To commence, I would like to extend a heartfelt ''hi!'' to all the Kossacks here after a long absence. Exam time's a real salope and prevents you from doing anything very much at all, except for staring at the innumerable pages until the letters begin to tap-dance in front of your eyes.
You do, however, learn quite a few useful things in the process, and that is why I thought it would be useful to take a step back from the daily political battles and discuss theory for a change. Since a large part of politics revolves around elections, I thought it could be worthwhile to present different vote distribution (''voting'' for short) systems and discuss their merits.
As always, I apologise for any mistakes in terminology. Translating anything legal from memory, without a dictionary, is a devil's job. Feel free to correct me - in fact, I should demand it.
All the credits go to my professors and their textbooks. No names - blogs have to be a bit incognito - but they know who they are. While you make May a little slice of hell, most of you are all right, really. There. I said it. Don't count on a repeat until after the second round of exams passes, heh.
1. The Basic Separation of Voting Systems
While there are innumerable different kinds of voting systems, they generally fall into one of two categories: Majority systems, characteristic of Anglo-Saxon legal and political systems (the United States, the United Kingdom etc.), and proportional systems, which are used mostly in the countries of continental Europe. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, which are conveniently summed up in this section for Your convenience.
Majority systems' pros:
- They are exceedingly simple to understand.
- They allow a voter to choose between candidates, not lists or parties.
- Electoral results usually give a single party a majority, permitting the government to work efficiently.
Majority systems' cons:
- They are usually dependent on uninominal voting districts, which are far, far more vulnerable to gerrymandering than plurinominal ones.
- They force political parties to merge in order to get their representatives elected, which denies, hah, the consumers (voters) a sufficient choice. Three parties at most? I call that a poor store. This can be lead to apathy, with a large part of the population abstaining.
- Efficiency ain't always democratic.
- Most importantly, even without gerrymandering the results do not reflect the true balance of political power, since they only represent the majority (which can be just 50.00000001% of the population).
Proportional systems' pros:
- They allow the elected bodies to reflect the true balance of political power.
- Such a system allows a wide range of political parties to exist, even the fringe ones, both on the left and the right (which is, for example, one of the reasons France has a moderately successful communist party), thereby giving voters a wider choice.
- While elected bodies may be less efficient, that is the reason you can be pretty sure the process is democratic.
- They are dependent on plurinominal voting districts, which are less vulnerable to gerrymandering.
Proportional systems' cons:
- They can be very, very, very complicated (i.e. you need an hour at most to understand them, which for some obscure reason many voters aren't willing to do).
- Pure proportional systems do not allow a candidate to choose between candidates, only between lists of candidates (which can be corrected using various measures; more on that in a bit).
- A large number of political parties can mean a great instability of the elected bodies (bicker, bicker, bicker...).
- Unless corrected, they may mean a loss of votes (more on that in a bit).
2. Voting districts
Creating them's a b*tch. They are usually divided into two categories: Uninominal (one elected representative) and plurinominal (2+ elected representatives per district).
The main problem is drawing the districts. Because each vote has to have the same weight as any other vote voting districts have to be of approximately the same size (minor deviations are permissible because it's simpler to organise them at least roughly in line with existing administrative regions). The fundamental rules are: Districts have to be drawn according to their geographical, historical, cultural, and other relevant characteristics, and they also have to be of approximately the same size (as noted above).
Which leads us to the problem of the noble practice of gerrymandering. The proble is that the shape and size of the districts can be manipulated to give an unfair advantage to one or more political parties and thereby skew the election results. Because only one candidate is elected, uninominal districts are more vulnerable to this than plurinominal ones, which are inherently proportional, even if they use the relative majority system (see below).
3. Majority systems
3.1. Relative majority
This is probably the simplest system of majority voting. The candidate with the most votes wins. In case of a plurinominal voting district the candidates with the most votes win.
This is the most excluding system, which can give a piss-poor majority all the seats, as illustrated below:
Candidate/votes(%):
A: 26%
B: 24%
C: 30%
D: 15%
E: 5%
Number of seats available: 2
C and A win, with the elected body representing the will of 56% of the electorate, with the rest being without a voice.
3.2. Absolute majority (uninominal districts only!):
A: 26%
B: 24%
C: 30%
D: 15%
E: 5%
C and A proceed into the second round:
A: 49%
C: 51%
C wins.
Same problem as with the relative majority system, albeit a bit lessened. The best system to use with a monocratic elected position (mayor, president, etc).
There are other, rarely used majority systems which retain most of these faults to a greater or lesser degree.
4. Proportional systems:
4.0. Introduction
There are no clearly defined proportional systems, only methods of mandate distribution with their distinct advantages and disadvantages. Some lead to vote loss despite (or, more appropriately, because of) their proportionality, which is corrected by dividing mandate distribution into two tiers (or, rarely, more): The voting district, where the first division is carried out, and the national level, where the missing mandates are distributed and the paries which gained mandates on the national level gain them in the districts with the missing mandates where the parties had the greatest number of excess votes.
