Electoral reform
Encyclopedia
Electoral reform is change in electoral systems to improve how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of:
is imperfect; electoral reforms seek to make politics work a bit better, a bit sooner. The solution to the problems of democracy tends to be "more democracy." Electoral reform is a permanent feature of any healthy democracy.
The Electoral Reform Society
is a political pressure group based in the United Kingdom, believed to be the oldest organisation concerned with electoral systems in the world. The Society advocates scrapping First Past the Post (FPTP) for all National and local elections arguing that the system is 'bad for voters, bad for government and bad for democracy'.
Fair Elections Commission provides international observers to national elections that are likely to face challenges by the international community of nations, e.g., in 2001 in Yugoslavia, in 2002 in Zimbabwe.
The United Nations standards address safety of citizens, coercion, scrutiny, and eligibility to vote. They do not impose ballot styles, party diversity, or borders on electoral constituencies. Various global political movements, e.g., labour movement
s, the Green Party, Islamism
, Zionism
, advocate various cultural, social, ecological means of setting borders that they consider "objective" or "blessed" in some other way. Contention over electoral constituency borders within or between nations and definitions of "refugee", "citizen", and "right of return" mark various global conflicts, including those in Israel/Palestine, Kashmir, the Congo, and Rwanda.
attributable to population movements. Some electoral reforms seek to fix these borders according to some cultural or ecological criterion, e.g., bioregional
democracy – which sets borders to fit exactly to ecoregion
s – to avoid the obvious abuse of "gerrymandering
" in which constituency borders are set deliberately to favor one party over another, or to improve management of the public's commonly owned property.
held Royal Commissions to find the best form of "proportional representation" of parties in the legislature and redesigned ballots to select or elect these Members of Parliament.
and proportional representation
.
organization advocating electoral reform nationally is Fair Vote Canada
. Several referendums to decide whether or not to adopt such reform have been held during provincial elections in the last decade; none has thus far resulted in a change from the plurality system currently in force. Controversially, the threshold for adoption of a new voting system has regularly been set at a "supermajority", for example, 60% of ballots cast approving the proposed system in order for the change to be implemented.
began in 1986 with the report of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System
entitled Towards A Better Democracy. The Royal Commission recommended that Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) be adopted instead of the current first-past-the-post
system. After two referendums in 1992 and 1993, New Zealand adopted MMP.
In 2004, some local body elections in New Zealand were elected using single transferable vote instead of the block vote
.
The United Kingdom has generally used first-past-the-post (FPTP) for many years, but there have been several attempts at reform. A 1910 Royal Commission on Electoral Systems recommended AV be adopted for the Commons. A very limited introduction of single transferable vote (STV) came in the Government of Ireland Act 1914. A Speaker's Conference on electoral reform in January 1917 unanimously recommended a mix of AV and STV for elections to the House of Commons. However, in a vote that August, the Commons rejected STV by 32 votes in the committee stage of the Representation of the People Bill and, by 1 vote, substituted alternative vote (AV). The House of Lords then voted for STV, but the Commons insisted on AV. In a compromise, AV was abandoned and the Boundary Commission were asked to prepare a limited plan of STV to apply to 100 seats. This plan was then rejected by the Commons, although STV was introduced for the university constituencies.
On 8 April 1921, a Private Member's Bill to introduce STV was rejected 211 votes to 112 by the Commons. A Liberal attempt to introduce an Alternative Vote Bill in March 1923 was defeated by 208 votes to 178. On 2 May 1924, another Private Member's Bill for STV was defeated 240 votes to 146 in the Commons.
In January 1931, the minority Labour government, then supported by the Liberals, introduced a Representation of the People Bill that included switching to AV. The Bill passed its second reading in the Commons by 295 votes to 230 on 24 February 1931 and the clause introducing AV was passed in the committee stageby 277 to 253. (The Speaker had refused to allow discussion of STV.) The Bill's second reading in the Lords followed in June, with an amendment replacing AV with STV in 100 constituencies being abandoned as outwith the scope of the Bill. An amendment was passed (by 80 votes to 29) limiting AV to those constituencies in boroughs with populations over 200,000. The Bill received its third reading in the Lords on 21 July, but the Labour government fell in August and the Bill was lost.
