Which Electoral System Produces Harmony?

All right, this post is neither thoughtful nor deep, but someone pointed me to videos of parliamentary fights, wondering which electoral system best promotes harmony and cooperation among political parties. In the interests of fairness, here is a sampling of fights from different countries and different electoral systems.

Bolivian Parliament (MMP)



Bolivian Parliament (MMP)



Taiwan Legislative Yuan (Parallel: PR and SNTV)



Taiwan has lots and lots of fights



Is it just "boys will be boys"? Not so simple.



India (FPTP)


Russian Duma (Parallel voting PR/FPTP or pure PR depending on date)



Italian Parliament (MMP or PR depending on date)



Somalia (PR)


Mexico (MMP)


Sometimes electoral systems have changed recently and I don't know if the video is before or after the change.

Macedonia (PR)

Fresh news but no video: A fight broke in the Macedonian parliament, which had to be broken up by police. The cause of the fight was the electoral system itself, and the debate on whether to change it. The brawl spilled into the street, and police confiscated several firearms.

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2007/09/27/feature-02

Is MMP Constitutional?

From the The Hill Times, reprinted with permission

IS PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION CONSTITUTIONAL?

B. Thomas Hall
September 2007

On October 10, 2007, Ontarians will vote in both a general election and a referendum. The referendum will ask them to choose between the existing First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral system, in which the candidate with the most votes in a riding is declared elected, and a Mixed-Member-Proportional (MMP) electoral system, which combines voting for a party with voting for a “Local Member” elected under FPTP. This combination of voting separately for candidates and for parties results in a form of PR.

What’s wrong with the MMP electoral system? Surely, you say, a system that produces a legislature that mirrors voters’ preferences is desirable. I’m certainly not a big fan of FPTP, since that system allows a candidate to win with less than 50 % of the vote. But I’m concerned that this form of PR may not be constitutional. This does not imply, of course, that FPTP is the only constitutional electoral system. Let me explain why I’m concerned.

In the last federal election did you vote for Stephen Harper, Paul Martin, Jack Layton or Gilles Duceppe? Of course you didn’t unless you voted in one of the ridings they ran in. Thus most of you didn’t get to vote for one of the party leaders. Well then, did you vote for the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the NDP or the Bloc Québécois? But you couldn’t have voted for the BQ unless you lived in a riding where there was a BQ candidate.

That’s a significant point, because you couldn’t have voted for the Conservatives, the Liberals or the NDP either. You could only vote for a Conservative candidate, a Liberal candidate, an NDP candidate, or one of the other smaller party candidates or an independent candidate who ran in your riding.

Under our current electoral system, voters have to vote for individuals. They may decide to vote for a particular candidate because he or she is running as a member of the Trust-Me Party, or they may decide not to vote for that candidate for the same reason. But the ballot they cast will be for one of the candidates running in their riding, not for a party or a party leader. We elect individuals to represent those of us who live in the riding. This is true for general elections as much as for by-elections.

The preamble of the Constitution Act, 1867 states that the three original provinces were to be united into “One Dominion ... with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom”. It has surely been part of the constitution of the UK, and of England, that inhabitants of the Kingdom have selected individuals to represent them in the House of Commons. Political parties were a later innovation designed to promote the views of like-minded Members of Parliament who worked together in the House.

In addition to these facts from our constitutional history, we must also consider section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees that “Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election for members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.” This means, of course, that each citizen has the right to cast a ballot and the right to run for office. But it also means much more.

In a series of cases over a number of years, the Supreme Court of Canada has declared that the purpose of the right to vote is the right to “effective representation” in the provincial legislatures and the House of Commons. In a 2003 decision, Figueroa v. Canada (Attorney General), Mr. Justice Iacobucci, writing for the majority of the Court, said, “The right to run for office provides each citizen with the opportunity to present certain ideas and opinions to the electorate as a viable policy option

The question that section 3 of the Charter raises is whether MMP adversely affects the right of some citizens to run for office. In effect, Ontario’s proposal for MMP reserves approximately one-third of the seats of the Ontario legislature for people who have been selected by political parties. The voters do not elect these people to the legislature. Rather, they give their votes to the political parties, which are then entitled to give seats to a corresponding number of party members. A citizen can’t vote on these list members.

It’s true that Justice Iacobucci also says, in paragraph 37 of Figueroa, that “the Charter is entirely neutral as to the type of electoral system in which the right to vote or to run for office is to be exercised.” But he is responding to Justice LeBel’s assertion that the current electoral system encourages the aggregation of political preferences by favouring mainstream parties so as to increase the likelihood of majority governments. Justice Iacobucci says he does not believe that that aspect of the electoral system has constitutional status. He also says, in paragraph 80, that “Legislation enacted for the express purpose of decreasing the likelihood that a certain class of candidates will be elected is not only discordant with the principles integral to a free and democratic society, but, rather, is the antithesis of those principles.” In other words, legislation enacted for the express purpose of increasing the likelihood that a certain class of candidates, e.g. members of mainstream parties, will be elected is discordant with the principles integral to a free and democratic society.

