blufive

Following the recent election, there has been much talk about electoral reform in the UK. At least one national newspaper has been vigorously campaigning for the introduction some form of Proportional Representation (PR). It's cropped up in a few places in the nascent British political blogosphere, too.

A few days ago, in conversation, someone voiced the concerns of many by pointing to the example of Israel, where (from an outsider's perspective) it appears that fragile parliamentary coalitions, desparate for a few extra votes, are held to ransom by tiny minority parties. The scare story that sprang to my mind was the famously unstable Italian system, where it seemed unusual for a single government to last more than 18 months, with similar minor-party brinkmanship (though they seem to have reformed their system in the '90s and have since managed stability broadly comparable to most other Western European states)

So, are these examples a fair characterisation of PR systems? Just how many countries use PR anyhow? So off I went, and spent far too much of one evening last week doing research into electoral systems in use the world over. Below is a table listing the electoral systems of about 20 of the world's democratic countries. I've mostly aimed at large(ish) countries that have been democratic for several decades, though the list includes some exceptions to both rules.

By necessity, the details here are a gross simplification - the electoral system of any one country could easily occupy a lengthy essay. It's entirely possible that I've made some mistakes (for which, apologies) but this should give a vague idea.

With few exceptions, democratic countries seem to have gravitated to systems based on a Head Of State (President or Monarch, who may be anything from a powerful executive to an almost-powerless figurehead) backed up by one or two legislative "houses" (a "unicameral" or "bicameral" parliament) Which makes it easier to draw up a table like this. Otherwise I'd have gone completely mad trying to do so...

Country	Head Of State	Primary House	Secondary House
UK	Figurehead, Hereditary	Plurality	85% Appointed (life) 12% Hereditary 3% Clergy
Australia	Figurehead, Hereditary	Single Transferrable Vote	Regional Party List
Austria	Figurehead, Plurality	mostly Local Party List, some Regional Party List/National Party List	Appointed By Federal States
Brazil	Executive, Run-off	Regional Party List	Plurality
Canada	Figurehead, Hereditary	Plurality	Appointed (life)
Denmark	Figurehead, Hereditary	75% Local Party List, 23% National Party List, some other	-
France	Executive, Run-off	Plurality	Electoral College
Germany	Figurehead, Electoral College	50% Plurality, 50% Regional Party List	Appointed By Federal States
India	Figurehead, Electoral College	Plurality	Electoral College
Israel	Figurehead, Electoral College	National Party List	-
Italy	Figurehead, Electoral College	75% Plurality, 25% National Party List	75% Plurality, 25% National Party List, some Appointed (life)
Japan	Figurehead, Hereditary	63% Plurality, 37% Regional Party List	60% Local Party List, 40% National Party List
Mexico	Executive, Plurality	60% Plurality, 40% Regional Party List	75% two-one*, 25% National Party List
Netherlands	Figurehead, Hereditary	National Party List	Electoral College
Norway	Figurehead, Hereditary	88% Regional Party List, 12% National Party List	-
Republic of Ireland	Figurehead, Single Transferrable Vote	Single Transferrable Vote	43 Electoral College (Vocational Candidates), 11 Appointed (fixed term), 6 Single Transferrable Vote (Restricted Suffrage)*
Russia	Executive, Plurality	50% Plurality, 50%National Party List	Plurality
South Africa	Executive, Electoral College	50%Regional Party List, 50%National Party List	Electoral College
Spain	Figurehead, Hereditary	Local Party List	80% Partial Bloc Vote, 20% Appointed By Federal States
Sweden	Figurehead, Hereditary	88% Regional Party List, 12% National Party List	-
Switzerland	Figurehead, Electoral College	Regional Party List	Plurality
USA	Executive, Electoral College	Plurality	Plurality

*I can't find any proper name for the system used to elect 75% of the Mexican Senate. Each state has three seats; individual voters vote for a party; the party with the most votes gets two seats, and the second-place party gets one seat. It's a sort of hybrid party list/plurality system.

**The bulk of the Irish Senate is elected (using a single transferrable vote system) by an electoral college made up of members of the lower house, Senators and local councillors. The candidates themselves are chosen based on their expertise in particular policy areas.

***Six members of the Irish Senate are elected (single transferrable vote again) by graduates of the National University of Ireland and the University of Dublin.

Terminology

I've used some of these terms a little more loosely than their strict meaning, just to keep things sane. Some are self explanatory, but here are some notes on the less-obvious ones:

Electoral College

The Winner is chosen by a reduced pool of "electors", who are themselves elected by the electorate at large. In many countries, the electors are the members of one or both houses of parliament.

Partial Bloc Voting

Each area votes for multiple representatives. Parties nominate (up to) as many candidates as there will be representatives. Voters have fewer votes than there will be representatives, and vote for individual candidates. The candidates with most votes are elected.

[Local/Regional/National] Party List

Voters choose a party, not individuals. After the votes are counted, candiates are selected from lists drawn up by the parties, in a ratio determined by the votes achieved by each party. The distinction is in the area covered by each list. I've (rather arbitrarily) divided the schemes by the geographic breadth of the lists. "Local" implies that the list applies to a relatively small electorate (40 or more electoral divisions across the country); National is where a single list applies to the whole country, regional is somewhere in between.

Plurality

"First past the post". In each area, each voter votes for a single named candiate; whoever gets the most votes wins, regardless of the share of the electorate that voted for them.

Run-off

An initial vote is taken; the top two candidates then move to a direct head-to-head election.

Single Transferrable Vote

In each area, each voter ranks the candiates in order of preference. At counting time, as losing candiates are elminated, their votes are transferred to the voters' next-preference candidate. In most cases, STV systems elect multiple representatives per area. Popular parties will typically nominate as many candidates as there are available representative places.

Comments

I was quite surprised by just how rare the pure first-past-the-post (or plurality - whoever gets the most votes) system is in this sample. It's basically us Brits, France, Canada, India and the USA. A few more use it to elect a second house, or to elect a large fraction of the main house. The USA is pretty much unique in having both parliamentary houses elected this way - pretty much everyone else uses a different system for each house.

Most of the countries listed here use some form of PR, and often a different system of PR for different branches of government. That's as far as the commonality goes, though; the precise PR system varies considerably from country to country.

It's apparent from my research that Israel is a pretty unusual case - a unicameral parliament, elected by national party list. This system gives the parties themselves considerable power; individuals who are powerful within a party, doubly so. Most other countries shy away from pure national lists, preferring local or regional lists.

[Later: We're also pretty much unique in having an established Church presence in the legislature, albeit as a tiny minority in the secondary house, but many countries compensate by having openly religious major parties.]