[EM] Switzerland, Runoffs, and Multi-Party Systems

[Alex Small]

It has occasionally been observed here that Australia uses IRV for its
lower house and most seats are held by the 2 major parties.  It is also
sometimes suggested that this is an indictment of IRV for its inability to
foster serious multi-party competition.

(Yes, yes, I know, not everybody on this list thinks that third party
success is the best way to evaluate election methods.  I'm just going to
take the above analysis for the sake of argument and look at a
counter-example.)

Can somebody answer definitely how Switzerland elects the upper house of
its parliament?  I seem to recall reading somewhere that in the Council of
States (their version of the Senate, with each canton (their word for
state) having 2 seats) is elected by "majority vote", and that apparently
this is another name for 2-step runoff.  I did some googling but can't
find my source anymore.

I did find, however, that in the Swiss Council of States the current
divide among the 4 major parties is 8/9/14/15 (46 seats total).

If the Swiss do indeed use 2-step runoff this would suggest that runoff
methods are not necessarily as conducive to 2-party systems as frequently
claimed.  This isn't ironclad proof, of course, because Switzerland has a
unique political culture.  The Swiss also use proportional representation
for their other house of parliament, and we know that PR is conducive to
multi-party systems.

Anyway, can somebody tell me how the Swiss elect their other chamber of
parliament?  Also, can somebody tell me whether or not they frequently
have more than 2 competitive parties in a given race?  Perhaps the
presence of 4 significant parties is due to regional differences, and
within each region there are only 2 strong parties, just as in plurality
elections.

Whatever the case may be, it would be interesting to learn a little more
about Swiss elections, especially given the similarities between their
legislature and ours.



Alex Small