Elections to the European Parliament in mainlaind Britain were originally under FPTP, but were switched to list PR following pressure to standardise with the rest of the EU.
When Labour re-gained power in 1997, they introduced a number of new assemblies, in London, Wales and Scotland, and opted for additional member systems of PR in all of these. They also adopted the supplementary vote system for directly-elected mayors. Within Scotland, a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition in the new Scottish Parliament later introduced STV for local elections. However, such reforms were not without their problems. When 7% of votes (over 140,000) were discounted or spoilt in the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary and local council
elections, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond
protested that 'the decision to conduct an STV election at the same time as a first-past-the-post
ballot for the Scottish Parliament
was deeply mistaken'
In the 2010 UK General Election campaign, the possibility of a hung parliament
and the earlier expenses scandal pushed electoral reform up the agenda, something long supported by the Liberal Democrats. There were protests in favour of electoral reform organised by Take Back Parliament
. There is a move to a largely elected Lords. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government held a referendum on introducing AV for the Commons on 5 May 2011, which was defeated.
There are a number of groups in the United Kingdom
campaigning for electoral reform including the Electoral Reform Society
, Make Votes Count Coalition and Fairshare
.
significantly reforming its electoral process. Electoral reform is a continuing process in the United States motivated by the fear of both electoral fraud
and disfranchisement
.
- Voting systemVoting systemA voting system or electoral system is a method by which voters make a choice between options, often in an election or on a policy referendum....
s, such as proportional representationProportional representationProportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
, a two-round systemTwo-round systemThe two-round system is a voting system used to elect a single winner where the voter casts a single vote for their chosen candidate...
(runoff voting), instant-runoff votingInstant-runoff votingInstant-runoff voting , also known as preferential voting, the alternative vote and ranked choice voting, is a voting system used to elect one winner. Voters rank candidates in order of preference, and their ballots are counted as one vote for their first choice candidate. If a candidate secures a...
, Instant Round Robin Voting called Condorcet VotingCondorcet methodA Condorcet method is any single-winner election method that meets the Condorcet criterion, which means the method always selects the Condorcet winner if such a candidate exists. The Condorcet winner is the candidate who would beat each of the other candidates in a run-off election.In modern...
, approval votingApproval votingApproval voting is a single-winner voting system used for elections. Each voter may vote for as many of the candidates as the voter wishes. The winner is the candidate receiving the most votes. Each voter may vote for any combination of candidates and may give each candidate at most one vote.The...
, citizen initiativeInitiativeIn political science, an initiative is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote...
s and referendumReferendumA referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
s and recall electionRecall electionA recall election is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended...
s. - Vote-counting procedures
- Rules about political parties, typically changes to election laws
- Eligibility to vote
- How candidates and political parties are able to stand (nomination rulesNomination rulesNomination rules in elections regulate the conditions under which a candidate or political party is entitled to stand for election. The criteria to stand as a candidate depends on the individual legal system, however they may include the age of a candidate, citizenship, endorsement by a political...
) and how they are able to get their names onto ballots (ballot accessBallot accessBallot access rules, called nomination rules outside the United States, regulate the conditions under which a candidate or political party is either entitled to stand for election or to appear on voters' ballots...
) - Electoral constituencies and election district borders
- BallotBallotA ballot is a device used to record choices made by voters. Each voter uses one ballot, and ballots are not shared. In the simplest elections, a ballot may be a simple scrap of paper on which each voter writes in the name of a candidate, but governmental elections use pre-printed to protect the...
design and voting equipment - Scrutineering (election monitoring by candidates, political parties, etc.)
- Safety of voters and election workers
- Measures against bribery, coercion, and conflicts of interest
- Financing of candidates' and referendum campaigns
- Factors which affect the rate of voter participation (voter turnoutVoter turnoutVoter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...
