An electoral law for Iraq’s planned provincial elections is still not complete. No surprise there. And the elections may be delayed again. No surprise there, either.1
Whenever they might get around to holding these contests, what will the electoral system be? Various sources are hinting at open lists or SNTV (though the latter now appears unlikely), but the news and other information is typically sketchy about critical details.
Take this example, from The Guardian:
Unlike the closed lists used in 2005, which helped big parties, a consensus is emerging for a hybrid system. Voters will be able to elect independents and rather than selecting an entire party list, they will have to mark each preferred candidate so the top names have no advantage.
I suppose one could call open-list PR a hybrid of sorts, though it not usually so classified.2 I’m not sure how the closed-list system used at the national elections is supposed to have “helped big parties,” especially given the calculation of of seat distribution at the national level with no threshold other than that set by the (very large) magnitude of allocation (275). The remark about marking “each preferred candidate” implies more than one candidate-preference vote per voter, a feature of some open-list systems, but not a very common feature.3
Then there is historiae.org, a site maintained by Reidar Visser, research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs:
A hybrid system (voters can choose between a list and an individual candidate) has been adopted, but the counting rules are clearly biased towards bigger entities. Whereas the votes for a party list will count towards a cumulative total score which will enable the party to maximise its share of all remaining seats available in a given province, votes cast for an individual representative will apparently become “redundant†once a candidate has received enough votes to win a seat for him/herself. This would be a major disincentive against voting for an individual instead of a standard list, because there is a very real chance that the individual vote can be wasted – incidentally, a kind of voter behaviour against which an injunction by top Shiite cleric Ali al-Sistani was issued back in 2005.
I am really not sure what Visser is getting at here. Again, there is the reference to “hybrid,” and I might read into this that it’s an open list (as other sources imply). But the claim–implicitly contrary to that in The Guardian‘s contrast with the national elections–that it would favor large parties (“entities”) is unclear to me, inasmuch as what is described is the intraparty allocation, rather than the interparty. Of course, open-list PR is PR (for the given district magnitude) and it does indeed thus imply that votes for candidates accrue to the list as a whole (i.e. “pool” on the interparty dimension) but stay only with the candidate for whom cast (i.e. are nontransferable on the intraparty dimension). The suggestion that such rules would be a disincentive to candidate-voting is not born out by any experience with actual open lists that I know of. But then maybe I am misunderstanding and the proposed law is for something other than OLPR. If only we knew. But then again, if these elections never happen, it is rather moot, isn’t it?
________
- One of the big stumbling blocks is the powder keg that is Kirkuk. [↩]
- The (weak) case for its being properly labeled a “hybrid” would be that it is list PR on the interparty dimension–where closed vs. open vs. flexible is irrelevant anyway–but SNTV on the intraparty dimension. [↩]
- Italy’s former OLPR allowed multiple preference votes till the early 1990s, and Peru’s allows two, I believe. Most others (Brazil, Chile, Finland, etc.) allow only one. [↩]
I have knowledge at all regarding the Iraqi system, so take this with a grain of salt–but I read Visser as using “individual” to mean “independent”. The idea being that I could run as an independent candidate, without any party affiliation all. Then even if I somehow get 50% of the total vote I will only win my own seat, since I am the entire “party” and there is no party list from which to draw further winners.
However, it’s hard to call this particularly unfair. If I expect to get enough votes to win a significant number of seats, the obvious move would be to start my own party and create a list. Problem solved, no?
I guess it’s possible that political groups in general are distrusted, and most voters want to elect independents–this would also explain why SNTV would be under consideration. But now I’m really venturing into the realm of conjecture…
Seed planted by Vasi — 04 July 2008 @ 03:40
I seem to recall that some party list systems make it much easier to stand/ run as an independent (ie, lone, ungrouped) candidate than to register a “party” and offer a multi-candidate list.
Also, the political advantage of “Vote for Malik, an independent, unbeholden to any party machine!” can be diluted if Malik also has Shabazz and Shaheed on his/her ticket.
In Australia, STV makes it advantageous but not essential for a successful independent to select a running-mate (otherwise, if they exceed the quota, their surplus votes will flow to the ideologically nearest party(ies), rather than go in the bin as under most list-PR systems). Thus Brian Harradine did beget Kath Venn. And now Nick Xenophon (whose “No Pokies!” [*] ticket polled 20% in South Australia) did beget Ann Bressington. (Ted Mack also beget Robyn Reade, but that was a single-member seat not PR-STV).
