Electoral Formula Research Articles

Electoral system: concept and elements

The article focuses on the approaches towards understanding the concept of the electoral system, which may be the subject of research outside the field of law. The author distinguishes different opinions of foreign and Ukrainian scholars on the term “electoral system”, in particular, narrow and broad interpretation. The author analyzes the elements which inherently fill and reveal the concept of the electoral system. The article provides an overview of scientific research and concepts that study electoral systems, including the works of prominent Ukrainian and foreign scholars, as well as documents of international organizations and institutions. The author analyzes different approaches to the interpretation of the concept of “electoral system”, its legal nature and key elements that have a significant impact on the formation of elected bodies and the organization of electoral processes, and further establishment of democratic principles. The author presents various positions on the elements through which the concept of the electoral system is revealed, such as the electoral formula, electoral district, method of expressing the will of voters, structure of the ballot and the process of filling it out, method of voting, etc. The author shows the importance of these elements and how they are reflected in the definition and modification of different types of electoral systems. The author emphasizes the need for further study of the concept of an electoral system and its system-forming elements, which allow constructing an appropriate type of electoral system, in the context of Ukraine’s experience in organizing and conducting elections. This will have a positive impact on the process of improving the electoral systems used in the formation of elected bodies at the legislative level, which will consequently contribute to ensuring greater transparency of a number of electoral procedures, obtaining fair results and minimizing the risks of their distortion. The author outlines the problem of periodic unsystematic changes in electoral systems in the formation of elected bodies in Ukraine, which in turn generates negative trends in the decline of citizens’ electoral culture, trust in the results of voters’ expression of will and unpredictable consequences in the socio-political context.

Смешанная несвязанная избирательная система — оптимальный выбор при авторитаризме? (Кросснациональное сравнительное исследование)

Over the past 30 years, the mixed parallel electoral system has become one of the popular types of electoral systems used in elections to national legislatures. Curiously, it received the highest popularity in authoritarian regimes. The article attempts to identify internal political factors that contribute to the introduction of mixed parallel electoral systems under the conditions of electoral authoritarianism. To perform this task, the author uses the binary logistic regression method. In this study, the author makes an assumption that when implementing electoral reform under authoritarianism, the ruling elite is largely guided by the desire to maintain and strengthen its power. The study shows that the mixed parallel electoral system is most likely to be introduced during the period of regime transformation. At the initial stage of the consolidation of an authoritarian regime that allows multi-party competition, the ruling elite faces the challenge of institutionalizing electoral uncertainty. The effectiveness and durability of the political regime depends on how the risks associated with elections are neutralized. The mechanical combination of majoritarian and proportional representation principles opens up an opportunity to utilize the advantages of each of the electoral formulas conditional on the political situation, allowing the existing authorities to gain control over the sweeping majority of seats in parliament even when electoral competition is increasing and the support for the dominant party is falling. According to the author’s conclusion, the use of the mixed parallel system plays an important role in the consolidation of an authoritarian regime. Due to the mechanisms inherent in this system, the ruling elite can efficiently manipulate elections, ensuring the survival and stability of the authoritarian order.

