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[Constitutional Convention][6][18 May / 8 June 2013] Review Electoral System
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14-04-2013 5:08pm#1Greetings. My name is Keith Burke. I'm from Kildare. I was chosen to be one of the 66 citizens of Ireland to represent the wider citizen base in the Constitutional Convention. Some broad information can be found here. It looks mostly accurate
I'm not an expert in law, the constitution or politics. I want to educate myself in the various proposals to better allow myself discuss it on the day. I also want to hear what the wider citizen base think about the proposals.
The Convention are meeting on May 18th/19th and 8th/9th June 2013 to discuss the 6th issue put to us.
Reform the electoral system
I've read through the Irish Constitution [PDF]. There are many, may, many pages relating to the Electoral System, The Government, The Dáil etc. I won't list them individually but they are Articles 15 through 3, depending on where you draw the line.
However, this discussion might be slightly different. We could discuss to change what's in the Good Book --OR-- we could scrap everything and start with a clean slate. We discussed, briefly and loosely on how to proceed. It went a little like this...
Advisory Panel- Michael Gallagher - TCD
- Michael Marsh - TCD
Weekend 1
1. Why is this on the agenda?
2. What alternatives are there?
3. If we keep what we have, how would we change it?
At end of week 1
Vote on which alternative system to examine in detail in weekend 2
Draw up a preliminary list of potential changes to existing process
Weekend 2
Flesh out the detail.
Maybe investigate Direct Democracy.
It should be said, that this is a VERY lose description of what and how we might discuss.
Request : This thread is not to discuss the Convention itself, please only discuss the pro's and con's of the thread topic.
NOTE : Neither myself nor Sorcha are available for weekend 2, 8 June 2013. We have a wedding to attend for a very close friend. I DID ask them to change the date of the wedding but they were not obliging
So, we will be attending May but not June. I do not know, nor probably ever know, who our substitutes will be.
I welcome your comments. Discuss.1
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Apologies OP - we've gone way off topic here!!
No apology needed. The inviolability* of our voting system is core to our electoral system so therefore falls into the remit of reforming such a system.
* I'm getting to hear and use that word in every CCVEN meeting
Before CCVEN, I never knew what it meant, or that it even existed.Definition of inviolability wrote:1. Secure from violation or profanation: an inviolable reliquary deep beneath the altar.
2. Impregnable to assault or trespass; invincible: fortifications that made the frontier inviolable.0 -
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RangeR (Keith), firstly, I think it's great you're doing this and we've got one of the ordinary convention members interacting here online. I'm just a Joe Soap who has developed an interest in political reform, constitutions, and political systems in the past 3/4 years or so (the whole IMF/bailout circumstances hammered home to me the inadequacies in our own political system as well as our general political culture). I think we like to think of ourselves being more like the more well-run Northern European/Scandinavian countries (even the UK). Maybe in some ways we are, but in many ways, culturally and in terms of our systems, I think we're more akin to the PIGS countries.
I'm going to give some thoughts on our electoral system in this post. I think there are few definitive answers regarding electoral systems. Almost all of their features are potentially double-edged and have the potential to cut both ways (positive or negative) depending on circumstances. This is a complex and potentially confusing topic, which is probably why it's in the convention's terms of reference in the first place!
The Constitutional Convention
I know you asked that the convention itself not be discussed in this thread, but since this is going to be a very long post and it's my first on the convention here!
, I hope a few sentences will be OK. And I'm not sure if there are length restrictions here (may be pushing the limits! ). I'd be happy to break this post up or maybe link to it from elsewhere if it's too long. I think most of it is relevant to the thread though.
Incumbents don't like changing the systems that they comfortably occupy. Electorates in many countries around the world I suspect would, if actually given a choice, readily vote for various system reforms. However, in general, ordinary folks don't get sufficiently motivated for incumbent politicians to get anywhere near electorally nervous to do anything much about this. And the politicians know this (so they may throw them a populist token bone every now and then to mollify them, but nothing too radical). Iceland recently was a case in point. Their brave and fairly revolutionary constitutional experiment (despite being passed by the people in advisory referendums) has fizzled out to nothing. Realistically, only the rise of some reform-minded party with a well-thought out reform agenda might spur some meaningful reform here. But I feel our electoral system, as I'll argue later, makes such a possibility even less likely here than in many other countries.
