[EM] Changing the Norwegian election system

[Vidar Wahlberg]

On Mon, Nov 04, 2013 at 03:26:12PM +0200, Juho Laatu wrote:
>> As noted this is a fairly isolated system and the current system is
>> scheduled to be changed, likely to a similar system we use for municipal
>> elections.
> 
> That’s interesting. Better make best use of this already existing interest to make changes, and the already existing pattern of change.

Indeed, this is part of the plan.
In addition, the party that rumour has it argued for an election
threshold (and the modified first divisor of Sainte-Laguë) was weakened
this election, which may make it more likely that the system will be
improved.

>> In the municipal election each party can mark some candidates to
>> be prioritized and thus more likely to win even though subsequent
>> candidates have received more "personal votes", and the voters are able
>> to influence the order by giving these "personal votes" to candidates.
> 
> That means approval style party preferences + open list style personal votes, right?

I briefly looked into the municipal election system:
Parties can prioritize some candidates. These candidates will all
receive 25% of the votes given to the party as "personal votes" (in
addition to any "personal votes" given by the voters). After that, the
candidates are ranked by the amount of "personal votes" (in the case of
tie they are ranked in the order the party supplied the list).
The amount of candidates a party can prioritize is relative to and
limited by the size of the city council.

> I note that also voters tend to vote for skilled politicians. I hope the interest to keep closed lists has not too much to do with allowing key figures within the party to get their safe seats. There can be arguments in both drections, I just hope the targets and final compromise will be based on what people in general consider best, not on what the incumbent politicians consider best for themselves.

I do indeed see the criticism, and I don't really disagree with you. At
the same time I do see some possible issues with letting the voters
decide entirely on their own. With the experience I got in politics I do
see skilled politicians who are more or less unknown to the public,
because the person isn't that often in media. The average Norwegian
isn't that much into politics either, so such candidates would likely
lose to a more famous candidate if the ranking was decided purely by the
voters.
I think the best solution at the current time and this style of
government is that both the party and the voters have a say in the order
of the candidates. Giving the prioritized candidates 25% of the party
votes is too much in my opinion, though.


> I mentioned already the possibility of grouping the parties. One can do the same with districts, and actually this also works better. It is for example possible to allocate the seats (biproportionally) so that the nothern half will get exactly as many seats as it had votes for some party. It would not be possible that all seats of a party will go to the southern half, if also the northern voters gave many enough votes to guarantee one seat. Also subdivisions can be used so that there will be a tree of districts. This kind of tree based approach also helps to identify who the intended representative(s) of each voter are.

This sounds a bit complex, and it's a further enhancement of a
modification I don't think will be accepted.
Interesting thought, though.

>> County elections may disappear in the future, though. There are plans to
>> reduce our 428 municipals to somewhere around 125, which may make the
>> county elections less necessary.
> 
> Same plans here in Finland too. The govenment wants to combine the traditional municipalities into some bigger units. I don’t like the idea of reducing the number of municipalities and getting rid of the traditional communities. That is because already the constitution talks about local democracy where people are guaranteed right to decide about their local matters locally. In that sense I see the political system to consist of two approaches to democracy, one top down governing system at country level, and one bottom up system that is as close to the voters as possible. The traditional municipalities also have their own historical nature, and people associate themselves mentally with their own municipality. That is a good basis for democracy (= areas that people find natural and where they have reasonably similar interests, and where they know each others and the whole area). But in Norway you do it the Norwegian way, whatever people consider to be the best approach to arranging country wide, county level and municipal/local democracy..

There are split opinions about it in Norway as well.
Like you I'm a fan of spreading out power and letting the municipals
handle local matters. The issue in Norway is that a large amount of
municipals have a very low population. A quick glance on the list* tells
me about half of them have less than 5,000 inhabitants. This does cause
some issues as there are cases they won't have the people to handle
(child services is something that often gets mentioned in this context),
which leads to such services being handled on a regional/national level,
which again makes power more centralized.
But, I digress.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipalities_of_Norway


-- 
Regards,
Vidar Wahlberg