SYSTEMIC-CYBERNETIC AND SYNERGISTIC APPROACHES IN THE STUDY OF MODERN ELECTORAL ENGINEERING

This paper considers the electoral engineering within the framework of systemic-cybernetic and synergetic scientific approaches. As a result of the study, it is concluded that the basis for consideration of the electoral engineering is the systemic-cybernetic approach, since the electoral sphere in its essence is a computational mechanism that, according to certain mathematical algorithms (electoral formula), translates the votes of electors (input data) into representative mandates (output data). Main components of the electoral engineering (the subject, the object and the process of the electoral engineering) can be fully considered within the framework of the systemic-cybernetic approach as a cybernetic system with the controlling and controlled components, where the management and feedback processes are running. The controlling component here is the subject of the electoral engineering (planning and carrying out of the electoral engineering activities), whereas the controlled component is the object of the electoral engineering (parameters of the electoral system and organization of the electoral process); management is the process of the electoral engineering itself. However, the electoral sphere is a constituent part of the political system, and it is possible to apply both the systemic-cybernetic approach and synergetic approach to its study. Therefore, application of the synergetic approach to the electoral engineering is possible only in an indirect way, i.e. through consideration of the political system in the context of synergetics (the electoral engineering in this case is considered as an activity within the political system). The bases for applying the synergetic approach to the electoral engineering carried out in practice are the following: 1) objectivist basis – the electoral engineering is carried out within the framework of a political system being a part of the social reality, and therefore cannot be fully modeled and predicted with the use of the systemic-cybernetic approach; 2) subjectivist basis – subjects engaged in the electoral engineering activities are political actors pursuing their own subjective goals and interests.

Uwarunkowania polityczno-prawne reprezentacji kobiet w parlamentach

According to comparative studies, the level of women’s participation in parliaments of individual countries is constantly growing. It was undoubtedly influenced by social and cultural conditions as well as institutional factors, such as various variants of gender quotas. Electoral systems and their constituent elements (electoral formulas, constituencies, voting structure) continue to influence women’s electoral success. Proportional electoral systems are still more favourable to women than majority systems. Empirical studies have confirmed that women have also a better chance to be elected when competing in large constituencies and closed party list systems. Linking women’s electoral quotas to the above elements of electoral systems definitely influences the representativeness of parliaments and the participation of women in them.

Impact of the Election Formula Change on the Structure of Competition in Local Legislatures: Lessons from Poland

The aim of the article is to illustrate the political consequences of changes in the electoral system for elections to municipal councils in Poland introduced in 2018. For the purposes of the article, the following hypothesis is formulated: the changes in the electoral formula for elections to municipal councils with more than 20,000 inhabitants (excluding CCS), introduced under the 2018 amendment to the electoral law, alters the structure of political competition. The changes include: decreasing the advantage of the victorious election committee over its main rival (CI index), decreasing the number of relevant participants in the struggle for power (ENP index), broadening the extent to which the distribution of seats reflects the preferences of voters (PI index), and decreasing the ‘ownership’ of the most powerful electoral committee (AI index).

Learning about political systems while playing: Testing short-term knowledge retention through a role-play classroom game

Active-learning environments have been slowly but increasingly integrated into the political science curricula. Students and professors have fun in the active-learning processes. However, we still need evidence to support the nexus between learning and playing to ensure students learn more, or at least the same, with active-learning methodologies than with traditional ones. This article tests the effect of game-based learning on knowledge acquisition about political systems. We conduct a quasi-experiment in a Spanish university on second-year political science major students. Two groups were exposed to the treatment (role-play), and the third did not receive the intervention but a traditional lecture. We conducted a multi-method analysis to explore the data. Our results confirm that students exposed to role-plays have higher short-term knowledge retention about political systems than those who took the traditional lectures. The main sociodemographic factor pushing knowledge retention is the current GPA of students. Qualitative analysis shows that, through games, students perceive a reinforcement of their skills and recognize the usefulness of role-playing games in for teaching electoral formulas, the benefits of redistribution and trade, and the complexities around decision-making in political systems.

The shift to consensus democracy and limits of institutional design in Asia

A ‘majoritarian turn’ identified by scholars of Asian democracy in the 1990s saw the rise of mixed-member majoritarian electoral systems and more centripetal party competition across both Northeast and Southeast Asia. In this paper, we argue that since the 2000s, the institutional pendulum has shifted, with more consensual approaches to democracy appearing to better represent key identity cleavages of gender, ethnicity, and territory—a trend evident not just in East Asia but South Asia as well. This new ‘Asian model’ typically involves increasing the proportional components of existing electoral formulas and grafting gender quotas, multiethnic party lists, and quasi-federal elements onto ostensibly majoritarian state structures. We show that these reforms have, as intended, mostly increased female and ethnic minority representation and decentralized governance structures. At the same time, however, these de jure changes are not associated with de facto political development in terms of greater democratic quality, counter to theoretical expectations. Indeed, democracy has declined across most of Asia at the same time as its democratic institutions have become more consensual.

