The Democratic Piece

Via POMED comes a call by Scott Carpenter and Michael Rubin for MMP in Iraq’s governorates. A candidate-centric system, they argue, could dampen sectarian tension by weakening the party system.

Reforming Iraq’s election system on the national level will be difficult… At the local level, however, there is real opportunity… Iraqis should have the right to vote for the best individuals to administer governorates and sit on district councils. The country need not abandon parties or proportional representation, but lawmakers could explore an open-list system that would allow citizens to vote for people they know. Even better would be a mixed system, such as the one practiced in Germany, which combines party lists with the ability to elect individuals.

More on the rationale:

“[Adopting list PR for national elections] was a fateful decision. Rather than vote for individuals, Iraqis voted for political parties, whose leaders compiled lists of candidates. In descending order, one candidate would enter parliament for every 31,000 votes the party received. Under this system, aspiring politicians owed their future not to voters but to the party leaders who compiled the lists. Instead of encouraging Iraqi politicians to debate security, sewage and schooling, the party-slate system encouraged them to engage in the most extreme sectarian or ethno-nationalist rhetoric to prove their mettle to party leaders. Those who preached tolerance or voiced more technocratic concerns found themselves at the bottom of lists.

I have been making the same basic argument since April. The parties are the problem. Institutional choices made in 2005 largely caused them. Present institutional design efforts in the governorates are an opportunity to work on the problem. The system implemented must be highly candidate-centric.

To make that system work, federalism has to be strong enough to put a premium on governorate elections. And to keep federalism from ripping the country apart, there must be inter-governorate revenue sharing.

I applaud Carpenter and Rubin’s careful thinking about an important detail that most democracy promoters ignore. At the same time, open-endorsement SNTV remains preferable to their proposals.

Open-list proportional representation only mildly puts the candidate ahead of the party. Even though one votes for an individual entrepreneur, co-partisans depend on his or her performance for their own chances at winning seats. Open-list PR does not adequately dampen the incentive to run as a team.

Mixed-member proportional representation is problematic for theoretical and implementation reasons alike. One, it requires drawing single-member districts. Those presumably need to be of equal population. Even if the census data existed to allow equal population districts - it does not - districting would raise lots of different questions about gerrymandering (Does the way districts are drawn “naturally” advantage certain groups? Are the districts drawn purposely to do so? Et cetera.)

On the theoretical side, the nominal tier would have to be much larger than the list tier. That is, the proportion of seats elected in districts would have to overwhelm those elected from lists. Otherwise the ‘list logic’ of campaigning that the writers identify would again dominate.

Carpenter and Rubin are thinking in the right terms. Their proposal, however, should be more practical and ambitious. SNTV gets around the districting headaches while even more radically “put[ting] the people ahead of the party bosses.”

H/T to POMED’s Andrew Albertson.

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.

London, England had local elections on May 1. As far as local elections go, the city has quite an interesting set-up.

The mayor is elected using the supplemental vote, which is a cruddy variant of IRV. Voters get two choices. If no candidate has a majority of first choices, the top two compete in an instant runoff of sorts.

All the other candidates are eliminated but the second choice votes on their ballot papers are reviewed. If they are for either of the top two candidates these votes are added to their totals.

The candidate with the most first and second choice votes wins. If there is a tie then the Greater London Returning Officer draws lots.

The 25-member assembly is elected under MMP: 14 seats in single-member plurality districts, 11 from party lists.

Some are upset that proportional representation let the British National Party win a seat, but that’s no reason to toss out the baby with the bath water. Undesirable causes can prevail under any voting system, and PR also lets forces for good win seats where they might not otherwise. As the Make Votes Count campaign notes:

However, the way the London Assembly elections work has also given anti-racist campaigners the opportunity to organise, campaign and get out the vote in their own areas, in an effort to push up turnout and raise the threshold needed for the BNP to gain seats. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the message that votes in the London Assembly London-wide Members ballot in effect counted twice – once for the party they support, and once against the BNP – motivated numbers of people who otherwise may not have voted to make the trip to their polling station.

Those believing ‘we’ve always had winner-take-all elections’ will be surprised to know Louisiana just held two for the first time since 1976. (On a Saturday, no less.)

In the 1st district, Steve Scalise (R) won a four-way race with 75%. Voters in the 6th district, formerly held by Richard Baker (R), elected Democrat Dan Cazayoux with 49% of votes. The big news, some say, is that the national swing favoring Democrats in 2006 seems like it will persist into November 2008. In other news, the new winner-take-all system wasted 50.8% of votes in LA-06.

Louisiana used to use a ‘cajun primary’ for all its elections until legislation last year brought congressional races in line with the national norm.

