220 American Government and Politics Spring, 2000 Kenneth Janda, Instructor

Week 5: Elite-Mass Linkage Lecture 1: Varieties of Electoral Systems April 24

Differences between the US and Europe in institutional mechanisms Trias Politica (defined in Slomp, 50-51) Latin for the executive, judicial, and executive powers of government These powers are separate in the US They are united in Europe The European style of democracy is "parliamentary democracy" The executive resides in parliament, which is dominant The judiciary plays a limited role, with limited powers of judicial review, if any. Parliamentary elections are the important elections in Europe They are general elections in the sense that they choose all seats in the national parliament They usually don't choose regional or local offices They are usually unpredictable, so not carefully planned in advance. They usually require only a simple choice by the voter. The electoral systems themselves vary widely Only Britain has a system remorely similar to ours. The basic difference is between electoral systems that emphasize majority representation United States Britain To a lesser extent, France And electoral systems that try to achieve proportional representation To explain differences in methods of voting, we must first consider district magnitude--the number of members elected to parliament from each district

SINGLE-MEMBER DISTRICTS: Only one representative is elected from each district. Simple plurality vote ("first-past-the-post"): The candidate who receives the largest number of votes wins. I.e., a person may win with less than a majority. [The U.S. & Britain use this system.] Majority vote: Requires a majority of the vote (50% plus 1) to win. May require repeated ballots to produce a winner. Simple plurality usually decides the second ballot: If no candidate wins a majority on the first round, a second vote is taken (usually within a couple of weeks) and the plurality rule applies. [France and Russia use this. Similar to the run-off primary in the south.] Alternative vote: The voter indicates a 1st choice, 2nd choice, and so on. [Used in Australia] Approval voting: Voters vote for all the candidates they prefer, without ranking choices. [A recent favorite of some political scientists.]   MULTI-MEMBER DISTRICTS: N representatives are elected in each district (where N > 1). Simple plurality vote: The N candidates who receive the most votes win. This usually results in one party sweeping all the seats to be elected. [Used in 1964 to elect 177 members to the Illinois House of Representatives. Each party agreed to nominate 118 candidates (2/3 of the House of 177). The Democrats won all 118 from their list. he Republicans elected the top 59 from their list. Methods for ensuring some minority representation: Single vote: Every voter is given only one vote. A concerted minority can elect one of the N candidates if can reach the Droop quota: Droop quota = size of the electorate + 1 N + 1 Limited vote: The voters are given more than one vote but a number less than the number of candidates to be elected. [ Used perviously in Japan.] Cumulative vote: Each voter has N votes, and these votes may all be cast for one candidate or apportioned among the candidates. [Used in Illinois until 1970.] Extra votes: This is the logical conclusion of the possibilities: each voter has more than N votes, which can be apportioned as the voter wishes. [Because this method is possible, it's probably used somewhere.] Methods for producing proportional reporesentation (called PR). List systems: Each party offers a list of N candidates for the N seats elected in the district. In some countries (e.g., in Israel and Holland), the entire country is the district. In other countries, districts may range in size from 5 to 20 or so. But multi-member districts are needed for list PR. The voter chooses the party rather than the candidates. Seats are awarded to parties in proportion to the popular vote they receive. Hence, the term proportional representation. [Used in most European countries.] Mixed systems: Part elected in single-member districts using simple plurality rule. Part of the parliament elected in multi-member districts using a list system Seats are awarded to parties in parliament according to the proportion of votes won in the list voting. All candidates who won in districts are seated. Other candidates are chosen from the top of party lists to round out the membership. [Used in Germany, Hungary, and Russia] Single transferable vote (STV) As in the alternative vote, voters express preferences among candidates by ranking them. Each candidate who gets enough votes to surpass the Droop Quota is elected. The candidates' second preferences are distributed among the remaining candidates. As each candidate, surpasses the Droop quota, that candidate is elected, and the candidate's "extra" votes are distributed among the remaining candidates. If no one else gets enough to surpass the Droop Quota after each counting, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is dropped and that candidate's second preferences are distributed among the remaining candidates, and so forth. [Used in Ireland.]: