Saturday, April 19, 2008

The Fascinating World of Electoral Reform

I'm not crazy enough to think that people actually find electoral systems fascinating, but I promised Vlad I'd summarize my term paper in my blog. Unfortunately, my summary is 1/3 the size of my original paper. The term paper actually ends 2/3 of the way through the post, because there are related claims that people make that really bother me, so I wrote about them as well. The post turned out well, since I know quite a bit about the topic and I've written about it before...

In 2005, B.C., the province I now call home, held a referendum on whether the electoral system for choosing provincial legislators should switch from a "First-past-the-post" system to a "single transferable vote" system, BC STV. To pass, the referendum had to have support from 60% of the total population, as well as more than 50% support in 48 of the 79 electoral districts. Although the proposal passed in 77 of 79 districts, it failed the 60% total requirement, with 57% of votes in favor. As the vote was narrowly lost, the referendum will be proposed in the next provincial elections in 2005. I'll be voting in those elections, and I had a term paper to write for poli sci, so I decided I would write about the proposal.

Simplicity, transparency, and representation are the basic properties an electoral system. For Canadians, at least, representation can be either partisan or regional. Some people will demand that representatives vote according to the desires of their constituents, while others will demand that representatives adhere to party politics. This difference can cause problems: in 2006, a Vancouver Member of Parliament (MP) caused considerable controversy when he switched from the Liberal to the Conservative party in order to serve in government, betraying the people that had voted for him as a Liberal candidate, rather than a representative of the district.

The extent of representation is as disputed as its nature. Generally, major-party supporters prefer majority government, which has a clear mandate to rule and can govern efficiently, while small-party supporters would prefer more political representation, so that there parties are better represented in government.

Single-member plurality, the technical term for "first-past-the-post", tends to deliver majorities, even if the majority of the people did not vote for the governing party (called a majority government.) This is because under SMP, the candidate with the most votes wins, and because candidates don't need a majority to win, parties can win the majority of the seats (or every seat, which has happened) without winning the majority of the total votes. Besides making majority government more likely, SMP is also simple and transparent.

Mixed-member plurality elects representatives in two ways. Most representatives are elected directly, just like SMP. The rest are chosen from party lists in order to make the legislature representative. Although the candidates on the party lists are not chosen democratically, people generally prefer the resulting political representation to the democratic penalty. MMP is as simple and transparent as SMP, as the main difference is in representation. However, MMP requires either that seats are added to the legislature, or that districts are redrawn so that there are fewer candidates chosen directly.

The theory behind electoral districts is that members of the legislature will represent the people who chose them. The distance between voters and Cabinet, who are in practice the governors of Canada, is such that strong political parties are necessary to hold Cabinet to account. Party discipline, the powers a party has to ensure its members vote in unison, is necessary for a party to be held accountable to other parties and to the public. Unlike the federal government, the existence of the provincial government is derived from a need for local control over local issues. Therefore, although parties are important structures provincially, political concerns cannot take precedence over local ones.

BC STV was designed as a fair, representative electoral system that could replace the current system without increasing the number of representatives. In an STV system, voters rank candidates in multiple-member districts, and candidates are selected if they reach a certain quota. If no candidate reaches the quota, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and their votes are transferred to their next choices. If a candidate reaches the quota, their votes are transferred (at a modified value) to their second preferences as well. If you're confused, don't worry: the important aspect is that valid votes are always transferred, and always used in the selection of the candidates. (If you want to understand the mechanism, search for "BC STV animation" and you'll get a good explanation.) Representation is ensured through the transfer of votes, because every vote counts. Multiple member districts allow people to vote along party as well as regional lines. Also, unlike SMP, where certain districts have a plurality of loyal party voters, ensuring that said party will almost always win a "safe seat," larger districts and an emphasis on candidates reduces "safe seats", ensuring that parties cannot be complacent.

STV's advantages at a local level make it optimal for electing provincial governments, while a focus on local issues is unsuitable for the federal government. Whether MMP is better than SMP for selecting federal governments depends on whether you prefer majority governments or coalitions, but judging from the experience of most other countries, MMP is preferable to SMP. MMP provides better political representation, and although I may be biased, as a progressive who supports small parties, I would prefer a more proportional government.

