List PR Flashcards
What is List PR?
List PR involves each party presenting a list of candidates to the electorate, voters voting for a party and parties receiving seats in proportion to their overall share of the national vote. Winning candidates are taken from the list in order of their position on the list.
What are the advantages of List PR?
Faithfully translate votes cast into seats won
PR systems avoid some of the more destabilizing and ‘unfair’ results thrown up by plurality-majority electoral systems. See the 2000 USA Presidental election case study.
‘Seat bonuses’ for the larger parties are reduced, and small parties can gain access to parliament without polling huge amounts of votes.
Fewer wasted votes
When thresholds are low, almost all votes cast within PR elections go towards electing a candidate of choice. This increases the voters’ perception that it is worth making the trip to the polling booth at election time, as they can be more confident that their vote will make a difference to electoral outcomes, however small.
Facilitate Minority Parties’ Access to Representation
Unless the threshold is unduly high, or the district magnitude is unusually low, any political party with even a few per cent electoral support should gain representation in the legislature.
This fulfils the principle of inclusion, which can be crucial to stability in divided societies, and has benefits for decision-making in all democracies.
Allow Parties to Present Diverse Lists of Candidates
The incentive under List PR systems is to maximize the national vote, regardless of where those votes might come from.
Encourage the Election of Minority Representatives
When, as is often the case, voting behaviour dovetails with a society’s cultural or social divisions, then List PR electoral systems can help ensure that parliament includes members of both majority and minority groups. This is because parties can be encouraged by the system to craft balanced candidate lists, which appeal to a whole spectrum of voters’ interests.
Make it More Likely that Women are Elected
In essence, parties are able to use the lists to promote the advancement of women politicians, and allow the space for voters to elect women candidates without limiting their ability to vote with a mind on other concerns.
Lead to More Efficient Government
The Western European experience suggests that parliamentary-PR systems score better with regard to governmental longevity, voter participation and economic performance.
The rationale behind this claim is that regular switches in government between two ideologically polarized parties, as can happen in FPTP systems, makes long-term economic planning more difficult, while broad PR coalition governments help engender a stability and coherence in decision-making which allows for national development.
What are the disadvantages of List PR?
The disadvantages of List PR is widely the disadvantages of usual PR.
More likely to form coalition governments.
A platform for extremist parties.
Less of a link between the local constit. and the MP elected.
The inability to throw a party out of power.
