Political institutions shape the rules of the game under which democracy is practised, and it is often argued that the easiest political institution to be manipulated, for good or for bad, is the electoral system. This is true because in translating the votes cast in a general election into seats in the legislature, the choice of electoral system can effectively determine who is elected and which party gains power. Even with exactly the same number of votes for parties, one electoral system might lead to a coalition government while another might allow a single party to assume majority control. The two examples below illustrate how different electoral systems can translate the votes cast into dramatically different results.
But a number of other consequences of electoral systems go beyond this primary effect. The type of party system which develops, in particular the number and the relative sizes of political parties in parliament, is heavily influenced by it. So is the internal cohesion and discipline of parties: some systems may encourage factionalism, where different wings of one party are constantly at odds with each other, while another system might encourage parties to speak with one voice and suppress dissent. Electoral systems can also influence the way parties campaign and the way political elites behave, thus helping to determine the broader political climate; they may encourage, or retard, the forging of alliances between parties; and they can provide incentives for parties and groups to be broad-based and accommodating, or to base themselves on narrow appeals to ethnicity or kinship ties. In addition, if an electoral system is not considered 'fair' and does not allow the opposition to feel that they have the chance to win next time around, an electoral system may encourage losers to work outside the system, using non-democratic, confrontationalist and even violent tactics. And finally the choice of electoral system will determine the ease or complexity of the act of voting. This is always important, but becomes particularly so in societies where there are a substantial number of inexperienced or illiterate voters.
However, it is important to note that a given electoral system will not necessarily work the same way in different countries. Although there are some common experiences in different regions of the world, the effects of a certain electoral system type depends to a large extent upon the socio-political context in which it is used. Electoral system consequences depend upon factors such as how a society is structured in terms of ideological, religious, ethnic, racial, regional, linguistic, or class divisions; whether the country is an established democracy, a transitional democracy, or a new democracy; whether there is an established party system, whether parties are embryonic and unformed, and how many 'serious' parties there are; and whether a particular party's supporters are geographically concentrated together, or dispersed over a wide area.
Electoral System Impact On the Translation of Votes Into Seats
Let us take a hypothetical election (of 25,000 votes contested by two political parties) run under two different sets of electoral rules: a plurality-majority First Past The Post system with five single member districts, and a List PR election with one large district.
|
Constuencies |
Seats Won |
| |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Total |
% |
P-M |
PR |
|
Party A |
3000 |
2600 |
2551 |
2551 |
100 |
10802 |
43 |
4 |
2 |
|
Party B |
2000 |
2400 |
2449 |
2449 |
4900 |
14198 |
57 |
1 |
3 |
| |
5000 |
5000 |
5000 |
5000 |
5000 |
25000 |
100 |
|
|
Key: P-M= Plurality-Majority system (FPTP), PR = Proportional Representation system.
In our example, Party A with 43% of the votes wins far fewer votes than Party B (with 57%) but under a Plurality-Majority system they win four out of the five seats available. Conversely, under a proportional system Party B wins more seats (three) against two seats for Party A. This example may appear extreme but similar constituency results occur quite regularly in plurality-majority elections.
In our second example the distribution of the votes is changed and there are now five parties contesting the election, but the two hypothetical electoral systems remain the same.
|
Districts |
Seats Won |
| |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Total |
% |
P-M |
PR |
|
Party A |
3000 |
2000 |
2000 |
200 |
50 |
7250 |
29 |
3 |
1 |
|
Party B |
500 |
500 |
500 |
3750 |
500 |
5750 |
23 |
1 |
1 |
|
Party C |
500 |
250 |
750 |
1000 |
3000 |
5500 |
22 |
1 |
1 |
|
Party D |
750 |
500 |
1700 |
25 |
1025 |
4000 |
16 |
0 |
1 |
|
Party E |
250 |
1750 |
50 |
25 |
425 |
2500 |
10 |
0 |
1 |
| |
5000 |
5000 |
5000 |
5000 |
5000 |
25000 |
100 |
5 |
5 |
Key: P-M= Plurality-Majority system (FPTP), PR = Proportional Representation system (using the Largest remainder method of seat allocation with a Hare quota).
In the second example five parties are competing. Under the PR system, every party wins a single seat despite the fact that Party A wins nearly three times as many votes as Party E. Under a FPTP system the largest Party (A) would have picked up a majority of the five seats with the next two highest polling parties (B and C) winning a single seat each. The choice of electoral system thus has a dramatic effect on the composition of the parliament and, by extension, the government.
