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.