacy
- Strengthens elites
- Strengthens democracy
Electoral systems
- The rules governing elections
- They can effect: the election results (who wins? by how much?) and how people feel about democracy (included? represented?)
Electoral systems - majoritarianism
- Choose candidates
- In single-member districts
- Winner takes all
Electoral system - proportional representation
- Choose parties, perhaps also candidates - rank ordered
- In multi-member districts
- Winner takes some
Varieties of majoritarianism - single-member plurality
- Single-member districts
- First-past-the-post – a plurality of votes wins the seat
First past the post in debate
- Districts with their own representatives
- Clear voter choice
- Strong and stable single-party governments
- Produces disproportionate results
- Artificial governing majorities
- ‘Wasted’ votes
Varieties of majoritarianism - second ballot system
-First round: majority winners prevail
Second round: usually get a majority because: only two candidates go forward, OR
weaker ones out, the rest consolidate left-right
Second ballot system in debate
- Majorities enhance legitimacy
- Parties broaden base of support in the second round
- Only slightly fairer to the smaller parties
- Will people show up for the second round? -Reduced chance
Varieties of majoritarianism - alternative vote
- Voters rank single-member district candidates
- If no majority, bottom candidate is dropped, voters’ second choices are counted
- Repeat if necessary
Alternative vote in debate
- Avoids ‘wasted’ votes
- Can produce majority governments
- Not necessarily more proportional than FPTP
- Small party second preferences favoured
Varieties of proportional representation - party list
- Multi-member constituencies, or one national constituency
- Voters choose parties
- Parties make lists of candidates
Party list in debate
- Highly proportional
- Encourages small, idea-based parties with more diverse candidates
- Proportionality may be lost in the construction of coalition government which may be weak and unstable
Varieties of proportional representation - single transferable vote
- Multi-member constituencies
- Voters rank all candidates
- Those meeting the quota will get a seat
- Remaining rounds eliminate bottom candidate, redistribute second preferences
Single transferable vote in debate
- Establishes competition within parties as well as between parties
- More focus on candidates themselves
- May weaken parties
- Will candidates perform distinct duties?
- Proportionality of results may vary
Varieties of proportional representation - mixed-member proportional
- Two simultaneous votes, one for constituency candidate and one for party
- Half of the seats distributed on an SMP system
- The rest of the seats used to generate proportional result
