THE

POLITICS OF
ELECTORAL
SYSTEMS
Nefeli Lefkopoulou
Paris Campus – Spring semester 2023
Session 2
- Classification based on the number of constituencies

- The political consequences of the electoral system for the party system

- Duverger’s Law

- Duverger’s Hypothesis

- Literature Review and Critique

- Electoral Systems as Outcomes

SINGLE-SEAT CONSTITUENCIES

1.The single-member plurality (SMP) system, also known as first-past-the-post, as used in Canada, India,
the UK and the USA.

Voters cast a vote by indicating their support for one of the candidates, and the seat is awarded to whichever
candidate receives a plurality of the votes (not necessarily a majority of all votes).

2. The alternative vote (AV), also known as instant run-off, as used in Australia.

Voters rank the candidates.

3. The two-round system (2RS), also known as the double-ballot or run-off system, as employed in France.

Voters cast a vote for one candidate, just as under SMP. The difference is that the electoral process does not
necessarily end after the first round. In fact, a winner emerges at this stage only if one candidate has reached a
predetermined level of support.
THE SMP
SYSTEM
THE AV
SYSTEM
THE 2RS
SYSTEM
MULTIMEMBER CONSTITUENCIES
1. List systems

Each party presents a list of candidates, and voters cast a vote by expressing support either for one of
these lists, or for one or more candidates on a list. Seats are allocated among the parties according to a
particular formula.

 Tiers : one ‘tier’ or two tier. In a two-tier seat allocation system, after a first round of seats is awarded
at the lower tier, further seats are allocated in a higher tier in such a way as to make the overall result
more proportional.

 Thresholds : only parties whose vote exceeds a certain level qualify for a certain entitlement.
THE LIST SYSTEM
MULTIMEMBER CONSTITUENCIES
2. Mixed systems

The voter is faced with two ballot papers, or with one ballot paper with two columns: one on
which they can indicate their choice of a candidate to represent the single-member
constituency, and another on which they cast a vote for a party list.

They are not obliged to choose the same party with both votes.

Voters can ‘split’ their votes either for tactical reasons or because they have genuinely
different preferences in different contexts.
THE MIXED SYSTEM
MULTIMEMBER CONSTITUENCIES
3. Single non-transferable vote (SNTV) : there are several seats to be filled in each
constituency, but voters are not faced with a choice among party lists. Instead, they vote for a
candidate—and the seats go to the candidates with the most votes.

4 Single transferable vote (STV) : the voter has just one vote but is given the opportunity to
rank the candidates in order of choice. In other words, the voter places a ‘1’ on the ballot paper
beside the name of their favoured candidate and, if they wish, can write ‘2’ beside the name of
their second favourite, ‘3’ beside the name of their third choice, and so on—exactly as in the
alternative vote.
THE SVT SYSTEM
Consequences of electoral systems

- What is the relation between the electoral system and the number of parties?

- Duverger’s Law : The simple-majority single-ballot system favours the two-party system.

- Duverger’s hypothesis : PR favors multipartism, as does the majority system with a second-
round run off format.
 The mechanical effect of electoral
systems
=the direct application of electoral rules to convert votes into seats.

(Benoit, 2006)

- In the mapping of vote shares to seat shares, some parties — almost always the largest ones — will be ‘over-
represented,’ receiving a greater proportion of seats than votes. Because this mapping is a zero-sum process, over-
representation of large parties must create ‘under-representation’ of the smaller parties.

- Duverger was explicit in separating the mechanical process from the pyschological effect, as well as separating his
law and hypothesis. Subsequent decades of research into the effects of electoral systems, however, often blurred
both distinctions.

- It is now quite standard in the literature to view electoral rules as constraining the number of parties through the
interplay of mechanical and psychological effects.

- It is also common to characterize electoral systems not according to single-member district plurality vs PR, but on a
scale between these extremes.
The psychological effect of electoral
systems

- The psychological effect is driven by the anticipations, both by elites and voters, of the workings of the
mechanical factor, anticipations which then shape both groups’ consequent behavior (Blais and Carty,
1991, 92).

- Under electoral rule arrangements that give small or even third-place parties little chance of winning
seats, voters will eschew supporting these parties for fear of wasting their votes on sure losers.

- Political elites and party leaders will also recognize the futility of competing under certain
arrangements, and will hence be deterred from entry, or motivated to form coalitions with more viable
prospects.
Exceptions to Duverger’s Law

- Two well-known exceptions concern Canada and India, both employing single-member
district plurality electoral systems but both supporting more than two parties.
- In Les Partis Politiques Duverger had acknowledged the considerable influence of national
factors in explaining the number of parties but pointed to electoral laws as the underlying
common factor — in the case of two-party systems, the single most important factor.
- A long-standing debate between the ‘institutional determinist’ and ‘sociological’ schools
over the determinants of party systems (for discussion see Amorim-Neto and Cox, 1997;
Cox, 1997).
Duverger’s Law Post-Duverger - Electoral Systems as
Outcomes
(Colomer, 2005)

- It is the number of parties that can explain the choice of electoral systems, rather than the other way
round.

- The analysis gives strong support to the hypotheses that political party configurations dominated by a
few parties tend to establish majority rule electoral systems, while multi-party systems already existed
before the introduction of proportional representation.

- Already existing political parties tend to choose electoral systems that, rather than generate new party
systems by themselves, will crystallize, consolidate or reinforce previously existing party
configurations.

- Changing electoral rules can be a rational strategy for likely losers or threatened winners if the
expected advantages of alternative rules surpass those of playing by the existing rules minus the costs
of change.