European Parliament and representation of the Union's citizens: What can be expected from electoral law from a democratic standpoint?

AbstractIn some Member States, doctrine and case law of national courts have highlighted that, under currently applicable European electoral law, elections to the EP are of a second‐order, whereby European issues give way to purely domestic ones. In any event, this does not hinder the position of the EP as a genuine legislative chamber, which, above all, demands effects from electoral law that it cannot provide, since the intensity with which an election is experienced depends on circumstances external to the system itself. What electoral law can guarantee instead is the periodic holding of free elections. And that requires ensuring that the EP is appointed by the free expression of the opinion of all (and only) European citizens; that the weight of the vote is determined by rational criteria; that the electoral formula allows access to significant political currents; and that the “rule of law” is respected in the electoral process.

Peculiarities of determining election results in proportional electoral systems

Introduction. This paper examines the issue of proportional electoral system, its constituent elements and types. Most types of elements of this system are analyzed here, indicating the specific countries that use them. This paper discusses in detail the basic electoral formulas of the proportional system, these formulas are usually based on the quota method or the method of divisors. The use of different methods makes it possible to favor smaller parties or, conversely, to restrict access to representative bodies to weak political forces. In practice, the application of appropriate formulas can achieve the required level of representation. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the impact of electoral formulas and voter lists on the results of popular will. Results. In recent decades, there has been a trend towards a shift from a majority electoral system to other types. Most countries choose a proportional electoral system. The relevant system has the highest number of qualitative indicators of minority representation, by minimizing the loss of votes. According to the experience of the countries listed in the paper, comparative characteristics of each type of proportional system are obtained. Properly selected and implemented electoral system is the key to the proper functioning of all democratic institutions. The analysis of electoral systems is based on modern tasks, such as the formation of authorities by persons with real support in society, increasing the representation of the interests of regions and minorities. For example, with the change of parameters, such as quotas, the order of counting of votes changes, which in turn affects the distribution of different interests in the representative body. Conclusion. For countries reforming their electoral system in the direction of proportionality, it is first necessary to determine the parameters of the electoral formula and the formation of electoral lists, then determine the method of voting. These issues are considered in this paper and give a general idea of the features of the most popular elements of the classification of the proportional electoral system and are justified by the practice of each of them.

Why Electoral Reforms are Urgently Needed in Ghana

In this article, I examine the breathtakingly wide scope of executive power and the low threshold for electoral victory in Ghana's constitution. I demonstrate how the ‘first past the post’ electoral formula colludes with the ‘winner takes all’ government configuration to saddle Ghana with a corruption-fuelled governance crisis that could escalate over time to be an existential threat to the longest-lasting democratic period Ghana has ever known. I assert that electoral reform to provide for consociational government is the only feasible way to simultaneously lessen the starkness of electoral loss and create some public accountability loops, the absence of which have made corruption both easy and unpunishable.

Wybory do Sejmu kontraktowego z perspektywy inżynierii wyborczej

The article presents an analysis of the electoral system applied in the elections to the Sejm of the Polish People’s Republic in June 1989 from the perspective of the use of electoral engineering tools. These are changes made to the electoral system that affect the electoral process, aiming to change the probability of a particular election result in line with the interests of the decision-maker, and not directly affecting the electoral decisions of voters in relation to the electoral offer presented. The focus was on answering two research questions: whether electoral engineering tools were applied in the case of the elections to the Sejm of the Polish People’s Republic of the 10th term, and if so, whether the tools applied produced an effect consistent with the intentions of the decision-making centre. The analysis was conducted in relation to the electoral system Strict sense: the norms determining the shape of the broadest possible electoral offer, the structure of constituencies, the electoral formula, and the voter’s rights during the act of voting.