)
Continuous change
There are many such movements globally, in almost all democratic countries, as part of the basic definition of a democracy is the right to change the rules. Political sciencePolitical science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
is imperfect; electoral reforms seek to make politics work a bit better, a bit sooner. The solution to the problems of democracy tends to be "more democracy." Electoral reform is a permanent feature of any healthy democracy.
The Electoral Reform Society
Electoral Reform Society
The Electoral Reform Society is a political pressure group based in the United Kingdom which promotes electoral reform. It is believed to be the oldest organisation concerned with electoral systems in the world.-Aims:...
is a political pressure group based in the United Kingdom, believed to be the oldest organisation concerned with electoral systems in the world. The Society advocates scrapping First Past the Post (FPTP) for all National and local elections arguing that the system is 'bad for voters, bad for government and bad for democracy'.
Nation-building
In less democratic countries, elections are often demanded by dissidents; therefore the most basic electoral reform project such countries is to achieve a transfer of power to a democratically elected government with a minimum of bloodshed, e.g. in South Africa in 1994. This case highlights the complexity of such reform: such projects tend to require changes to national or other constitutions, and to alter balances of power. Electoral reforms are often politically painful.Role of United Nations
The United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Fair Elections Commission provides international observers to national elections that are likely to face challenges by the international community of nations, e.g., in 2001 in Yugoslavia, in 2002 in Zimbabwe.
The United Nations standards address safety of citizens, coercion, scrutiny, and eligibility to vote. They do not impose ballot styles, party diversity, or borders on electoral constituencies. Various global political movements, e.g., labour movement
Labour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
s, the Green Party, Islamism
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
, Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, advocate various cultural, social, ecological means of setting borders that they consider "objective" or "blessed" in some other way. Contention over electoral constituency borders within or between nations and definitions of "refugee", "citizen", and "right of return" mark various global conflicts, including those in Israel/Palestine, Kashmir, the Congo, and Rwanda.
Electoral borders
Redrawing of electoral constituency (or "riding" or "district") borders should be conducted at regular intervals, or by statutory rules and definitions, if for no other reason than to eliminate malapportionmentApportionment (politics)
Apportionment is the process of allocating political power among a set of principles . In most representative governments, political power has most recently been apportioned among constituencies based on population, but there is a long history of different approaches.The United States Constitution,...
attributable to population movements. Some electoral reforms seek to fix these borders according to some cultural or ecological criterion, e.g., bioregional
Bioregionalism
Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and environmental system or set of views based on naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to ecoregions. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics...
democracy – which sets borders to fit exactly to ecoregion
Ecoregion
An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than an ecozone and larger than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural...
s – to avoid the obvious abuse of "gerrymandering
Gerrymandering
In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan, incumbent-protected districts...
" in which constituency borders are set deliberately to favor one party over another, or to improve management of the public's commonly owned property.
National reforms
National electoral reform projects tend to be simpler and less focused on life-and-death matters. Australia and New ZealandElectoral reform in New Zealand
Electoral reform in New Zealand has, in recent years, become a political issue as major changes have been made to both Parliamentary and local government electoral systems.- Parliamentary Electoral Reform :...
held Royal Commissions to find the best form of "proportional representation" of parties in the legislature and redesigned ballots to select or elect these Members of Parliament.
Australia
The Proportional Representation Society of Australia generally advocate single transferable voteSingle transferable vote
The single transferable vote is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through preferential voting. Under STV, an elector's vote is initially allocated to his or her most preferred candidate, and then, after candidates have been either elected or eliminated, any surplus or...
and proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
.
Canada
Several national and provincial organizations promote electoral reform, especially by advocating one form or another of proportional representation. The largest grassrootsGrassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
organization advocating electoral reform nationally is Fair Vote Canada
Fair Vote Canada
Fair Vote Canada is a nonprofit, multi-partisan advocacy group for electoral reform in Canada. It is active both federally and in those provinces where there are efforts to reform the first-past-the-post electoral system that is used in Canada...
