Today:

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Today

• Electoral systems overview
• Centripetalism in Papua New Guinea Alternative
  Vote vs. Plurality

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Evaluating electoral systems

• Types of electoral systems effects
• (i) Outcomes majoritarian vs. proportional
• (ii) Incentives conflict vs. bargaining
  cross-group appeals
  
• (Reilly Preferential voting systems
  cross-group appeals)

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What is an electoral system?

• How votes are translated into seats
• Votes
• Electoral system
• Seats

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Three major types/families of electoral systems

• Majoritarian
• Proportional
• Mixed

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Electoral systemstwo features

• District magnitude (M) of representatives
  elected in one district
  
• Formula the specific mechanism translating votes
  into seats

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Majority/plurality systems

• District magnitude M 1
• Formula
• plurality/FPTP (India, U.S., U.K.)
• majority-runoff (most of Frances former
  colonies, parts of former Soviet Union)
  
• alternative vote (Papua New Guinea, Australia)

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How does it work?

• M (district magnitude) 1
• Winner-takes-all
• Plurality (first-past-the-post) more votes
  than any other candidate
  
• Majority-runoff
• - 50 1 of the total votes
• - otherwise, runoff between two top vote-getters

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Alternative Vote

• M 1
• Voters rank candidates 1st choice, 2nd choice,
  3rd choice
  
• If no candidate has more than 50 of first
  preferences, candidate w least votes eliminated
  
• Second preferences counted
• And so on, until we have a winner (more than 50
  of the vote)

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Example USA 2000

• Bush, Gore, Buchanan
• Gore 48, Bush 47, Buchanan 5
• Buchanan is eliminated his second choices
  counted
  
• 80 for Bush (4 of total), and 20 for Gore (1
  of total)
  
• New count Bush 51, Gore 49
• Bush wins

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Discussion/assessment

• Majoritarian systems who wins?
• Gerrymandering
• Proportional representation Alabama Paradox

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FPTP strengths weaknesses

• Strength its capacity to deliver a majority
  government
  
• Weakness no guarantee of turning a
  plurality/majority of votes into a majority of
  seats
  
• E.g., NZ 1978-81 (maybe USA 2000?)

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Advantage of plurality?

• Plurality is a giant conjuring trick, pulling
  the rabbit of majority government out of the hat
  of a divided society

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Criticism

• From a New Zealand perspective, advocacy of the
  plurality method based on its ability to better
  dismiss unpopular governments makes a good joke
  
• Pluralitys side effect Gerrymandering

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Proportional systems

• District magnitude 1
• Formula
• party list PR (Israel, most of Europe, Latin
  America, Southern Africa)
  
• STV (Single Transferable Vote Ireland, Malta)

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How do they work?

• M (district magnitude) 1
• Proportional representation
• voters vote for a party (not a candidate)
• of seats of votes
• Single Transferable Vote
• - very similar to the Alternative Vote (single-
  vs. multi-member districts)
  

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Limiting proportionality in PR

• Two ways
• EITHER lowering district magnitude
• (e.g., Chile, M 2)
• OR raising the threshold
• (e.g., Turkey 10)

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Maximizing proportionality

• Neither of the above
• BOTH high district magnitude
• (M S Netherlands M S 150)
• AND very low threshold (Italy 1946 0.15)

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Side note Alabama Paradox

• Q proportional representation in the US?
• A apportionment of seats in the House
• Some unexpected and counter-intuitive results
  (Alabama paradox, population paradox, new states
  paradox)

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Choosing an electoral system

• Typical/mainstream thinking
• Two goals
• (i) Proportionality accurate/fair
  representation
  
• (ii) Efficiency choosing a government (a
  government that can govern)
  
• (iii) Third goal? Encouraging cooperation?

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Tradeoffs

• Ideally, we would like to have the cake and eat
  it, too maximize both representation and
  efficiency
  
• Hard to achieve in practice one tends to come at
  the expense of the other
  
• Prioritize and choose accordingly

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Two types of electoral formulas

• (i) favor proportionality?
• Choose proportional representation
• (ii) favor efficiency/governability?
• Choose a majoritarian system

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Duvergers Law

• Electoral systems ? Party systems
• Law Correlation between FPTP and two-party
  systems
  
• Why? Two effects of electoral systems
• mechanical effect
• Psychological effect

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• Mechanical effect refers to what electoral
  systems actually do
  
• Psychological effect refers to how voters react
  to the working of the electoral system
  
• Duverger an institutional analysis
• Electoral system ? Party system

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Sociological approach (Rokkan)

• Duverger got the story backwards
• Electoral system ? Party system

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Papua New Guinea

• An extraordinarily fragmented country
  (culturally)
  
• No common history of statehood
• Hundreds of often mutually antipathetic groups
• 4 million people, 840 distinct languages (1/4 of
  the languages spoken in the whole world)

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A natural experiment

• The effects of various electoral systems
• Alternative Vote (1964, 1968, 1972)
• Gains independence in 1975 switch to plurality
  (FPTP)
  
• Effects of AV vs. FPTP?

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