Favouring political parties by setting aside a third of the seats for party members may well infringe other citizens’ right to be “qualified for membership” in the legislature. Any condition or restriction on this right would have to be justified to the Court by the government as a reasonable limit in a free and democratic society, as prescribed in section 1 of the Charter. Furthermore, section 2(d) of the Charter guarantees the citizen’s freedom of association. This surely includes the right to be outside a political party.

B. Thomas Hall recently retired after 23 years as a non-partisan procedural adviser at the House of Commons. He is not a member of any political party.

Proportion of Women in Parliament

It turns out to be difficult to draw statistical conclusions about the representation of women in parliaments around the world under MMP vs. FPTP electoral systems. There are relatively few MMP countries, the representation of women varies widely from country to country in both FPTP and MMP countries, and it goes up and down with every election. For MMP countries it goes as high as 32% (New Zealand), and for FPTP as high as 30.4% (Tanzania). Every system has got to do better. On average, MMP is 2 percentage points higher (the exact number depends on the base year and on whose classification of electoral systems is used to determine which countries are MMP) but the difference has low statistical significance. FPTP and MMP have different geographic distributions so are differences caused by factors other than electoral systems?

What most of the countries with a high proportion of women MPs have in common, whether FPTP or MMP, is a quota set in law or by political parties (see quotaproject.org database) to guarantee the proportion of women candidates, or to reserve seats for women. In fact, the presence or absence of quotas is such a good predictor that the difference between the two electoral systems disappears altogether as an explanatory variable.

It seems like a necessary but not sufficient condition that there be more women candidates, and that the MMP system, through the legislation that establishes it, can also impose quotas on the number of women in lists or in candidates proposed by each party. But does such a change increase the number of women elected? There is one instance where a country went from a majoritarian system to MMP and back again, which makes for an interesting experiment. France had a single MMP election in 1986, and switched back again. And in fact the proportion of women candidates doubled in 1986 relative to 1981, and it went down by half again in 1988. But the proportion of women elected budged not at all between the three elections. The big jump in elected women came between 1993 and 1997, with little change in the proportion of women candidates. Contrarian lot, the French.

MMP does allow interesting experiments. Since some of the seats come from FPTP ridings and some from lists, it is possible to determine whether the women being elected come from ridings or from lists. That is to say whether the electorate will resist electing women, or alternatively whether parties will nominate women only in ridings they believe they will lose. At first glance, the proportion of women in list seats should be the the same as the proportion of women in the lists.

It’s very interesting to look at Scotland. If you separate out the percentage of women elected in the constituency seats and in the list seats, it’s very clear that it’s not the party lists that are putting women into parliament, it’s the local ridings. Women comprised 32.7% of candidates standing for constituency seats, but 35.6% of the winners. Women were 38.6% of List candidates, but got only 32.1% of the list seats (statistics from engender.org.uk). Women were more likely than men to win a seat if they were in an FPTP contest, but less likely if they were in the list.

Why is it that there is such a gap between the proportion of women in the lists and the ones that get list seats? One reason may be that the proportion of women is higher for some parties than others, and the ones with higher proportions are not the ones who obtain as many list seats. A second reason may be that women are lower down on the list than men, so are less likely to be selected. The third is a well-meaning strategy that backfires, putting women constituency candidates in the party list as well, to ensure they get a seat. If women win in the constituencies, they are no longer available for the list, which means the selection from the list will skip over the woman to the next available candidate, more likely to be a man.

In Scotland, all but 12 of the elected women are in the opposition. The current government of Scotland is a coalition of the SNP (25% women) and the Green party (0% women).

In Ontario 26% of our MPPs are women, the percentage is higher in government and higher still in Cabinet, while not reaching Quebec’s 50/50 cabinet. In this election 33% of the candidates of the 3 major parties are now women. Since in Ontario the percentage of women elected follows relatively closely the percentage of women candidates, it seems clear that Ontario will have over 30% women in its next parliament, and has a fair shot at outdoing all FPTP and all MMP countries.

The future trend is even higher in Ontario. Liberals have promised that 50% of all new candidates other than incumbents would be women. The NDP that 50% of the total, and the PC party that 33% of the total would be women. No Green party targets were found, and they have 17% women candidates. The NDP and PC parties have not reached their targets in this election, but in subsequent elections it looks like Ontario is headed to over 40% women in parliament. In this jurisdiction, a change in electoral system is unlikely to make a positive difference in this respect.

