The Democratic Piece

Academics at the Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala on August 14 invited FairVote Executive Director Rob Richie to talk about instant runoff voting (IRV) as a potential reform of presidential elections in that country.

Also known as preferential voting and the alternative vote, IRV lets voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate has a majority of first choices, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and votes for that candidate are reallocated to his/her supporters’ second choices. In Guatemala, the system is called Elecciones por Rondas Instantáneas, or ERI.

IRV can be used to maximize effective votes, reduce spoiler dynamics and produce majority winners on a single, high-turnout election day.

IRV is typically a replacement for single-winner plurality elections where more than two candidates can result in non-majority winners. Where instant runoff has passed local-level referenda in the U.S., this has been the norm. Other jurisdictions, however, have replaced two-round systems with IRV.

Richie’s talk represents international-level interest in correcting the defects in two-round systems. Guatemala uses such a system. A principal defect in the TRS is lower turnout in the decisive runoff round (where voting is not compulsory). Two-round systems are also subject to spoiler dynamics, however. A good example is the French presidenital election of 2002. Despite a left-of-center consensus among voters, Jean-Marie Le Pen faced off with Jacques Chirac in the runoff round. Le Pen’s vote share increased by barely a point - from 16.9% in the first round to 17.8% in the second. With instant runoff voting, the runoff likely would have been between two left-leaning contenders.

See: Rob Richie habló sobre Elecciones por Rondas Instantánea

Vladimir Putin had been suggesting for some time that Russia move to a 100% proportional representation system for lower house elections. This December’s cycle will mark the end of Duma elections in single-member districts.

Via Moscow News Weekly (emphasis mine):

[Putin] did, however touch upon the subject of parliamentary elections, saying that the introduction of a system of proportional representation would ensure a fair result in this December’s lower house election. Russia’s strategic direction will depend directly on the new parliament, Putin said.

These upcoming parliamentary elections will see seats distributed entirely on a party-list basis, eliminating the opportunity for small parties to win seats through strong local support in particular district - a change that critics say is among the measures to smother opposition.

But Putin, in his speech, said it was part of “a revolutionary step modernizing the elections system … (it will) help the opposition widen its representation.”

Russia emerged from state socialism with a mixed member majoritarian (MMM or “parallel”) system - half list PR (5% threshold), half SMD seats. Apparently this was the result of compromise among power brokers and the NGO community, the latter of which advocated for PR:

The development of Russia’s new electoral system was characterized by compromises among parliamentarians, the Russian president, and the legacy of past practice, see The Process of Choice. At first Boris Yeltsin decreed that one-third of the Duma would be elected by party-list PR, and the remainder elected from single-member districts as in the former Soviet Union. However, a number of pro-democracy groups in the previous parliament favoured List PR, seeing an advantage for their mostly Moscow-based organizations. After apparently being persuaded that well-organized communist parties would benefit from single-member districts, Yeltsin adopted an evenly-split plurality-PR system in October 1993. At the same time there was substantial agreement on the method of electing the President and the Federation Council, but in 1995 the election of Federation Council members was decentralised so that elections would be held according to each region’s electoral laws.

According to Putin, greater district magnitude will yield “fairer” results (i.e. more proportionality of seats-to-votes) and greater opportunity for opposition forces to enter parliament. According to critics, eliminating the candidate-centric tier will strengthen party leaders’ control over individual members (through placement on lists, et cetera). Either may be true. Whether PR in Russia is reform or a power-grab will depend on how party elites use their new tools.