Distribution Of Seats Research Articles

The representation of voter groups in the European Parliament: a Penrose-Banzhaf index analysis

Which voter groups are best represented in the European Parliament? Is a small (national) group of members of EP in a large party group more powerful than a large (national) group of members in a small party group? These questions are analyzed with the aid of the non-normalized Banzhaf index of a priori voting power. Using this index we look at the degree to which voters supporting various groups are being represented in European Parliament. The empirical material used is the current seat distribution of the European Parliament and the results of the most recent European Parliament elections.

As Distorções na Representação dos Estados na Câmara dos Deputados Brasileira

The article investigates two dimensions of the disproportionate distribution of Lower House seats among Brazilian states: the federalist and the party dimensions. In the first case, states ¾ and, consequently, their citizens ¾ are deemed the main beneficiaries or losers. In the second case, parties are seen as under or over-represented as a result of the prevailing distribution. The federalist dimension is evaluated bases on data regarding twenty-six legislatures since 1881, taking into account the effects of all legal norms defined for the distribution of seats among states. The party dimension is analyzed based on simulations using 1994 election returns

Postscript: comments on proposed elections in Northern Ireland

The elections in Northern Ireland took place on 30 May 1996. The parapolitical parties must have a fair share of the seats in any new proposed electoral body. Comment on the distribution of seats is difficult, however, as the concentration of seats in a supergroup of seven or ten and the redistribution of seats away from the lower group of five or eight parties is a more complex issue, bedevilled by a mixture of considerations of what is right, what is fair and what is representative.

De sociale verkiezingen : betekenis en knelpunten van een inspraakmechanisme

In this contribution, different elements which clarify the influence of the four yearly social elections on workers'participation are brought together. The author explains that representatives of only two advisory bodies on company level are elected. Nevertheless the social elections have an effect on a broader scale. The elections play a part in the protection of representatives in the trade union delegation, a third representative body on company level. Furthermore the elections can affect the relations which are situated above the company level (relations inside a trade union, between different trade unions and possibly hetween trade unions and the world of politics). Moreover a growing package of powers is granted to the workers' representatives. There is however an important difference between the social and the political elections. Political elections can cause a genuine change of power, social elections on the other hand can never change the postwar basic compromise: the employer preserves most of the decision power.The author outlines furthermore the battle necks of this participation mechanism. The most important bottleneck certainly is the low turn out of candidates for the social elections. For the first time this problem is analysed sectoraly over a longer period of time. It is concluded that there are great differences not only between the economic sectors and the non-economic sectors, but also between the economic sectors themselves. The author also indicates that the decline of active participation in the economic sector since 1975 is mainly situated in seven sectors, which deliver altogether 60% of the mandates in the profit sector. Finally the author touches upon two more bottlenecks, which are already discussed before but which remain nevertheless very important: the low presence of women as candidates and likewise in the distribution of seats, furthermore the relatively great amount of invalid votes in the electoral colleges of workers and young people.

The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws in the 1990 Hungarian Elections

Over the past thirty years a well-developed body of theory has emerged describing how different electoral laws interact with voters' preferences to promote particular party systems.' In this study, I test several empirical predictions generated from this theory. Specifically, I examine hypotheses relating the electoral formula, which describes how votes are translated into seats, and the district magnitude, which indicates the number of seats to be distributed, to the number and representation of parties in a party system. The immediate influence of these electoral laws on a party system is straightforward.2 The electoral formula shapes the party system by limiting the representation of small parties. The majority formula, for example, allows only the party with the majority of the votes to gain office, while proportional representation (PR) formulas distribute multiple seats to parties according to their vote share. The district magnitude influences the party system by limiting the number of parties that can be represented. For these reasons, electoral systems with large district magnitudes and proportional representation (PR) formulas are expected to be more equitable in their distribution of seats and provide representation for more parties than systems with small district magnitudes and majority electoral formulas.3 In designing a test of these hypotheses, one must recognize that the influence of electoral laws on party systems depends crucially on the political context in which they operate.4 In a polity with several strong local parties, for example, the majority formula may lead to as large a party system as a PR system. In addition, the extent to which district magnitude can influence the number of parties gaining representation depends on the number of parties competing for office. In a polity where three parties compete, district magnitudes greater than three will not constrain the number of parties represented from these districts. Thus, electoral laws merely promote, within their political context, particular party systems.5 As a consequence, a rigorous test of the aforementioned hypotheses must control for contextual factors that might influence the electoral results independently of the electoral laws. This test requires data from elections with two characteristics: identical voter preferences over a constant set of parties and variation in electoral formula and district magnitude. Actual elections, unfortunately, have never completely satisfied these requirements. Faced with this constraint, scholars have examined the existing data from a variety of angles, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Most often, scholars have used cross-national studies which allow for comparisons of party systems from nations with a broad range of electoral formulas and district magnitudes.6 These studies enhance our appreciation of a wide variety of electoral systems but are unable to control for voter

