[Election-Methods] RE : Best electoral system under real circumstances

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi,

--- Diego Renato <diego.renato at gmail.com> a écrit :
> I've read in this list that possibly the worst electoral system used is
> Brazilian open list PR. In this year, Brazilian Congress discuted the
> change
> of electoral law to closed lists, single member plurality or MMP.
> 
> Presidents, Governors and Mayors are elected by top-two runoff. I think
> this
> method is sufficiently good. Maybe ranked methods are not suitable for
> Brazilian voters' degree of skill, and for voting machines.
> 
> Federal, State and Muncipal representatives are elected according open
> lists. The main problem of this method is the excessive district
> magnitude
> (8 in least populated states up to 70 in São Paulo) and resulting high
> number of candidates. Transfers of surpluses are unpredictable. My
> suggestions for improvements of this system are:
> 
> - reduce district size to 3, 4 or 5;
> - limit number of candidates by party. Candidates should be nominated by
> primary elections.
> - prohibit surplus transfers among different parties.
> - adoption of STV in the future.
> 
> Do you agree with these measures?

I don't remember that it is possible for surplus transfers to go to
different parties. The problem is that even within the same party list,
you don't know what you're getting. Voters don't necessarily vote by
party, and party lists don't necessarily form by party.

It was brought up in that discussion that the same electoral method works
well in Finland. I would guess the major difference is that Finland is more
parliamentary, so it's more important to vote based on party and not just
individual.

I think it makes sense in theory to limit the number of candidates a party
can nominate, to the number of seats that are being contested. Naturally
parties do not want to stick to this limit, since the more votes they can
get, the better.

STV would probably help. I don't think STV has ever been used to elect the
congress in a presidential system though.

Reducing district magnitude would probably help also, since it would have
the effect of increasing the proportion of elected candidates who actually
received a share of votes that is large enough to justify being elected.
(If it will continue to be the case that candidates on a party list have
little in common politically, then at least the individuals who are elected
should be justifiable.)

Some links on the subject:
http://aceproject.org/regions-en/jne/BR/case-studies/esy_br
http://countrystudies.us/brazil/100.htm
http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/LASA97/desposato.pdf

Kevin Venzke


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