The cajun primary is an open-endorsement two-round system (TRS). All candidates compete in the first round of voting. If no candidate has a majority, the top two face off in a later round. The system makes it somewhat difficult for parties to discipline candidates and organize voters, which are features I like given the context. On the other hand, the top-two logic of the first round makes it easy for like-minded voters to spoil their own candidates, which I do not like. With its single round of voting, sequential (versus batch) elimination, and majority requirement, IRV is a better option for parties and voters alike.

Unfortunately Louisiana did not go that route. Happily, though, the federalism of electoral system design (versus election administration) holds out the possibility for such innovation. If only states could control district magnitude too.

Albania this week scrapped its mixed-member system in favor of proportional representation. According to the IHT (above, as well as PressTV and Balkan Insight), the new system looks like some form of list-PR with seats allocated at the regional level. There are 12 administrative regions.

According to ACE Project, the old system was MMP with 100 single-member districts and 40 seats in the proportional tier. The IPU says a two-round system was used in the single-seat districts. PR seats were allocated to parties clearing 2 percent in the first round.

On the other hand, Freedom House says the PR thresholds were 2.5 percent for parties and 4 percent for coalitions.

All reports above cite opposition by small parties who think this reform (among others) is intended to force them out of parliament. Similar reforms in Ukraine had that effect in the 2006 election. Whether the same will happen in Albania depends largely on the magnitude of each district and the formal threshold. No details yet on either.

According to trickling election results, Nepal’s former rebels have outdone their own expectations under the country’s mixed-member electoral law. In the spirit of prediction, Nepal’s numerous small parties are likely to hold sway in the coming Constituent Assembly.

UPDATE: April 22’s Reuters backs my rough projection of yesterday. Headline: “Maoists lead as Nepal heads for hung assembly.”

Of 601 seats in the coming constituent assembly, 240 are elected under first-past-the-post, 335 under nationwide closed-list PR, and the Council of Ministers appoints 26 “from amongst the persons of high reputation who have rendered significant contribution in national life.” There does not appear to be a PR threshold.

Late last year, Maoist leaders began threatening to boycott the elections a third time unless status quo parties agreed to use closed-list PR nationwide. I speculated that they might even benefit from FPP rules given their rural base, but Bob in the comments noted a poll indicating they’d lose handily.

With all but one seat counted, however, Maoists have taken 120 of 240 seats in the FPP tier.

As of yesterday, PR tier results were still pending in 23 districts.

Deputies from the country’s southern Madhesi community are also poised to win a sizable share. Shortly after the Maoists agreed to the mixed system, Madhesi groups issued similar demands for PR rules.

I have done some rough calculations with current data from the election commission. If PR seats were allocated using a Hare quota/largest remainder formula based on results downloaded 13:30 eastern time:

Maoists: 101 seats
Nepali Congress: 72 seats
United Marxist-Leninist: 69 seats
Madhesi (2 lists): 30 seats
Other: 63 seats

Two Madhesi parties hold 29 and 9 seats, respectively. Assuming the Maoists and Madhesis form a coalition of sorts, they would be at 289 seats by these calculations. 301 is a majority. This scenario would give the 63 elected from “other” parties kingmaker status.

Based, of course, on assumptions about the allocation rules.

I’m keeping an eye out for it. According to a personal contact, the electoral system for provincial elections will be candidate-based. That leaves four likely suspects: STV, SNTV, bloc vote and FPP.

I suspect it will be either SNTV or bloc vote with sectarian quota. Reuters implies the institutions are designed to provide some level of minority representation:

New alliances will form, old ones will fall. Everything will change. It will redraw the political map of Iraq,” said a senior Shi’ite government official on condition of anonymity.

And:

Washington says the elections will foster national reconciliation, focusing on how they will boost the participation of minority Sunni Arabs in politics. Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the last local polls along with the Sadrists, are under-represented in areas where they are numerically dominant.

Bloc vote systems with gender and/or sectarian quotas are common in the Arab world. STV is rarely adopted, most likely due to numeracy and implementation concerns. SNTV (or some other limited scheme) would provide minority representation. It might also weaken parties at the local level, which one could consider a virtue in light of the strong sectarian parties that formed around Iraq’s federal closed list PR system.

The Iraqi cabinet apparently transmitted a draft electoral law to parliament yesterday. According to the Voice of America, this law was forthcoming when the Presidential Council on March 21 issued a Provincial Powers Law, which calls for elections by October 1. The body rejected a first draft on February 26.

The (federal) Islamic Republic of Pakistan will elect its National Assembly on February 18, 2008. Georgetown Democracy & Governance students and faculty are en route to monitor the vote.

Originally scheduled for January 8, officials postponed the election after PPP leader Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on December 27, 2007.

Assuming the vote is free and fair, 342 National Assembly members will be elected under a parallel or MMM system. 60 seats are reserved to women, and 10 are reserved to minority groups.

Single-member districts are apportioned to each province by population. It seems like The proportional tier relates only to the election of women and minorities. Seats are allocated to those groups from each province in proportion to their respective parties’ province-wide seat shares.

