7 Shoulds
- Representative
- Meaningful
- Accountable
- Transparent
- Stable and effective
- Conciliatory
- Oppositional
Significance: These cases stand in opposition to each other. Should can maximize one and minimize others.
Representative
- That our population has representative seats
- Represent the interest of the population
Meaningful
- Knowing that our vote matters
Accountable
- Hold the government and leadership accountable for their actions and if they suck, we can boot them out if we do not like the direction
Transparent
- We understand the process of voting
Stable and Effective
- government can govern effectively
Conciliatory
- Parties can work together and cooperate
- Craft policy that is beneficial
Oppositional
We want some opposition, Dems can hold Rep accountable visa vera
Types of Electoral Systems
- Plurality
- Proportional representation
- Two-round Sysmte
- Mixed member proportional
- Ranked choice voting
District Magnitude
A number of seats elected per district. M can be equal to one in a plurality system compared to proportional representation which can be more than one. Different population can be different number of seats in a PR system
Plurality
- Single-member districts
- Win or get nothing at all
- Us system
- supports the two-party system
Why does plurality support a two-party system?
- Mechanical Effects:
Narrows the number of parties you can have
Only one winner out of multiple competing parties
Naturally wields down the competitors - Psychological Effects: Expectations drawn from past elections inform our behavior in current elections
Strategic Entry: Candidates and parties look at the election and determine what they have to do to get elected. If they have a real shot at winning, they go in on their own, if not they can decide to join a party and run as a candidate for a party with a better chance
Strategic Voting: Consider preferences plus expectations and who is the best of the viable (seat winning party of runner up) options. You do not cast a sincere vote but a non-preferred but viable party
Proportional Representation
- can lead to a multiparty system (more parties can win)
- you don’t need the most votes
- can win a seat if you get 10% of the vote
- strategic voting can be applied to PR
How can strategic voting be applied to PR?
- Dm magnitude is low there are strong strategic incentive
- focusing on the most successful parties
- a lot of people who vote for their preferred party vote for the more popular ones bc of strategic voting
Proportional representation: What is the allocation of seats?
Voting percentage
ii. R = 45%
iii. D = 40 %
iv. G = 15%
Allocation of seats
vi. R = 3
vii. D = 3
viii. G = 1
Plurality: What is the reallocation of seats?
Voting percentage
ii. R = 45%
iii. D = 40 %
iv. G = 15%
Allocation of seats: Win all seven seats because they have the most votes
vi. R = 7
vii. D = 0
viii. G = 0
Pros and Cons of PR
- representation
- hard to get things done
Pros and Cons of P
- more stability
- Depress voter turnout of they feel like they are not going to be represented or feel that their vote does not matter
Malapportionament
- by population, some are represented more than others and it feels unfair
- how much power you have per population
- guaranteed population means that you are going to be overly represented
- California vs Wyoming representation in the senate –> Wyoming is over represented
What are the partisan effects of Malapportionment?
- a tendency to support rural interests which support is mostly conservative policy and party
- dems are under represented in the senate
disproportionality
- discrepancy between vote share and seat share
- M increases, disproportionality decreases
- PR –> less disproportional
- P –> more disproportional
- minority vote share wins a majority seat share
How does this apply to the US?
- the function of plurality
- one person wins can never be proportional - if it was proportional the winner would be 100% of the votes
- tends to produce a seat bonus for winners –> winner is over-represented compared to the vote share
- gerrymandering causes
Why does the two-round electoral system tend to produce multi-party systems despite using single-member districts?
Two-round electoral systems tend to produce multi-party systems despite using single member districts because of cleavages. This means that institutions, culture, and identities matter when considering where votes might be going. The more things’ people care about and want to fight about, the more parties need to represent those conflicts. Cleavages don’t have to be political parties but they can be. Like in the UK it can be seen that there is a multi-party system going when there is only 1 seat up for grabs, this is due to the highly geographically concentrated cleavages.
How does the German system score on the “7 shoulds” compared to normal PR? Briefly discuss one “should” where the German system improves on PR and one “should” where it performs worse compared to PR.
I would score the German system on the 7 shoulds higher compared to proportional representation. This is because the German system takes the best of both plurality and proportional representation system and combines them into one. Overall, the German system improves on representation because you get to vote for a single member candidate and a single vote for the party candidate and it allows for voters to vote more sincerely. You get to vote for the single member who you align with the most in your district, but if you do not align with their party, you can vote for that party and still get proportional representation that way. This way people can vote for who they want and feel represented in both aspects.
One aspect of the German system that performs worse than the PR system is that the German system is sometimes disproportional. In a proportional representation system, there is no chance for disproportionality. In the German system there is a higher chance for discrepancy between the vote share won and outcome in seats. This happens when is when the votes share is all single candidate votes and no party votes and leaves over hang seats and an expansion of seats in their parliament. Another aspect where the German system fails is with transparency. The German system is very difficult to understand considering that the votes go different places and that the candidate seats are also subtracted from party seats. Not a lot of Germans are familiar with this creating confusion and potential decrease in voter turnout.
