Introduction

Question 1

Important Authors in Electoral Systems

Answer 1

Douglas W. Rae, Arend Lijphaart, Gary Coz, Michael Gallagher, Richard Katz, Mathew Shugart, Rein Taagepera

started in the 1980s

Question 2

Arrow’s Paradox

Answer 2

With the same cadidates, the same voters, and the same distribution of preferences - using 5 different voting systems we can get 5 different results

Kenneth Arrow’s impossibility theorem

When voters have 3+ distincr alternatives, no ranked voting electoral system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting all of the specific criteria: non-dictatorship, unrestricted domain (universal admissibility, Pareto efficiency (unanimity), independence of irrelevant alterantives

Question 3

What is an electoral system?

Answer 3

How preferences turn into votes that turn into seats

it is just a component of the whole electoral process

• how citizens vote
• the design of the ballot, how preferences can be expressed
• how votes are counted
• who wins/gets elected

Question 4

Who said this, “an electoral system is a set of rules governing the process through which voters’ preferences are converted into votes and votes are translated into seats”?

Answer 4

Douglas Raw 1967

Question 5

What are electoral laws?

Answer 5

The family of rules governing the process of election:
- how the election is called
- candidate nomination
- electoral campaign
- who can vote and voter turnout

not the same as the electoral system

Question 6

What is electoral legislation?

Answer 6

Electoral Legislation = laws governing electoral process + electoral system

Question 7

What are the constitutive elements of electoral systems?

Answer 7

• ballot structure (how votes are cast)
• direct magnitude (how seats are structured /constituency structure)
• electoral formula (how votes are translated into seats)
• threshholds (legal and implicit)

Question 8

What are the basic classifications of electoral systems?

Answer 8

1. Majoritarian Systems (Plurality or Majority)
2. Proportional Systems
3. Mixed Systems

Proportional systems are the most common in Europe and in democracies (PR List).
Mixed systems are the least common. They include mixed-member, parallel, hybrid.