. Several referendums to decide whether or not to adopt such reform have been held during provincial elections in the last decade; none has thus far resulted in a change from the plurality system currently in force. Controversially, the threshold for adoption of a new voting system has regularly been set at a "supermajority", for example, 60% of ballots cast approving the proposed system in order for the change to be implemented.
New Zealand
Electoral reform in New ZealandElectoral reform in New Zealand
Electoral reform in New Zealand has, in recent years, become a political issue as major changes have been made to both Parliamentary and local government electoral systems.- Parliamentary Electoral Reform :...
began in 1986 with the report of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System
Royal Commission on the Electoral System
The Royal Commission on the Electoral System was formed in New Zealand in 1985, and reported in 1986. The decision to form the Royal Commission was taken by the Fourth Labour government, after the Labour party had received more votes, yet won fewer seats than the National Party in both the 1978 and...
entitled Towards A Better Democracy. The Royal Commission recommended that Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) be adopted instead of the current first-past-the-post
First-past-the-post
First-past-the-post voting refers to an election won by the candidate with the most votes. The winning potato candidate does not necessarily receive an absolute majority of all votes cast.-Overview:...
system. After two referendums in 1992 and 1993, New Zealand adopted MMP.
In 2004, some local body elections in New Zealand were elected using single transferable vote instead of the block vote
Plurality-at-large voting
Plurality-at-large voting is a non-proportional voting system for electing several representatives from a single multimember electoral district using a series of check boxes and tallying votes similar to a plurality election...
.
United Kingdom
- For 19th century reforms, see The Reform BillsThe Reform BillsThe Reform Bills were a series of proposals to reform voting in the British parliament. These include the Reform Acts of 1832, 1867, and 1884.-Background:...
. Also the Reform Act 1832Reform Act 1832The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...
, the Reform Act 1867Reform Act 1867The Representation of the People Act 1867, 30 & 31 Vict. c. 102 was a piece of British legislation that enfranchised the urban male working class in England and Wales....
and the Representation of the People Act 1884Representation of the People Act 1884In the United Kingdom, the Representation of the People Act 1884 and the Redistribution Act of the following year were laws which further extended the suffrage in Britain after the Disraeli Government's Reform Act 1867...
.
The United Kingdom has generally used first-past-the-post (FPTP) for many years, but there have been several attempts at reform. A 1910 Royal Commission on Electoral Systems recommended AV be adopted for the Commons. A very limited introduction of single transferable vote (STV) came in the Government of Ireland Act 1914. A Speaker's Conference on electoral reform in January 1917 unanimously recommended a mix of AV and STV for elections to the House of Commons. However, in a vote that August, the Commons rejected STV by 32 votes in the committee stage of the Representation of the People Bill and, by 1 vote, substituted alternative vote (AV). The House of Lords then voted for STV, but the Commons insisted on AV. In a compromise, AV was abandoned and the Boundary Commission were asked to prepare a limited plan of STV to apply to 100 seats. This plan was then rejected by the Commons, although STV was introduced for the university constituencies.
On 8 April 1921, a Private Member's Bill to introduce STV was rejected 211 votes to 112 by the Commons. A Liberal attempt to introduce an Alternative Vote Bill in March 1923 was defeated by 208 votes to 178. On 2 May 1924, another Private Member's Bill for STV was defeated 240 votes to 146 in the Commons.
In January 1931, the minority Labour government, then supported by the Liberals, introduced a Representation of the People Bill that included switching to AV. The Bill passed its second reading in the Commons by 295 votes to 230 on 24 February 1931 and the clause introducing AV was passed in the committee stageby 277 to 253. (The Speaker had refused to allow discussion of STV.) The Bill's second reading in the Lords followed in June, with an amendment replacing AV with STV in 100 constituencies being abandoned as outwith the scope of the Bill. An amendment was passed (by 80 votes to 29) limiting AV to those constituencies in boroughs with populations over 200,000. The Bill received its third reading in the Lords on 21 July, but the Labour government fell in August and the Bill was lost.
Elections to the European Parliament in mainlaind Britain were originally under FPTP, but were switched to list PR following pressure to standardise with the rest of the EU.