If this is correct, 242 seats are elected under FPP rules, and the 70 remaining seats make up the proportional tier.

100 senators are indirectly elected by territorial and provincial assemblies using the single transferable vote. Terms are six years, staggered.

Just a quick post to note that Lebanon’s electoral law is under revision. From the Daily Star:

A draft election law submitted by a national commission headed by former Foreign Minister Fouad Boutros proposed adopting a compound system that combines both a proportional system at the level of governorate voting district and a majority system for the smaller qada voting district, with 51 parliamentary seats for the former and 77 seats for the later.

Ali Fayyad, Hizbullah’s representative on the Boutros commission, said the draft has been taken out of circulation, as politicians in both the ruling coalition and opposition are leaning toward a majority-based system and toward adopting the smaller qada voting district.

“The main opposition to the compound system proposed by Boutros came from the Christians, the Maronite patriarchate and the Free Popular Movement (FPM) who insisted on the adoption of the qada voting district,” Fayyad said.

Lebanon currently uses singlemulti-member plurality districts, each reserved to a religious sect but within which the member is elected.

Prof. Eric Maskin came to Georgetown today to advocate for Condorcet systems, which he branded “true majority rule.” In the process, he gave nicely intuitive explanations of that system and the Borda count using the Florida 2000 and France 2002 examples.

Maskin’s main concern was how to solve the “spoiler problem” in plurality elections whereby a majority-opposed candidate wins because the majority splits its support. I’d take issue with two parts of the presentation: his treatments of instant runoff voting and the prospects for reforming the American electoral college.

He was not openly hostile to IRV, which I appreciate. He readily noted that system would, like Condorcet, be preferable to plurality because it lets voters register more than one preference using rankings. One might say Maskin’s preferences are: his favorite system > any reform > status quo. The same cannot be said of other Condorcet (and approval, and range) advocates whose preferences appear to be: favorite system > status quo > any reform.

But he was somewhat dismissive, lumping instant runoff with two-round runoff systems (TRS). In the 2002 French presidential election, Jean-Marie Le Pen entered the runoff because of first-round spoiler problems on the left, and Lionel Jospin, who may have been the majority-preferred candidate, ultimately lost to Chirac. This example supposedly highlights the deficiency of “runoff” systems, including instant runoff.

This is something of a straw man. Maskin’s main concern - he returned to the point when pressed by an audience member - is that runoff systems are eliminative, and the order of candidates’ elimination can produce ‘wrong winner’ outcomes. While that deficiency is possible under IRV, it is far less likely than under the French TRS. In the former, candidates are eliminated one at a time. In the latter, all but the top two are. In fact, IRV likely would have ‘worked’ in France 2002.

To adjudicate the relative merits of Borda and Condorcet (and, implicitly, IRV), Maskin applied five criteria from voting theory: consensus, anonymity, neutrality, independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) and decisiveness. Here we enter the realm of value judgements. Borda and IRV do not satisfy IIA, but Condorcet may not satisfy decisiveness. That is, it may fail to elect a winner when no one candidate is preferred by a majority over every other candidate in pairwise contests (called a “Condorcet cycle”). For Maskin, this deficiency is less offensive than the failure of IIA.

Moreover, if we assume with Maskin that most voters have ideologically driven preferences, a vote distribution resulting in the above is unlikely. (Say, Bush > Nader > Gore > Buchanan.) And when it occurs, we should not get too upset because such preferences are ideologically inconsistent. The voter has been illogical.

As a thought experiment, I’ll buy the claim that ideology, however understood, governs preferences. Too much criticism of reform efforts has been predicated on hypothetical preference orderings that seem schizophrenic.

Maskin also made some comments about the electoral college. When I asked him for thoughts on the National Popular Vote plan, he said it was a “cute idea” and that my question was “not on point.” But one of his arguments for using state-by-state Condorcet in presidential elections was that moving to direct election is variously “not possible” and “not likely to happen.” As such, the question is “on point” because he raised the issue.

Replacing the electoral college with a popular vote, as Maskin noted, would not address his core concern about plurality rules. His objective must have been rhetorical, therefore - to seize on reform energy to promote a reform unrelated to the desire for a direct election.

In all fairness, Maskin paid heed to the electoral college’s malapportionment and sidelining of voters in non-swing states, noting there may well be reasons to reform the institution.

But I vigorously dispute the claims that reform is “not possible” and “not likely.” One, states have constitutional authority to choose their electors in any way they want. Two, there was no single, sincere justification for the institution when the convention adjourned in 1787. (Hence states reserve the right to do what they want.) Three, National Popular Vote may have been a “cute idea” two years ago, but two states have since signed on, and it’s expected a third soon will. If that happens, we will be “46 electors closer to more democratic presidential elections.”