Philly Dem would engineer GOP off city council

From Philadelphia comes more news that proportional representation (and its cousins) isn’t just for progressives and minor parties.

While a coalition of the Cincinnati NAACP and local Republicans backs that city’s return to PR-STV, a Philly Democrat wants to boot the only two Republicans from city council by eliminating two at-large seats elected under limited voting.

Of 17 council seats, 10 are elected in single-member districts. Limited voting (here, two-vote MNTV) helps prevent Democratic electoral majorities from sweeping the remaining seven at-large seats.

The Democratic member’s apparent plan is to reduce district magnitude in the non-majoritarian tier, making it more difficult for the city’s few Republicans to win representation.

Georgia votes: lower threshold but lower magnitude

RFE/RL optimistically reports that Georgian president Saakashvili has reduced the threshold from 7 to 5 percent for the list tier of that country’s parliamentary elections. Of course, today’s elections are for a much smaller parliament with far fewer seats elected under PR rules than in 2004. Despite the optimism, this probably will result in a smaller opposition seat share.

Since winning reelection, a seemingly humbled Saakashvili has taken pains to show that he understands the mood of both the electorate and the opposition, enacting a series of electoral reforms his supporters say are meant to boost confidence in the elections.

What “humbled” Saakashvili was his “close call in [a] snap presidential election four months ago,” according to the news service. Yet he won with over 53 percent, 18 points ahead of the runner-up. Such is his standard for competitiveness.

As usual, the details of the new system depend on the source. The overall picture since 2004 is fewer seats in general and fewer elected proportionally.

According to the electoral law, last updated 17-12-07, 50 members are elected in single-member districts and 100 are elected from party lists (Art. 91). The threshold was 7 percent, and seat allocation is by Hare quota with largest remainder (Art. 105).

IFES’ Election Guide says the 2004 elections proceeded with 75 single-member districts, 150 list seats and 10 seats reserved to “displaced persons.” Via ACE Project, the same organization says this is the system in place. The 2008 Election Guide entry, however, reports a 150-seat parliament with 75 list and 75 district seats. That is consonant with RFE/RL’s report and others.

Angus-Reid has a good description of the politics of the electoral law. Saakashvili’s allies in parliament approved the 75-75 system on March 21, with opposition leaders balking in favor of the 50-100 system, which is the one on the books as published.

Reuters, via the Washington Post, says opposition leaders accuse the president of “rigging” the elections. More problematic than outright fraud, it seems, is a lack of basic agreement (even clarity?) on the details of seat allocation.

It flies in the face of cynical reason to think the president would increase opposition prospects in response to his own electoral “close call.” More important than reducing the threshold to 5 percent, an opposition-inclusive reform, is reducing the PR tier from 150 to 75 seats, which is opposition-exclusive. A glance at the 2004 results-by-region at Electoral Geography shows why. Saakashvili’s National Movement polled an average 69.4 percent. The median share for his party was 71.8 percent. The overall effect of “reform,” I suspect, will be to further weaken opposition. The more small districts, the more seats for Saakashvili. Reducing average district magnitude is what matters here. Lowering the threshold is an empty gesture.

Thinking about US reform with Taagepera’s model of district magnitude

Via Josep Colomer comes notice of a new finding by Rein Taagepera, co-author with one of this blog’s patrons of Seats & Votes.

Given “simple” electoral rules, the number of effective parties can be predicted from average district magnitude and the number of seats in an assembly. Likewise, magnitude can be predicted from the number of effective parties (say, in a constituent assembly) and number of seats. “Simple” here refers to single-tier systems without thresholds (i.e. all SMD, all PR-STV, et cetera). Moreover:

Since, according to Taagepera, the number of seats of the assembly depends strongly on the country’s population (in a cube root relation), we can deduct from the above formula that, for similar number of parties, P, the larger the country, and hence the larger the assembly, S, the smaller the expected district magnitude, M. Very large countries, precisely because they have large assemblies, should be associated to small (single-member) districts. The institutional designers in India, for example, are likely to choose single-member districts, while the institutional designers in Estonia are likely to choose multimember districts, typically associated to proportional representation rules. Thus we should usually see large assemblies with small districts, and small assemblies with large districts. Which is what we indeed usually see.

And from the above, because assembly size is a function of country population, we should see smaller districts in more populous countries. Colomer goes on:

But now we could have an answer to the very intriguing question of why large countries, including the United States, in spite of the fact that large size is typically associated to high heterogeneity, keep small single-member districts and have not adopted proportional representation. The answer may be that in large countries such as Australia, Canada, France, India, the United Kingdom and the United States, a large assembly can be sufficiently inclusive, even if it is elected in small, single-member districts, due to territorial variety of the representatives.

With the caveat that I’m relying only on Prof. Colomer’s helpful summary, I’d make two comments. (One easily could make more; this is a big argument.)

One, the size of the US House has not approximated the cube root of the US population since 1912. Therefore N-seats no longer proxies very well for population in the American case. Of course, electoral rules are sticky, and there was more or less a settlement on single-member districts by 1912, even if a few states still used MMD.

Two, notwithstanding the above, one takeaway message might be: the nexus of a (more than less) large assembly and (effectively) two-party system satisfies elites who otherwise would agitate for reform. That institutional combo offers the likelihood for both factions to hold power at some point in the not too distant future. As such, it dampens the incentive for an out-party to increase district magnitude the next time it wins a seat majority.

This point is different from Colomer’s about territorial variety leading to inclusiveness, even when effective thresholds are high. I don’t believe that, all else equal, an assembly’s inclusiveness of opinion matters much for reform. In any normal year, the battle is in marginal districts for the favor of mercurial swing voters. As long as there is loose ideological correspondence between a party and its base, the state of affairs can roll along undisturbed.

Taagepera’s finding is interesting because it implies, if my understanding is correct, the probability of a future seat majority may override geographic incentives for proportionality in the now. In other words, we’d predict the Democrats to prefer the status quo over reform that maximizes the seat-winning efficiency of their spatially concentrated (i.e. “packed”) voter distribution.

Moreover, if I’ve done the math correctly, the model predicts PR-STV in three-seat districts – a reform I’ve elsewhere called modest – would result in six effective parties. That is counterintuitive given the landscape as we know it: Republican, Democrat, Green and Libertarian. Imagine how the landscape would look if the model does in fact predict the number of parties. Imagine what would happen to the coalitions we now call “major parties.”

And, assuming a constant number of effective parties (two), we would expect a decrease in the size of the House to present incentives for reform.