Side-Arguments:

This is outside the scope of my term paper's argument, but I don't view coalition governments as inefficient. Democratic governments rule for the benefit of the people, and therefore should generally follow public opinion. (It takes both elitism and cynicism to believe that policy following public opinion goes against the public good, and as this is a marginal opinion I won't address it in this post.) Public opinion tends to become more progressive as time goes on, and changes in policy tend to lag changes in public opinion. This leads to a sea change at election time, when the governments suddenly snaps in line with public opinion. Coalition governments cannot resist changes in public opinion as effectively as a majority government can, so although both forms follow public opinion, there is less deviation under a coalition. An excellent example is the United States. Its two party system, resulting from SMP, ensures that although there is strong opposition to the war in Iraq, ending the war is essentially impossible until the executive changes.

While I'm at it, I might as well argue against the claim that a powerful executive is necessary to respond to emergencies, and majority governments are therefore also necessary because they lead to a more powerful executive. Canada's executive, the Prime Minister and Cabinet, is one of the most powerful in the democratic world because the executive is fused with the legislature, and the Prime Minister has considerable control over their party. In a majority government, Cabinet is held accountable by public opinion, the Judiciary, and independent parliamentary agents, but never* by the legislature. Ensuring that the executive's power over the legislature is not absolute hardly makes it feeble. Besides, as much as I'd love for there to be a full policy debate over responses to crises, I don't recall the executive ever finding it difficult to seize the reins of power when a crisis hits.

*- I try not to use the word "never" lightly. Caucus revolts, where the government's own party rebels against its leader, have occurred in similar parliamentary democracies, but to my knowledge this has never happened in Canada.

2 comments:

Wayne Smith said...

"Although the candidates on the party lists are not chosen democratically, people generally prefer the resulting political representation to the democratic penalty, and MMP is, I believe, the most popular system in the world."

Who sez party list candidates are not chosen democratically? Whether you are voting for a list of one or 100, parties put forward candidates, and voters either vote for them or they don't. In either case, 95% of voters are making their choice based on which party they support, not on the merits of the candidates.

As for the nomination process itself, what goes on in our current single member ridings is hardly a model of democracy. The Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform recommended that each party be required to publicize, explain and justify its nomination process for list candidates, which would have made the nomination of list candidates far more transparent and democratic than the current process for nominating riding candidates. During the referendum campaign, all four leading parties pledged to nominate their list candidates in an open and democratic manner.

MMP is still not common around the world, but it is the trend leader, with both FPTP and party list countries leaning toward a mixed system.

Daniel Stevens said...

Note: I just browsed through your post quickly, so apologies if I’ve misread it/ misinterpreted it, exams are pressing me for time.

Interesting paper, I was taken back when I read it because I didn’t expect someone pursuing Chemistry to write it.

On the topic of STV against plurality, the problem with plurality is that it doesn’t really encourage the “democratic process”. This come from Anthony Down’s hypothesis that plurality encourages a two-party system. You just need to look at your neighbours in the United States or parliament in the United Kingdom to understand why. The advantage of STV is that it doesn’t require Libertarians to flock to New Hampshire or Alaska, they can encourage a much broader nation-wide campaign.

Moreover, there is a fundamental misinterpretation of what “democracy” is. You seem to equate democracy with “whoever has the most votes”, which is not true. You are now simply equating democracy with a voting system. It is entirely plausible and possible to manage to get a different result by using a different voting system: Condorcet, Borda, Plurality with Runoff, Approval Voting- take your pick. Therefore, there is no reason why STV wouldn’t be democratic (well, except for violating monotonicity, but that is another story and overshadowed by the fact that plurality violates condorcet criteria AND monotonicity).

The idea of political business cycles and time lags is only true if governments are following discretionary policies, which recently isn't the case- most governments have adopted rules due to the emergence of rational expectations and the idea of the expectations augmented Phillips Curve. Formally, if governments try to shape up, they will be punished, and this has led to greater central bank independence, Rogoff's conservative banker, etc. The idea of time-inconsistency really only is a problem is civilians don’t have rational expectations.