Tag Archives: proportional representation

International Politics — May 2021 Edition

By tmess2 | Published May 4, 2021

This week will see two developments in our allies.

First, in Israel, we are still in the post-election negotiation phase.  Because the U.S. has an entrenched two-party system, we rarely see this type of negotiation phase (although we saw something of it in the Senate this cycle).  Israel uses a proportional representation system with a relatively low threshold.  And that means that you have a lot of smaller parties with a handful of seats that have to be meshed together into a coalition.  Over the past three years, there have been four elections with no conclusive results.  Part of the reason for the lack of a conclusive result is that Arabs within the borders of Israel form a significant part of the vote (around 8-10%).  There are certain parties that appeal only to the “Arab vote” and the rest of the parties really only seek the “Jewish vote.”  And the Arab parties are unwilling to form a coalition with the Jewish parties and vice versa.  The result is that a coalition needs 61 out of approximately 110 seats rather than 61 out of 120 seats.  Under the Israeli system, shortly after the election, the President gives a mandate to one of the party leaders to attempt to form a coalition.  That mandate lasts thirty days (but the President can give a second chance if the President believes that the additional time will be useful).  After the last election, Prime Minister/accused criminal Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party had the most seats, and the President gave Netanyahu the first shot at forming the coalition.  Netanyahu’s thirty days ends this week.  It does not look like he will get an extension.  The major opposition parties appear unwilling to form a unity government this time.  (The attempt at a unity government after the previous election quickly fell apart forcing a new election.)  The issue is whether we will be looking at election number five or the President will give the opposition a chance.

Second, in the United Kingdom, we will have local elections on Thursday.  There are two things going on.  In England, local elections occur in May.  While local governments have some powers, a strong recurring theme of local elections is a chance to punish the central government over dissatisfaction with the government.  The governing party typically loses local council seats in the May elections.  In Wales and Scotland, this May is election for their assembly/parliaments. Continue Reading...

Posted in Elections | Also tagged , , , , , Comments Off on International Politics — May 2021 Edition

Contested Convention? — February 2020 Edition

By tmess2 | Published February 20, 2020

The eleven days between New Hampshire and Nevada is the third longest “break” of the primary process.  So with a little time to spare before the pace picks up (and March is the busiest month in the primary cycle), time to turn to one of the perennial topics of discussion in the primary process.  (Whether there is a second edition this year will depend on how things look at the next major break — the three weeks between Wisconsin and the Mid-Atlantic states.   Every four years, there is speculation about the possibility that the race will not be decided until the convention.  And every four years, by mid-April, it’s pretty clear that the race is over.  So why has this speculation been wrong in the past and why might it be true this year (or why will the speculation go bust again this year).

Before getting to the issue of a contested convention, there is a question of terminology.  Many people talk about the possibility of a “brokered” convention.  Prior to 1968, state party leaders had solid control over the delegate selection process.  Most states used a caucus system with little if any role for presidential preference in the election of delegates.  The delegates elected tended to be loyal to state party leaders not to any particular presidential candidate.  And even if an individual delegate might want to go rogue, there were tools like the unit rule mandating that a state vote as a block (i.e. as the majority of the delegation decided) to prevent it.   So, even if the convention only went one ballot, most conventions for 130 years were brokered conventions in the sense that the party leaders talked with each other and reached an agreement as to who should be the nominee (sometimes on the first ballot and sometimes after many, many ballots).

Since 1968, the two parties have enacted mechanisms in which presidential preference in the primary/caucus controls the vote on the first ballot.  The Republican rules give a little less power to the presidential candidate, but the typical Democratic delegate is more loyal to the candidate than to the state party leadership.  Even that loyalty is loyalty to a movement and, not necessarily, to the personal success of the candidate.  In other words, it is unclear that — in the case of a contested convention — presidential candidates could deliver their delegates. Continue Reading...

Posted in 2020 Convention, Primary Elections | Also tagged , 2 Comments

German Elections 2017

By tmess2 | Published September 7, 2017

In a little over two weeks (September 24), Germany will hold parliamentary elections.  As with most parliamentary system, the leader of Germany is determined by which party (or coalition of parties) wins the majority of seats in parliament.  As such, the results on September 24 will determine if Angela Merkel continues as Chancellor of Germany for another four years.

In electing members of its parliament (the Bundestag),Germany uses a variation on the mixed member system.  The basics of this system is that voters cast two ballots.  In one, they vote for the person who will represent their constituency in parliament.  On the second, they vote for the party.  Each lander (think state) has a certain number of constituencies.  On the high end is North Rhine-Westphalia (Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldorf) with sixty-four constituencies.  On the low end is Bremen with two constituencies.  In total, there are two hundred ninety-nine constituencies.

In theory, each lander has a number of “party list” seats equal to the number of constituencies in the lander (which would translate to a parliament of 598 seats), but there is a catch.  In calculating, the number of party list seats that each party wins in each lander, the formula uses the whole number of seats in the lander (constituency plus party list seats and allocates them using proportional representation (i.e. if a party won 10% of the vote, they are entitled to 10% of the seats) based on the vote for each party in that lander.  After calculating the number of seats that each party should receive from the lander, the formula then subtracts the number of constituency seats that each party has won.  If that leaves any party with a negative number (i.e. the party won more constituency seats than the number of seats that they would have won under proportional representation), the party gets to keep the extra seats (commonly called overhang seats), the other parties receive “compensation” seats to make the results proportional, and the lander ends up with additional seats in parliament.  ) Continue Reading...

Posted in Elections | Also tagged , , , , 1 Comment