If this seems complicated, don't worry: It becomes simpler when demonstrated.
4.1. Corrections of Basic Faults:
In a purely proportional systems there are numerous deficits: Vote loss, which leads to a two-tier system, as was discussed above; furthermore, without a check even parties which obtain a tiny amount of votes can be represented. This might mean too much democracy and an elected body which is paralysed, which is why proportional systems usually have a quota, a percentage of votes (taken from all voting districts) is required to be eligible for mandate distribution on the national level (say, a 5% of all votes requirement) with single-district lists being excluded from the equation. They can, however, still get seats in their districts; they just don't get the possibility pf extra votes on a national level.
Also, in a purely proportional system, candidates vote for lists and the candidates get elected in their numerical order, usually set by the political parties or others (say, a percentage of voters) eligible to present candidate lists. This is amended via preferential voting, where you vote both for a list and a candidate on it.
Example of preferential voting:
List A: 4 mandates
Candidates and their vote percentages:
A: 6%
B: 25% M
C: 30% M
D: 20% M
E: 15% M
F: 4%
Due to preferential voting, B, C, D, and E are elected; if there wasn't a preferential voting system, A, B, C, and D would have been elected due to their order.
4.2.: Hare Quota
Number of votes required for a mandate = (Votes given)/(Number of Seats)
This is the simplest proportional quota used in the distribution of mandates:
A: 400
B: 120
C: 200
D: 150
E: 50
F: 80
N: 1000
Seats available: 4
Note: These are lists, not candidates! Any of them could gain more than two seats but for the simplicity of the example!
1000/4 = 250
A: 1.6 (150 votes carryover; gets a mandate)
B: 0.48
C: 0.8
D: 0.6
E: 0.2
F: 0.32
Because not all of the mandates were distributed, the system needs a correction; the simplest form is the method of the largest residual, which distributes the victors' excess votes to the lists with the largest majority:
A: 1.6 M
B: 0.48 M
C: 0.8 M
D: 0.6 M
E: 0.2
F: 0.32
M = Mandate
A gets one seat, as does B, C, and D; as these are lists any of these could get more than one seat, say: A = 2.8 = MM
Problem: Residual votes (A = 1.6) means that excess votes (0.6) are wasted.
4.2 Other quotas:
Droop Quota (more proportional):
Mandate = ((number of votes given)/(number of seats + 1)) + 1
For other quotas, feel free to wiki.
4.3. D'Hondt Method (the method of the highest average)
This is the most often used proportional system, since it can be used in a one-tier system or in a two tier system to calculate excess votes (or all votes, including excess ones, which is more proportional) in a two-tier system.
The gist of it is this: You divide the number of votes obtained by each candidate list with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ..., n, where n = the number of seats being distributed:
V = N/(0 + s), N is the total number of votes, and s is the number of seats.
(note: I do not guarantee for the accuracy of this example; taken from wiki because I'm slightly too lazy to make this one up.)
Example:
Party A Party B Party C Party D Party E
Votes 340,000 280,000 160,000 60,000 15,000
Seat 1 340,000 280,000 160,000 60,000 15,000
Seat 2 170,000 280,000 160,000 60,000 15,000
Seat 3 170,000 140,000 160,000 60,000 15,000
Seat 4 113,333 140,000 160,000 60,000 15,000
Seat 5 113,333 140,000 80,000 60,000 15,000
Seat 6 113,333 93,333 80,000 60,000 15,000
Seat 7 85,000 93,333 80,000 60,000 15,000
Total Seats: 3 3 1 0 0
D'Hondt slightly favours large parties, whereas Saint-Laguë (a related method) is neutral. Due to its nature, d'Hondt makes for an excellent correction of basic quotas used at the first-tier elections.
Some European (update: Gah... AND non-European. Gotta check before I post) nations using this method, either as part of a multi-tier system or not:
Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, East Timor, Ecuador, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Macedonia, The Netherlands, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and Wales. (taken from wiki)
4.4 Other proportional or semi-proportional systems.
Other voting systems exist, but they are not quite as important as those listed here, mostly due to their rarity. I leave it to interested parties to look them up. This is meant to be an introduction, not a textbooj.
5.0: Conclusions
This diary could have been a lot longer and more exhaustive, with an example for the two-tier system and using various combinations, but I believe that as an introduction this is sufficient and quite exhaustive, not to mention a tad too long.
This diary is meant so serve as a reference, but also as a starting point for a debate: Which system is better: Your pick, your arguments, your discussion. Is simplicity better than proportional representation? Efficiency better than compromise? Fewer parties better than more? Is 30 minutes to educate yourself on a voting system too much to ask of a voter?* I'm dying to find your thoughts on the matter out! (I'm rooting for proportionality myself).