The social policy/fundamentals rights items (many of them quite trendy in world terms at the moment) on the agenda of the constitutional convention are all well-and-good. The protection of fundamental rights is after all one important role of constitutions. And many of these items are important in their own right. But IMO this country is crying out for a comprehensive review and reform of our political structures/checks-and-balances. The convention's agenda is more notable for what it leaves out rather than what it leaves in. The inclusion of the electoral system was a carefully made judgment I suspect. It's there so that the agenda regarding systems reform doesn't seem entirely trivial. The electoral system as a subject is rather a minefield however (confusing and hard to come to any clear straightforward conclusions). And opinion polls usually indicate the Irish electorate's liking of PR-STV. I suspect it's there in the agenda because the political calculation was made that nothing that would too upset the apple cart was likely to come out of any convention recommendation. I'm not sure that I'd wholly agree. The electoral system review is one of two items on the agenda that presents some limited system reform possibilities.
The item "votes for citizens abroad" might actually have been a meaningful item if it was applicable to Dáil elections. Emigration has been a longtime convenient safety valve for dissent in this country. Once a person gets on the boat or plane he safely (from the viewpoint of our political classes) no longer has a vote. Allowing a person to vote in Dáil elections even for a limited period after emigrating (perhaps 5 years) might not have been a bad thing. However, the convention terms of reference limits consideration just to Presidential elections.
So the last "any other amendments" item, given its open-ended nature, is the only other item of interest in terms of systems reform. I hope to make some posts here with some suggestions in the months ahead in the thread for that item.
"Amoral Localism"
The late Peter Mair (Irish political scientist) postulated three reasons for what he labelled the "amoral localism" in our politics. "Amoral familialism" has been a term used in connection with Italian politics (weak civic society where voters end up looking out for the interests of their own families, family above everything else). So I think Mair was modifying and adapting that term to this country and its clientilistic brand of politics. His three reasons (given in a MacGill summer school talk, and summarized in an IT article, both of which used to be online, but no longer I'm afraid) were excessive executive dominance, the effective absence of local government here, and the electoral system. The first point refers to the excessive centralization of power in the cabinet/executive (and the rather dysfunctional nature of our Dáil/Oireachtas). The second refers to the fact that we've one of the weakest and least meaningful systems of local government in Europe. Mair didn't give any solutions/alternatives for our electoral system. But I include this point here because many political scientists currently tend to have the opinion that electoral systems have little bearing on how well a country is run. I suppose I mention Mair as an example of a political scientist who did seem to harbour at least some doubts about our electoral setup. And, anyway, I don't think the convention is being allowed to get anywhere too near the topics of executive dominance/Oireachtas reform or local government. So onto electoral systems!
A rare and unusual electoral system
To begin with, it has to be said that there's much to be said in favour of PR-STV. It is certainly an elegant system that allows voters to express their preferences in a very fine-grained and expressive way. For elections not involving political factions it's about the only logical choice, e.g. voting people onto the committee of one's local GAA club!
That said, internationally, it's a rare and unusual way of electing national parliaments. Tiny Malta with its 69-seat parliament (and only two parliamentary political parties) is the only other meaningful example. It's also interesting that Malta's politics is very clientilistic in nature. Each Maltese MP represents around 6000 people (that's more like 25k to 30k for each Irish TD). Northern Ireland is another rare example (but that's an assembly not a proper parliament). The Australian Senate is the only other example that might have some relevance (an interesting body in its right, one of the most powerful second chambers in the world). It uses PR-STV but not really anything like as we understand it. Voters can also tick a single party box in "above the line voting" (which means a party PR-STV list is used). Voters are strongly incentivized to tick a party box instead of enumerating individual votes in order of their choice. There could be up to 80 candidates on the ballot. Unless a voter lists more than 90% or more of his choices his vote is invalid. So unless he puts down his first 1 to 69 choices in that case his vote is thrown away. Unsurprisingly the vast majority of voters simply tick the party box. Hence, in effect the Australian Senate is elected by a closed list system (not really PR-STV at all, or at best a severely distorted form).
I'm not saying rare/unusual equals bad. But it does mean there's very little data on PR-STV systems. There are a decent number of countries with single-seater first-past-the-post (FPTP) or AV (alternative vote) electoral systems (many former UK colonies) and there are numerous countries with some form of PR system (open/closed list systems or mixed-member PR (MMPR)). Political scientists are therefore able to draw reasonable comparisons between these systems with a certain amount of data to back up their hypotheses. It's true there don't seem to be huge differences in the quality of governance between countries with single-seat (AV or FPTP) systems and highly proportionate PR systems.
