Comparative Electoral Systems Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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A huge variety of electoral systems in the world have been established along with the diffusion of democracy and the formation of political parties. In traditional local assemblies with rather homogeneous electorates until the nineteenth century, relatively simple electoral rules were used. A typical electoral system was composed of (1) multimember districts, that is, the election of more than one representative in each district; (2) open ballot, in which people could vote for their preferred individual candidates without the restrictions of lists or groups; and (3) plurality or majority rule, by which the candidates with the higher numbers of votes were elected. This type of electoral system was able to produce a consensual representation, especially in small communities with high economic and ethnic homogeneity. However, in new contexts of relatively complex and heterogeneous electorates, once lists of candidates to be voted in bloc were formed, there were incentives to search for new electoral systems able to give representation to multiple parties. Virtually all the new electoral rules and procedures that were created since the midnineteenth century can be understood as innovative variations of the originating system presented above. They can be classified in three groups, depending on whether they changed the above-mentioned district magnitude, the ballot, or the rule.

The first group of new electoral rules implied a change of the district magnitude from multimember to single-member districts, that is, the split of the previous large districts into smaller ones in which only one representative was elected. With smaller, single-member districts a candidate who would have been defeated by a party sweep in a multimember district may be elected. Thus, this system tends to produce more varied representation than the previous system. Single-member districts with plurality, or relative majority, rule were broadly introduced in Scotland and Wales and in lower proportions in England during the eighteenth century, and they became the general norm for all of Britain in 1885. They were also introduced in the U.S. state of Vermont in 1793 and gradually expanded to the rest of the country, especially for the election of the House of Representatives in 1842. France also replaced multimember districts with single-member districts by absolute majority rule with a second round of voting for the first time in 1820, oscillated between both formulas during long periods, and has reestablished single-member districts since 1958.

The second group of new electoral rules implied new forms of ballots favoring individual-candidate voting despite the existence of party candidacies while maintaining multimember districts and majority rules. By limited vote, the voter can vote for fewer candidates than seats to be elected in the district. One party can sweep as many seats as the voter has votes, but it is likely that the rest of the seats will be won by candidates of different political affiliations. The earliest experiences of limited vote in multimember districts took place in Spain, first in the form of a single nontransferable vote, that is, with only one vote per voter, from 1865 on, and giving each voter two votes in three-seat districts from 1878 on. Limited vote was also introduced in previously existing multimember districts in brief experiences in Britain in 1868 and in Brazil in 1875. The single nontransferable vote was used for long periods in Japan during the twentieth century.

Finally, the third group of new electoral rules implied the introduction of rules of proportional representation, which give each party list a number of seats in proportion to its votes. The early, British-style formula of single transferable vote is used in multimember districts with individual-candidate voting, although it requires each voter not only to select but to rank candidates. Other formulas of proportional representation, such as double vote and preferential voting, although they imply party lists, may be compatible with some degree of individual-candidate voting. The first wave of proportional electoral systems started in Belgium in 1899, closely followed by Denmark, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, and Switzerland around World War I (1914–1918). The development of multiparty systems led these and other west European countries to reestablish or for the first time introduce proportional representation electoral rules at the end of World War II (1939–1945).

Currently, the vast majority of countries employing single member districts with plurality rule are former British colonies. They include the United Kingdom and the United States as well as Canada, India, and a number of small countries in Africa and the Caribbean. France and a few former French colonies use single-member districts with absolute majority rule, which is also used in Australia with majority-preferential vote.

In the rest of the world, the increase of both the number of countries and the number and the proportion of democracies has developed together with increasing political pluralism within each country. While the number of political parties tends to increase as a consequence of the emergence of new political demands, politicization of new issues, and would-be leaders’ initiatives, there has been a general trend in favor of adopting rules of proportional representation.

A recent development is the emergence of mixed electoral systems in which both majority and proportional representation rules are used for electing different sets of seats in the same assembly. Most mixed systems currently existing were established to replace previous dictatorships or plurality-rule electoral systems with single-party dominance when higher levels of political pluralism had developed. While most of these experiences are still recent, some have been short-lived and placed within a general trend toward democratization and higher pluralism.

Most electoral system changes since the mid-twentieth century have been in favor of greater proportionality. Nowadays, only about one-fifth of democracies in countries with more than one million inhabitants use electoral systems with majority electoral rules. During the third wave of democratization, which started in 1974, no new democracy established in those countries has adopted the old British formula of parliamentary elections in single-member districts by plurality rule.

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