Electoral systems - Electoral formula

10 important questions on Electoral systems - Electoral formula

What is the majoritarian system?

They are designed to identify a winner, by giving the presidency, the seat/several seats to the one with the most votes.

What is the SMP system?

This means Single Member Plurality and is used in the general elections in the UK. This follows a pure first-past-the-post logic and gives the seat to the winner of that constituency

What are the most-heard critics on SMP-systems and what is the solution?

The most-heard critic is that a candidate could be elected with less than 50 percent of the votes. To avoid that, several majoritarian systems have implemented a second round of voting; presidential elections in France
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What is the scope of proportional systems?

The aim is not to identify a winner, but to give the parties the percentages of seats in proportion to its share in votes

What does List PR mean as an electoral system?

There are lists of candidates, usually from political parties. When the votes are counted, there is a formula based on the Hare quota. The list receives as many seats as the number of times they passed the quota

What is STV in electoral systems?

Single Transferable Votes means that voters rank their candidates. A quota is calculated (usually the Droop quota). Candidates pass the quota with first preferences and their second preferences are then used to allocate the remaining seats and so on; legislative in Ireland/Malta

What are the differences between STV and AV?

STV works with multimember district, while AV uses single-member constituencies. You have to get more than 50% of the votes with AV, but STV can get lower than that

What does reinforced proportionality mean?

That is a majority bonus: the winner of PR elections get a bonus so the winning party/coalition has a solid majority; Italy & Greece

Which two revolutions put pressure on majoritarian systems in the course of the 19th century?

The rise of political parties in importance and ties between individual parliamentarians belonging to the same parties and the emerge of a third party; the workers' parties, so a majoritarian system worked less efficiently.

What is limited PR (Carey and Hix 2011) an why does it sacrifice proportionality?

They introduce mechanisms like lower district magnitudes and thresholds to limit the access of new parties to parliamentary representation in order to avoid over-fragmentation

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