The best of both worlds? The Danish electoral system 1915–20 in a comparative perspective

The Danish 1915–1920 Lower House electoral system combined a traditional plurality system and a PR system with multi-stage compensatory seats in two provincial regions, and closed party list PR in the third, metropolitan, region. This complex system is presented and its effects on the distribution of seats in the Folketing are analysed. It was an early—and now neglected—case of personalized PR which calls for comparisons with later cases of this kind of electoral system, notably the post-1949 German electoral system and the 1990 electoral systems in Hungary and Bulgaria. In order to assess if such comparisons are appropriate, the paper also asks if these four electoral systems are genuine ‘mixed’ systems or PR systems in disguise.

The 1989 European election: Protest or green tide?

The first two rounds of direct elections to the European Parliament have been characterized as a set of separate national second order elections in which turnout is low, small parties do well, and the electorate cast judgement on their governments rather than on European issues. Many of those features are apparent in the 1989 elections. But there was a community-wide movement towards the Greens which was not simply part of the general success for small parties, but the Greens' gains were not fully reflected in the distribution of Strasbourg seats. These elections may well give a significant boost to the success of Green parties in future national elections.

Fiji's communal electoral system: A study of some aspects of the failure of democratic politics in Fiji

Abstract The unique communal system which operated in Fiji from independence in 1970 until the coup of 1987 was ostensibly designed to ensure the equitable distribution of seats in the Fiji House of Representatives among the major racial groupings as a means of promoting political stability. The way in which the system was constructed, however, gave rise to gross imbalances in the ‘racial’ composition of both government and opposition parties. The aim of this article is to explore this and other problems associated with the system and to suggest that far from providing the political stability intended by the architects of the 1970 Constitution, the communal electoral system contributed substantially to the failure of democratic politics in Fiji.

General election forecasting in Britain: A comparison of three simple models

The advent of three-party politics in Britain with the February 1974 general election has introduced an uncertainty into electoral and parliamentary politics unprecedented in the post-war period. In these circumstances, election forecasting has assumed a special interest and significance for academics, politicians, political commentators, and the like. This article presents and assesses the performance of three forecasting instruments, the ‘incremental’, ‘opinion polling’ and ‘economic’ models. They are estimated over the period 1951–1983 and are then used to predict the share of the vote won by the governing, opposition and Alliance parties in the 1987 general election. All are successful in the sense that they forecast the continuation of the Conservative party's electoral dominance. with Labour and the Alliance a poor second and third. Only the economic model, however, generates a reasonable forecast of the gap separating the major parties and it is used to predict the distribution of parliamentary seats between them. It is seen to be substantially more accurate for the government than for the opposition, which is itself a reflection of the uncertainty introduced into British politics by the emergence of a significant third party in recent elections.

Randomized decision rules in voting games: a model for strict proportional power

The concept of strict proportional power is introduced, as a means of formalizing a desire to avoid discrepancy between the seat distribution in a voting body and the actual voting power in that body, as measured by power indices in common use. Proportionality is obtained through use of a randomized decision rule (majority rule). Some technical problems which arise are discussed in terms of simplex geometry. Practical implications and problems in connection with randomized decision rules are indicated.

Strict proportional power in voting bodies

It is a widely known fact among game theorists as well as political scientists that the distribution of voting weights in a voting body is generally a poor proxy for the distribution of voting power within the body. It has been proposed to equate the distribution of a priori voting power and actual seat distribution by randomizing the decision rule of the voting body over various majority rules. In this paper, some implications of this procedure will be discussed.

Optimization of decisional power in representational systems with vote binding

The theory of decisional power of Hoede and Bakker is applied to representational systems in which all representatives of a certain group vote alike. An equivalent system is one in which a group is represented by one representative with a voting weight. The main theorem of this paper gives the optimal distribution of weights for such a system. As an example the distribution of seats in the european parliament of the european economic community is reconsidered. The effect of vetoes is discussed as well as other ways of voting towards inaction used for minority protection. The decrease in overall power is accompanied by a tendency towards greater equality of power.

TESTING SIZE-DENSITY RELATIONSHIPS WITHOUT RATIO-VARIABLES, MULTICOLLINEARITY, LOGARITHMIC TRANSFORMATIONS, OR REGRESSION ANALYSIS*

Using data describing the historical distribution of county seats in the United States, we (1) replicate the traditional ratio-variable test of the size-density law, (2) test a new multivariate, nonratio form of the law, and (3) introduce an alternative method of testing, one which avoids three possible problems in traditional analyses: ratio-variables, multicollinearity, and logarithmic transformation.

