Electoral Systems and Voting Behavior Flashcards
Systemic Effects
Mostly related to proportionality
Strategic Effects
- Decreased Prortionality and Increases Vote Mechanics
- the more complicated the system, the more common strategic voting is
assess the micro-level effects of electoral systems
- Polticiains’ and voters’ behavior is influenced by electoral system type
- Ballot structure has an effect on the strategic calculations of voters
- National outcomes (under FPTP and simialr)
- Divided gov
The “strategic vote” (SV)
Voting for your 2nd preferred option to prevent your least preferred option from winning when your 1st preference has no choice
Duverger (1951) and Cox (1997)
- Voters want their votes to be effective - > Casting a ballot that will have no influence on an election is undesirable -> some voters cast strategic ballots when they decide that doing so is useful
- Strategic scrutiny = the assumption that voters consider how their vote choices influence policy outcomes
- Voters who consider how their vote choice influences policy decisions at the higher level
Farrell and Gallagher rankings of electoral systems per complexity/strategic effects on the political system
- STV: can rank all candidates from all parties
- Panachage: can vote for candidates from +1 party
- Open List: ‘personal’ votes determine ranking of candidates
- Mixed-member: 2 votes - 1 for candidate 1 for party
- Alternative Vote:
- Closed List: can only vote categorically for 1 party
- SMP: can only vote categoriclaly for 1 candidate of 1 party
Duverger’s Law
FPTP electoral systems produce a 2 party system.
PR and 2 round systems produce multiparty systems.
duverger’s (1951, 1963) law and hypothesis
- This is the result of 2 effects of FPTP systems:
- -1- the mechanical factor of FPTP systems allocates a disproportionate share of the legislative seats to large parties.
- -2- the psychological factor causes voters to strategically defect from their preferred candidate bc of concerns that their votes will be wasted on a hopeless cause
- Cox (1997) disagrees and adds that the incentive to act strategically to influence representation leaves when district magnitude (M) is greater than 5, alongside other theoretical and empirical critiques.
Mechanical Factors
Affects how votes are translated to seats:
- (dis)proportionality
- selectivity
Psychological Factors
Affects how preferences are translated into votes:
- Strategic Voting
- Parties’ competition strategies
Limits and Assumptions of Duverger’s law (Cox)
Duverger’s law applies only if you cast a single vote for a single candidate in a Plurality system. Voters need to know the chances of candidates. Expectations need to be in line with rational behavior
- THEORETICAL LIMITATIONS: (1) Not many voters have a clear 1st choice and are indifferent among the other 2 choices (2) There can’t be a sure winner, bc then supporters of minor candidates have no reason to vote strategically. (3) Voters must have only short-term motivations. (4) Beliefs about who the trailing candidates are is common knowledge.
- EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for bipartism has been at the local level, not the national level. There is no reason to expect local bipartism to exert upward pressure and lead to national bipartism.
- ADDITIONALLY: it may be more appropriate to look ELITE EXPECTATIONS more than at individual voters’ expectations. By deciding who to fund and support, the elites largely determine which candidates will be percieved by the masses as having a chance
Tactical Voting
Tactical voters cast their vote for a candidate with a better chance of winning than their most preferred party bc they perceive their chance of being pivotal to be greater
Sincere Voting
Voting for the most preferred candidate or party
Rational Choice Theory in FPTP
- Voters as rational actors -> expected-utility-maximizing voters
- bc FPTP is so simple, it is really easy for voters to figure out whether casting a strategic vote would be worthwhile and what actions are strategically desirable
Downs (1957), Riker and Ordeshook (1968), McKelvey and Ordeshook (1972)
- Downs (1957), Riker and Orderhook (1968), McKelvey and Ordeshook (1972)(rational choice theorists) saw the act of voting as similar to how they saw the actions taken by candidates and parties
- Cox has some caveats (Duverger’s law)
Vote Decisions in PR Systems
There are still incentives to vote strategically BUT they are much weaker in FPTP systems
Abramson2010 large #s of voters in PR+FPTP desert most preferred candida
- Whether or not a candidate is weak or strong is less relevant in PR
- Voters in PR may face additional incentives rooted in institutions beyond the electoral system: The need to form a multiparty coalition govenrement in PR systems creates incentives for voters to vote strategically (or tactically) for parties other than the one whose policies (or leadership) they most prefer.
- Motives for tactical voting: (1) voters have an incentive to vote for parties that are likely to be included in the governing coalition as votes for coaltion parties have greater impact on policy outcomes (voters as “portfolio maximizers”). (2) given a gov coalition, voters have an incentive to vote for a coalition partner that is more extreme than they are themselves to pull the policy outcome closer to their preferred policy.
Cox’s M+1 Rule
District Level (with M<or=5)
No more than M+1 competitive candidates:
- Short-term instrumental rationality
- Absence of a sure winner
- Voters don’t have rigid preferences
- Availability of information of the relative strength of candidates
Systemic Level
No more than M+1 competitve parties
- presence of systemic coordination incentives
How to make votes count (Cox)
- VOTES (DON’T) COUNT when people can(‘t) coordinate on a candidate or party (FPTP)
- REPRESENTATIVE VS EFFICIENT voting matters: if voters vote efficiently, then strategic voting will arise only in favor of nationally competitive parties
The nature of strategic voting’s political impact: it only imposes an upper bound on the effective number of competitors (as opposed to implying a point prediction for this number)
The difference btw strategic and tatical voting
Strategic scrutiny = the assumption that voters consider how their vote choice influence policy outcomes
Tactical voting = when voters don’t cast a vote for their most preferred candidate
