The Electoral System is an essential component of any legal framework
because such a system defines the integration of elected public offices and the
relation between the political parties in a country, in a State, or in a group
of countries. Among other things, the legal framework should clearly establish
the type of electoral system and the regular scheduling of elections.[i]
Broadly speaking, an electoral system can be defined as the regulation of
the election of public officials. In a more constrained definition, an
electoral system can be seen as the regulation of the relation between voting
and the elected officials. Therefore, an electoral system is the way in
which votes can be translated into elected representatives, and so their
political content is rather clear. Such regulations result in the enactment of very important
legislative decisions.
The design of an electoral system, seen in a more restricted way, refers
not only to practices of parliamentary systems, but also to practices of both
presidential systems and constitutional monarchies. In respect to the election
of public officials, the selection of the electoral system is important. If the
electoral system follows the majority principle, then the candidates who have
more votes than their opponents are declared the winning ones. On the contrary,
if the winner is elected in a second round out of the winner of the first round
and the runner-up, or if the winner is elected in an indirect way (as it
happens in the United States), the results can be quite different.
Besides, electoral systems not only involve the way in which votes are
turned into congressional seats, but can also affect other components of the
political system (such as the development of a system of political parties, the
separation of political ideologies, the representation of diverse social interests,
the main features of electoral campaigns, the ability of political regimes to
provide individuals with working political institutions, and the political
system’s legitimacy). Electoral systems can also be important linking
citizens to their leaders (through some mechanisms such as accountability,
representation and political liability). As a matter of fact, electoral
systems do generate important consequences for democratic governance in the
long run. Incentives must be brought along to help out those contending
for power to summon voters in different ways, according to the socio-political
reality (in societies deeply divided by languages, religious beliefs, racial or
ethnic considerations, a specific electoral system can promote and praise cooperation
and conciliatory attitudes from candidates and political parties, while
punishing those who are neither cooperative, nor conciliatory).
Electoral systems have to be based on Constitutional Law and other
Legislation. As we have said, the design of electoral systems determines
the ways in which votes are turned into public offices. In other words,
such a design determines how voting affects political representation.
That’s why an electoral system’s regulation begins at the constitutional level,
and continues at the legislative one.
A couple of characteristics distinguish the fundamental components of an
electoral system (on the one hand, they affect the way in which votes are
turned into political representation; they can be distinguished from others
according to the political decisions which outline each one of them).
Bearing this in mind, the fundamental components of an electoral system which
have to be included in electoral legislation can be listed as follows:
- The regional division for
electoral purposes, which refers to the geographic territory used to turn
votes into congressional seats.
- The electoral system
(which can either recognize relative majorities–which can be simple,
absolute or qualified—or proportional representation).
- The mathematical
procedure that has to be applied to turn votes into congressional
seats.
- Electoral thresholds,
which have to be seen as the minimum percentage of votes which have to be
obtained by candidates in order to be included in the distribution of
congressional seats distribution.
- The way in which the
election is carried out (directly or indirectly), which refers both to the
voter’s ability and to the political parties’ ability to determine who are
going to occupy public Offices.
The selection of an electoral system has to be inserted within a legal
framework which regulates the social structures and the political differences
in an adequate way. Such a regulation must organize a representative
political system in charge of solving social disputes through
conciliation. It can be said, therefore, that the selection of an
electoral system can be undertaken more easily if particular objectives are identified
at the outset (a greater degree of legitimacy, for instance, or results’
proportionality, or a strong representation of political groups at a regional
level, and so on). Based on such considerations, and taking into account the
social, political, geographic and historical conditions of each single country,
electoral systems are selected.
The selection of an electoral system is a very relevant decision from an
institutional point of view. Such a decision is very important to a
satisfactory performance of any democracy. Electoral systems can help out not only
to build up specific results, but also to promote the cooperation and conciliation
of divided societies.
The selection process of an electoral system supports the electoral legal
framework. The application of a specific electoral system in each country
can have a relevant impact in the electoral performances of political
contenders. The evaluation of a country’s electoral system can be based
on the results rendered by previous elections. Doing so can shed some light on
important issues such as what benefits, if any, are received by the political
party in power if compared to other political parties. Some light can
also be shed upon the system’s components which can be seen as distorting
international regulations or the election’s results.
No electoral system can be
universally applied to all the cases. Nor can a universal norm be applied
to all cases. The selection of an electoral system has to aim at clear
objectives, and has to be seen as an ad hoc decision in the relevant
circumstances. The effects derived from the operation of electoral
systems are contextual and are based on political and territorial
particularities, as well as on different social realities and specific
conflicts which differ from one country to the other. The general consequences
of every single electoral system depend on contextual conditions distinguishing
each single case. Democracy Reporting International and The Carter
Center, in Strengthening
International Law to Support Genuine Elections and Democratic Governance,
conclude,”International law recognizes the need for an
electoral system, but does not advocate or proscribe a particular system.
Rather, all electoral systems are permissible as long as they uphold
fundamental rights and freedoms and international obligations.”[ii]
Electoral systems are generally categorized in relation to how votes cast
result in the election of representatives.
According to this continuum there are at least three main classes of
electoral systems (it should also be recognized that there are other ways to organize
electoral systems with greater specificity resulting in a broader number of
classes). The Handbook
for European Union Election Observation distinguishes:
- Plurality-majority systems are usually
used for elections where one candidate will be elected to a single seat in
an electoral district; the winning candidate must either win the largest
number (i.e., the plurality) of votes (known as the simple majority), or
win more than half (i.e., the majority) of the votes cast (known as the
absolute majority).
- Proportional
systems are
usually used for elections where there is more than one seat in an
electoral district. Mandates are allocated using formulae that distribute
seats so that they represent the proportion of the vote won by candidates or parties
- Mixed systems use a combination of plurality majority and proportional
systems.[iii]
It follows that each system will have a different impact on the translation
of votes into representation. For example, and speaking very broadly:
although the simple majority system can result
in election without a majority of votes the system is reputed to entrench the
accountability of the representative to the community; although proportional
representation systems tend to result in a better reflection of the actual vote
it is reported to diminish the accountability of the representative to the
community in favour of the political party; by definition the mixed system will
represent some of the best and worst aspects of each system and so on.[iv]
The revision of an electoral system has to take into account whether the
country is deeply divided or not from a political, geographical, religious, or
ethnic points of view. It has also to take into account whether political
minorities are fairly represented in the political system. The revision
of an electoral system aimed at improving a country’s electoral regime, has to
take into account the recommendations derived from the experiences undertaken
by other countries on how inequalities can to be solved.
[i] SADC and EISA, Principles for Election Management,
Monitoring, and Observation8.
[ii] DRI and The Carter Center, Strengthening International Law, 8.
[iii] European Commission, Handbook for European Union Election Observation, 31.
[iv] SADC and EISA,Principles
for Election Management, Monitoring, and Observation, 10.