[*] Poker machines, a.k.a slot machines.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 05 July 2008 @ 18:46
It may be easier in some party-list systems to stand as an independent than to register a list, but it is the rare independent who has enough support alone to surpass a quota or win by D’Hondt. If, on the other hand, a candidate or list may win via largest remainders without first having won a simple quota, then the effective threshold is low enough for some independents.
Of course, simple quota and largest remainders can function exactly like SNTV if all lists are de-facto independent candidacies (chasing after the smaller votes of the last remainders in a district instead of the larger vote totals needed to win at least one quota and still be in the running for a remainder seat).
SQLR can even support mixed strategies, with party-list PR and SNTV side-by-side. Whether that is an argument in its favor or not I shall leave for others.
In close analysis of the Colombian data after the move from SQLR (which functioned as SNTV) to D’Hondt party-list PR (where parties choose whether to present an open or closed list), I am struck by the many cases of independents who failed to get the memo about higher vote shares, running on lists that evidently had no vote-drawing power beyond their own personal reputations. In several cases that had been good enough in 2002 when SQLR was still in effect, but left them well behind under D’Hondt. And “independents” here includes a few candidates running under the banner of established political parties.
Obviously a very important question for the Iraq case we are discussing is what is the allocation formula.
Seed planted by MSS — 06 July 2008 @ 13:37
Paging Lani Guinier… Iraqi Parliament repeals a law reserving seats for ethnic and/or religious minorities – mainly Christians, but also Shabeks and Yazidis (what, no sympathy for the Devil in Baghdad?) – which prompts conservative American Christians to realise that “quotas” is, perhaps, not semper et ubique a horror word.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 07 October 2008 @ 16:54
Well, that didn’t take long. Only two days (or one day, depending which conspiracy theorists’ websites one peruses) after Obama took the oath, and already…
‘… This brand of retail politics marks a dramatic shift from campaigns conducted in 2005, the last time Iraq held elections nationwide. Amid growing violence at the time, most candidates ran largely faceless campaigns under the umbrellas of established parties defined by sect and religion.
‘While most of the established parties remain in the game, a staggering number of new faces and coalitions are jockeying for support at a time when American influence here is waning and dissatisfaction with the Iraqi government runs deep.
‘More than 14,000 candidates are competing for 440 seats on provincial councils in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. Some are running as independents, but the majority belong to more than 400 political blocs, known here as lists, roughly 70 percent of which are new.
‘Around the country, the ubiquitous cement blast walls that in recent years have divided and protected Iraqis are wallpapered with political posters. Newspapers are packed with campaign ads. The airwaves are cluttered with campaign jingles. And candidates’ photos and slogans appear on T-shirts and balloons.
‘In 2005, parties that got the most votes appointed members for seats. This time, an “open ballot” will allow voters to choose individual candidates within parties. “Individuals will be accountable to [voters] about what is going to happen on the ground,” said Stefan de Mistura, the UN special envoy for Iraq.
- Ernesto Londoño, “Iraqi Voters Getting a Taste of Retail Politics: Candidates for Provincial Seats Reach Out to Public With Posters, T-Shirts and Jingles,” Washington Post(Thursday, January 22, 2009), p A-8.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 23 January 2009 @ 04:09
I certainly hope the Obama is not the president people who believe you only get one chance to recite the oath without error are also impeach the chief justice people because Roberts clearly blew his job in a big way.
Seed planted by Alan — 23 January 2009 @ 14:14
So, Iraq’s provincial electoral system is open list?
I continue to wonder, however, if this system really is open list, or something else.
Scion grafted by Fruits and Votes — 23 January 2009 @ 17:01
Seen in various places on the web: “How many former editors of the Harvard Law Review does it take to administer the Presidential Oath? More than two…”
Surely US law would have a mandatory/ directory distinction?
BOT. MSS – you mean it’s not “open list” in the full sense, ie, ranking helps as well as personal votes?
Seed planted by Tom Round — 24 January 2009 @ 20:09
I feel guilty for hijacking this thread, but I’m fascinated by the emergence of an American secular version of sedevacantism. First there was the nonsense about the state of Hawaii issuing a fake birth certificate and now this drivel about the oath.
Seed planted by Alan — 25 January 2009 @ 10:54
I, Matthew Shugart, do solemnly swear that I will execute the determination of what Iraq’s electoral rules will be faithfully. The other thread (linked at #7) is the best I can do, so far. So help me G-d.
Seed planted by MSS — 25 January 2009 @ 17:29
Oh no! You’ve sworn to execute faithfully instead of faithfully execute. It’s obviously not binding. Are you now or have you ever been a birth certificate carrying Hawaiian?
Seed planted by Alan — 25 January 2009 @ 21:32