When Labour re-gained power in 1997, they introduced a number of new assemblies, in London, Wales and Scotland, and opted for additional member systems of PR in all of these. They also adopted the supplementary vote system for directly-elected mayors. Within Scotland, a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition in the new Scottish Parliament later introduced STV for local elections. However, such reforms were not without their problems. When 7% of votes (over 140,000) were discounted or spoilt in the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary and local council
Local council
-Political subdivision:* Local council * Local councils of Malta* An elected authority in the local government in the United Kingdom* An elected authority in the local government in Australia...
elections, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond
Alex Salmond
Alexander Elliot Anderson "Alex" Salmond MSP is a Scottish politician and current First Minister of Scotland. He became Scotland's fourth First Minister in May 2007. He is the Leader of the Scottish National Party , having served as Member of the Scottish Parliament for Gordon...
protested that 'the decision to conduct an STV election at the same time as a first-past-the-post
First-past-the-post
First-past-the-post voting refers to an election won by the candidate with the most votes. The winning potato candidate does not necessarily receive an absolute majority of all votes cast.-Overview:...
ballot for the Scottish Parliament
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament is the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, located in the Holyrood area of the capital, Edinburgh. The Parliament, informally referred to as "Holyrood", is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament...
was deeply mistaken'
In the 2010 UK General Election campaign, the possibility of a hung parliament
Hung parliament
In a two-party parliamentary system of government, a hung parliament occurs when neither major political party has an absolute majority of seats in the parliament . It is also less commonly known as a balanced parliament or a legislature under no overall control...
and the earlier expenses scandal pushed electoral reform up the agenda, something long supported by the Liberal Democrats. There were protests in favour of electoral reform organised by Take Back Parliament
Take Back Parliament
Take Back Parliament is an organisation campaigning for democratic reform in the United Kingdom.The group has a strong network of autonomous local branches but no paying membership...
. There is a move to a largely elected Lords. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government held a referendum on introducing AV for the Commons on 5 May 2011, which was defeated.
There are a number of groups in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
campaigning for electoral reform including the Electoral Reform Society
Electoral Reform Society
The Electoral Reform Society is a political pressure group based in the United Kingdom which promotes electoral reform. It is believed to be the oldest organisation concerned with electoral systems in the world.-Aims:...
, Make Votes Count Coalition and Fairshare
Fairshare
Fairshare Voting Reform is a cross-party and non-party organisation set up in February 2001 to campaign for the introduction of the Single Transferable Vote system of Proportional Representation for local government elections in Scotland...
.
United States
In 2002 the United States enacted the Help America Vote ActHelp America Vote Act
The Help America Vote Act , or HAVA, is a United States federal law which passed in the House 357-48 and 92-2 in the Senate and was signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002. Drafted in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S...
significantly reforming its electoral process. Electoral reform is a continuing process in the United States motivated by the fear of both electoral fraud
Electoral fraud
Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...
and disfranchisement
Disfranchisement
Disfranchisement is the revocation of the right of suffrage of a person or group of people, or rendering a person's vote less effective, or ineffective...
.
Further reading
- Dummett, MichaelMichael DummettSir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett FBA D.Litt is a British philosopher. He was, until 1992, Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford...
(1997). Principles of Electoral Reform. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198292465
External links
- A Handbook of Electoral System Design from International IDEA
- Electoral Design Reference Materials from the ACE Project
- Electoral Reform - from the ACE Project
- The Scope of Electoral Reform - from the ACE Project
- Recent electoral reforms - from the ACE Project
- Electoral Reform in Mexico (1998) - from the ACE Project
- Combatting Corruption through Electoral Reform in Thailand - from the ACE Project
- AEI-Brookings Election Reform
- Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
- Fair Vote Canada
- Paul McKeever's Testimony to the Select Committee on Electoral Reform: No electoral system is more "democratic" than any other
- Electoral Reform Wiki
- Electoral Reform Society (UK)
- Electoral Reform Canada
- Voting Reform Canada
- Guide to different types of Electoral Reform
- Electoral reform - A vote of principle. The Guardian. 2010-07-03.