Evaluation of the league general insurance company child safety seat distribution program

This report presents an evaluation of the child safety seat distribution initiated by the League General Insurance Company in June 1979. The program provides child safety seats as a benefit under the company's auto insurance policies to policy-holders who have a child born or adopted into their households while a League General policy is in effect. The evaluation covers the first two years of program operations in Michigan. During this time more than 7,000 seats were distributed to 5,800 households. The evaluation contains results of analyzing claims for accidents in which children 0-4 years old were involved before and after the program was begun. It also includes results of a household survey that assembled behavioral and attitudinal information from 400 League General policyholders who had received seats and a control group of households from the general population. The evaluation shows reported safety seat use was high among League General seat recipients, injuries declined substantially and claims costs were greatly reduced. On a short-term basis, direct program costs exceed direct program savings. Long-term cost effectiveness remains to be determined.

American redistricting in the 1980s: The effect on the mid-term elections

An effort is made to determine the effect of decennial congressional redistricting and reapportionment on the 1982 election. Notional results of the 1982 election fought on the 1980 boundaries were compared with the actual results from 1982 to discover which election victories were decisively affected by boundary changes. New seats awarded through reapportionment were scrutinized to determine which party was intended to benefit; contests which defied boundary drawer's intentions were scored as genuine electoral reverses. Tabulation of the distribution of marginals and safe seats is attempted, with the intention of analysing whether there was any change in the frequency or distribution of marginals that can be attributed to redistricting.

One-Party Dominance in Legislatures

Democratic party domination of the U.S. House of Representatives coupled with competitive presidential elections is mildly paradoxical. The same voters participate in elections in both constituencies, yet the partisan distribution of voters across constituencies is such that the U.S. House was consistently Democratic in the modern era. The consequences of the particular distribution of votes which exists in a given epoch are explored with an elementary dynamic mathematical model. It is shown that a number of significant consequences for partisan control of a legislature are logically entailed by the inevitably unequal distribution of safe seats between two parties especially under conditions of high levels of institutionalization.

PROPORTIONALITY PROFILES OF WEST EUROPEAN ELECTORAL SYSTEMS

ABSTRACTHow proportional are the results of electoral systems designed to ensure proportional representation? How large is the deviation from proportionality for relative majority systems? Does a given system favor large, small or medium‐sized parties? Are some parties consistently advantaged? Is the system predictable or erratic? Plotting the percentage of seats–percentage of votes ratio versus percentage of votes for all parties, is found to be a simple and yet powerful graphical method to answer such questions. Application of such “proportionality profiles” to West European multi‐party systems leads to a typology of electoral systems based on their actual effect (rather than their formal procedure or intended effect). District magnitude, the number of rounds, and nationwide adjustment rules are found to be more important than formal seat distribution rules such as d'Hondt or Sainte‐Laguë.

The proportional representation problem in the Second Chamber: an approach via minimal distances

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to discuss the proportional representation problem in the Second Chamber of Dutch Parliament. Firstly, the present procedure for solving this problem is described, together with a possible alternative procedure, recently proposed by F. J. Lisman. Next, the problem is formulated as that of minimizing some distance coefficient between the distribution of the votes of the electorate and that of the seats in the Second Chamber. For distances which satisfy a specific convexity condition a simple and straight forward algorithm is given for computing a distance minimizing seat distribution. The procedure of Lisman is shown to have three attractive properties by which it is distinguished from the other usual procedures for solving the proportional representation problem. Finally, the principle of the weighted vote is introduced as a means of breaking the deadlock which always comes into being, because of the inevitable discrepancy between the vote distribution and the actual seat distribution.

National Power in the European Parliament as Mediated by the Party System

This paper develops from an earlier one which investigates aspects of national power in the forthcoming European Parliament by introducing the effect of the distribution of seats between parties. A three-stage analytical procedure is proposed which combines the power of national parties within European groups with the overall power of those groups. The results suggest that the current likely result for the UK is the worst possible in terms of national power.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AFTER DIRECT ELECTIONS: A SIMULATION STUDY *

ABSTRACTThis article presents an overview of a project designed to simulate the distribution of seats in the European Parliament after the first direct elections in 1978. First, the data base and some basic assumptions are described which pertain to electoral systems, voter behavior, and realignments in party systems. Some illustrative results of simulation runs are summarized which proceed from voter preferences as expressed in the most recent national general elections in the nine member countries of the European Community. These findings are analyzed for individual parties and parliamentary fractions as well as with the chances for forming majority coalitions in mind. Finally, the effects of some likely shifts in voting patterns are considered assuming that current national electoral systems will be applied in 1978.