Multi-seat Districts and Larger Assemblies Produce More Diverse Racial Representation

This study considers the relationship between three key components of electoral systems and racial representation in legislative office. Recent scholarship in comparative politics has shown that these components — the number of seats being contested per district (district magnitude), the size of an assembly or council, and the rules that allocate seats from votes (electoral formula) — are jointly predictive of the number of political parties that contest and win seats in national legislatures. To test how well these institutions can account for racial representation as well, we examine election results from 159 ethno-racially diverse cities in 13 U.S. states and three more countries (Australia, Ireland, and the Netherlands) from 2010 – 2019. We find that larger assembly sizes and district magnitudes are associated, both separately and jointly, with larger numbers of parties seating candidates of color. Our results suggest that these basic electoral system features should figure more prominently into U.S. debates about electoral reform.

СМЕШАННАЯ НЕСВЯЗАННАЯ ИЗБИРАТЕЛЬНАЯ СИСТЕМА И ЭЛЕКТОРАЛЬНЫЙ АВТОРИТАРИЗМ

Over the past decade, the mixed system became the fastest growing variety of electoral systems used in elections for national legislatures. Opinions about the reasons for the popularity of mixed systems in the research literature still vary. There are no cross-national studies in political science that would link the use of a mixed independent electoral system with the consolidation of an authoritarian order. Under authoritarianism, elections perform three functions: imitation, control and signaling. These functions set the structure of incentives for choosing an electoral formula. The purpose of my study is to determine the structure of incentives for the employment of mixed independent electoral systems under conditions of electoral authoritarianism. One of the main results of the study is that, in comparison with democracies, mixed independent electoral systems are more often used in authoritarian regimes. This is due to the fact that mixed independent electoral system provides an opportunity to effectively realize the imitation, control and signaling functions of elections under electoral authoritarianism.

DIMENSI PEMILU DALAM SISTEM DISTRIK DAN PROPORSIONAL

The electoral system is regulated in statutory regulations containing three main variables, namely voting, electoral district, and electoral formula. As stated in the Election Law, the objective of the electoral system is to exercise people's sovereignty. A provision which is in line with the universal democratic principle of the rulers directs this goal to build legitimacy for a stable and strong government in mobilizing the masses. democratically Election, namely balancing these operational objectives with their use as a means of fighting for the interests of the people through political participation and political socialization

Political opportunity structures and the parliamentary entry of splinter, merger, and genuinely new parties

Drawing on an original sample of 351 elections held in new and consolidated democracies from 1960 to 2013, this article examines the likelihood that new parties gain parliamentary representation as a function of electoral system permissiveness and contextual factors that shape political entrepreneurs’ perception of political opportunity. We distinguish between the success of genuinely new parties and that achieved by splinters or parties formed through mergers. We find that the district magnitude matters for the success of all three types of newcomers, while the electoral formula and proportionality matter only for the parliamentary entry of splinter parties. Another novel finding is that government instability facilitates the success of genuinely new and splinter parties. The analysis also shows that, irrespective of the type of transition, the more elections have taken place since then, the less likely it becomes that genuinely new parties and merger new parties enter parliament.

How Political Parties in Hybrid Regimes Help the Incumbent Maintain a Democratic Façade

Why would a large incumbent party, that can by itself muster more than 45 per cent of electoral support, add seven insignificant political parties to its electoral list, thus providing them with a free ticket into the Assembly, state-sponsored financing for the next four years, and an independent deputy club in the Assembly? More importantly, why would the incumbent party, as a consequence of this deliberate decision, end up without a parliamentary majority? In this article, I discuss less frequently mentioned aspects of institutional design that can help us understand why the incumbent party makes such decisions and why a party system in a hybrid regime has a large number of parties. I offer qualitative evidence from postcommunist Serbia (1990–2018). The first two aspects refer to electoral design (but not the electoral formula or district magnitude): a larger number of parties under the incumbent party’s control provides stronger political influence in the Republican Electoral Commission and at polling stations on election day. In hybrid regimes, the incumbent party is interested in this influence because it can use it to arrange electoral fraud. The third aspect relates to parliamentary design: more parties in the Serbian Assembly under the incumbent party’s control secure more minutes on the floor for the incumbent party during parliamentary debate.

