A number of ethnically heterogeneous societies have taken the concept of reserved seats to its logical extension. Not only are seats divided on a communal basis, but the entire system of representation in the legislature is similarly based on communal considerations. There is a separate electoral register for each defined community, which elects only members of its ‘own group’ to the legislature.
In Lebanon, multi-member districts are defined, in each of which an allocation of seats between confessional groups is determined. Representatives are elected by Block Vote from communal rolls separately to the seats allocated for each confessional group.
However, it is important to say that most communal roll arrangements were abandoned after it became clear that communal electorates, while guaranteeing group representation, often had the perverse effect of undermining the path of accommodation between different groups, since there were no incentives for political intermixing between communities. The tasks of defining a member of a particular group and distributing seats fairly between them were also full of pitfalls.
In India, for example, the independent districts which had existed under colonial rule for Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others were abolished at independence, although some reserved seats remain in order to represent the scheduled tribes and castes. Similar communal roll systems used at various times in Pakistan, Cyprus, and Zimbabwe have also been abandoned. Fiji discontinued the use of lists with communal distinctions for the 2014 elections.
While some communal roll arrangements give the task of determining who falls into which category to some form of registration body, others give this choice to the individual. The predominant example of a communal roll system still in place among contemporary democracies is the optional separate roll for Maori voters in New Zealand. Maori electors can choose to be on either the national electoral roll or a specific Maori roll, which now elects seven Maori representatives to the legislature. The results of New Zealand’s first PR elections since 1996 could, however, be said to have weakened the rationale for the communal system: twice as many Maori representatives have been elected from the general rolls as from the specific Maori roll.