Proposed MMP Algorithm for Ontario

For those writing software or spreadsheets, or who just want to know the details, here are the steps to follow in order to figure out who is elected under the proposed MMP system for Ontario.

1) In each riding, note who got the most local votes, that is the MPP.

2) For FPTP, and for the FPTP seats in MMP, that is where the algorithm ends. Let's continue. Look up the party affiliation of each riding winner, and add up how many ridings each party has. You can add all the independents together if you like.

3) Count the party ballots, and see how many party votes each party got province-wide. Discard the ballots where this part of the ballot is spoiled (Note: it seems to be possible to spoil only half of a ballot, for instance by voting for two candidates but only one party)

4) Calculate the 3% threshold, by taking the total number of unspoiled party ballots and multiplying by 0.03

5) Discard all the ballots cast for parties having fewer total votes than the threshold, and get a revised total number of eligible party ballots.

6) Calculate the First Hare Quota. This is the total number of seats (90+39=129) in the legislature divided by the total number of eligible party ballots.

7) Calculate the number of Quotas for each party. This is the number of party votes for that party, divided by the First Hare Quota.

8) Calculate the Full Quota Seats for each party. This is the number of Quotas rounded down to the nearest integer (the part of the number before the decimal point)

9) Note the Remainder for each party; this is the part of the Quotas number after the decimal point.

10) Add up the full quota seats from all parties, and subtract that number from the total number of seats (90+39=129) in the legislature. This is the number of surplus seats remaining to be allocated.

11) Find the largest one of all the Remainders above and allocate one surplus seat to that party; repeat with the next largest Remainder until the number of surplus seats calculated in the previous step has been allocated.

12) For each party, add the full quota seats and the surplus seats together to get the total seats for that party.

13) For each party, calculate the number of list seats by subtracting the party’s number of ridings (step 2) from the total seats for that party in the previous step.

14) If one or more of the number of list seats is negative, or if any independents have been elected, there is an “overhang”. Continue to the next step. Otherwise skip ahead to step 26

15) Discard all the ballots cast for parties having an “overhang”, and get a revised total number of eligible party ballots. Editorializing: we may well be discarding a large part if not the majority of the votes in this step.

16) Calculate the Seats of Remaining Parties. This is the total number of seats (90+39=129) in the legislature minus the number of ridings won by the parties having overhangs minus the number of independents.

17) Calculate the total votes of remaining parties. This is the total number of eligible party ballots minus the votes received by parties having overhangs. Note: there is no indication that the 3% quota is re-calculated.

18) Calculate the Second Hare Quota. This is the number of Remaining Seats divided by the total votes of remaining parties.

19) Calculate the number of Quotas for each remaining party. This is the number of eligible party votes for that party, divided by the Second Hare Quota.

20) Calculate the Full Quota Seats for each remaining party. This is the number of Quotas rounded down to the nearest integer (the part of the number before the decimal point)

21) Note the Remainder for each remaining party; this is the part of the Quotas number after the decimal point.

22) Add up the full quota seats, and subtract that number from the total number of Seats of Remaining Parties. This is the number of surplus seats remaining to be allocated.

23) Find the largest remainder above and allocate one surplus seat to that party; repeat with the next largest remainder until the number of surplus calculated in the previous step has been allocated.

24) The total of the independent seats, of the riding seats for the parties having overhangs, and of the full quota seats and the surplus seats of the remaining parties should add up to 129, and the the total of the full quota seats and the surplus seats of the remaining parties should not be less than the number of riding seats for that party. If not, you’re in trouble. I don't know if it is a mathematical certainty that they add up.

25) For each party, calculate the number of list seats by subtracting the party’s number of ridings (step 2) from the total seats. Independents and parties with an overhang should have zero list seats.

26) To allocate members to list seats, for each party take the highest-ranked member of the party’s list that is not already a member (for instance, that person may have been elected in a local riding for that party or for another party) and make them a member of the legislature. Continue until all of that party’s list seats have been allocated, and repeat for all remaining parties.

27) If you run out of people on the party’s list, you’re in trouble.

28) In case of any re-count, return to step 1. The list allocation of any party can be affected by any change in any other party’s results.

Thoughtful, deeper analysis

There's plenty to say about Ontario's attempts at electoral reform. The arguments we have heard so far include the self-serving (my party will get more seats) the name-calling (your anti-democracy arguments are stupid lies) and fear-mongering (Hitler will be elected with a minority of votes).

I thought it would be nice to see some more unconventional thinking, and deeper analysis as to what MMP is about. I have invited people I know to put their thoughts on paper so that we can see different, more thoughtful analysis that is not necessarily suited to a lightning sound-bite referendum campaign.

This is my first experience with Blogger. I will turn off comments if I can, I don't want to moderate a flame war.