Does the Electoral System Foster a Predominant Party System? Evidence from Turkey

AbstractThis paper discusses the role of the electoral system in making the Justice and Development Party (AKP) dominant. Drawing on Sartori’s framework, we first clarify the concept of a predominant party system. Second, we examine the impact of the electoral system on the emergence of a predominant party system in Turkey. Analysing election results, we argue that the electoral system fosters dominance in three ways. First, a combination of electoral formula, national threshold and district threshold leads to over‐representation of large parties and under‐representation of small ones. Second, the fear of a wasted vote due to the high threshold prompts voters to support their second‐best option, which concentrates the votes among large parties. Finally, the electoral system increases electoral turnout rates by extending polarization.

Public goods equilibria under closed- and open-list proportional representation

Building on past research, this paper develops a game theoretic model to study the provision of local public goods under closed- and open-list proportional representation (CLPR and OLPR). The core results suggest that, all thing equal, legislators will provide voters with higher levels of public goods in OLPR than in CLPR systems. However, two intervening variables condition the institutional comparison: the district magnitude and electoral volatility. Firstly, public goods effort increases as district magnitude increases in OLPR systems, while it tends to decrease as magnitude increases in CLPR systems. Indeed, when district magnitude is [Formula: see text], the two systems are often indistinguishable. Furthermore, the distinction between OLPR and CLPR weakens when electoral volatility is low, such that neither system generates high levels of public goods effort. In addition to their relevance for political economy, the paper’s results provide game theoretic foundations for a series of theoretical conjectures found in Carey and Shugart’s (1995) seminal study of electoral institutions and legislative personalism (Incentives to cultivate a personal vote: A rank-ordering of electoral formulas. Electoral Studies 1995; 14(4): 417–439).

HOW OPEN LIST PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION WORKS IN THE 2020 LOCAL ELECTIONS AT KHARKIV REGION?

The article examines the first approbation of the Electoral Code on the material of the 2020 local elections in the Kharkiv region. The authors pay special attention to the effects of open lists systems and the degree of influence of preferential votes on the personal distribution of seats in local councils. The article calculates the percentage of voters who used the right of preferential votes in all 14 constituencies and main party lists. We argue that according to the indicators of the use of the preferential vote right and the percentage of invalid ballots, the voters of the Kharkiv region demonstrated a high degree of adaptive readiness for the new electoral system. The article analyzes the effects of blocking mechanisms incorporated in the electoral system, which reduced the influence of preferential votes of voters and retained the control of the party leadership over the personal distribution of mandates in the councils. The ratio between the seats from the district lists and the unified closed party lists was quantified (based on election results for the regional council and 17 city councils of the region). The article analyzes the intensity of changes in the ballot position of candidates in the district lists on regional council elections. We demonstrate that only 20% of seats were received by candidates placed by the party leadership in a “no-pass” ballot position. The article argues that the electoral formula introduced in the 2020 local elections did not work as a system with open lists proportional representation. According to the statistics of the personal allocation of seats in the newly elected councils, this model seems to be something in between the systems of flexible and closed lists. In this regard, the article develops new arguments in the debate on how the norms of electoral legislation reduce the role of preferential votes of voters and proposes recommendations for amending the Electoral Code.

선거제도의 구성요소와 소득불평등 : 선거공식, 비례대표성, 명부유형의 기계적 · 행태적 효과

선거제도의 구성요소와 소득불평등 : 선거공식, 비례대표성, 명부유형의 기계적 · 행태적 효과