There is a certain suspicion that PR-STV itself may be part of the problem (perhaps contributing to "amoral localism"). It's hard to be certain though. It's an unusual system. If a dozen other parliaments used this system, then an informed judgment call could be made. Malta (with its tiny parliament of less than 70, just two main parties, an MP workload of about 1/4 of our own and quite a clientilistic politics) is about the single only other really relevant data point. That's far from enough to rule anything in or out.
Party Control
Any move away from PR-STV, which at the same time maintains or increases proportionality, almost inevitably would involve a voting system that is more party-oriented in some way. Am not sure I entirely buy the argument, advanced by some Irish political scientists, that PR-STV is little different to some forms of open list system. A difference is that list systems force a voter to commit and to pin their colours to a single party mast. That's true even for the Finnish list system where only the number of GE votes for individual candidates determines final party list electoral order (but not quite true for Swiss panachage, but then again so many other things about the Swiss system are unusual making a direct comparison difficult). PR-STV allows one to avoid a clear-cut commitment to any one party. In all electoral systems there's a pull to the centre. But, in a list system, not all the parties can fit there, which probably encourages parties to specifically target subsections of the electorate in terms of particular policies. That happens too under PR-STV to a degree, but being inoffensive (populist even) pays off in garnering down-the-line transfers, which can be crucial in getting a candidate over the line. "Harder" and less generally appealing parties do less well under PR-STV. There's an argument that the limited proportionality of our current PR-STV setup, combined with the payoffs of being generally inoffensive in this system, has partly contributed to some of the clientilist policy-lite politics we suffer from. It's a contentious point, however, and there simply isn't the data to definitely say either way.
There's also the question of whether some degree of party say in who gets elected might not be an entirely bad thing. Many relatively well-run European democracies have elements of party control in determining the list order for who gets elected for their party. There's more than one type of party control though. I much prefer the German electoral law setup where all party members in a region get to determine the party list order for that MMP regional election via secret ballot (takes control away from the party leadership). Party control in this scenario becomes more acceptable. Direct control by party headquarters would probably be anathema to the Irish public. Grass-roots party control might stand a better chance. There are various ways to introduce party involvement (semi-open lists, MMP etc.). The Sinn Féin proposal in their election manifesto (point e on p.34) to elect 2/3 of TDs by six-seater PR-STV and the remaining 1/3 by party list would be a quite natural way in our current setup to move partially away from PR-STV and introduce a limited proportion of party-based candidates. This might be more sellable to the electorate if German-style control of list order by ordinary party members via secret ballot was a constitutional requirement
Some of these changes would involve some constitutional recognition of political parties. The current constitution makes no reference whatsoever to parties (given how we use PR-STV there's no real need). I wouldn't see this as being a big problem (it'd be merely recognizing the actual reality and wouldn't likely make a big practical difference). The German basic law (article 21) achieves this in just two paragraphs (recognizing the role of parties and requiring them to conform to basic democratic norms, though the ability it grants to their constitutional court to ban political parties outright, understandable given their past, would probably be overkill here).
On whether to move away from PR-STV, the Finnish list system probably makes a good comparison. This is a list system with very little party control. A voter's choice is far more limited however. A voter can merely pick a single party and then a single individual within that party list. Seats are allocated proportionately to parties according to their overall vote (in potentially very big constituencies, up to 25 or so seat constituencies have been used) to the party candidates who get the most personal votes. A voter is forced into choosing a single party and, even within that party list, a single candidate. There's a complete absence of the fine-grained expressiveness of PR-STV but none of the ambiguity either. I suppose an intermediate system, lying somewhere between our own PR-STV and the Finnish list system, would be to force voters to first opt for a single party and only then use PR-STV as usual for the candidates within that party list. This would certainly allow far bigger constituencies (can't see why 15-20 seat constituencies wouldn't easily then be possible). One would merely need to rank in order the perhaps 20 or so candidates on the single party list one opted for. The Finnish system merely goes a step further in that even the internal candidate choice within a party is made starkly all-or-nothing (a voter merely ticks a box beside one single candidate). Would the Irish electorate buy a move in this direction (maybe via other methods: open-list variants or some open-list variant of MMP)? Probably not!
But, if they did actually buy into a more party-oriented system, then I suppose the next question that naturally arises would be whether parties themselves should have some element of say into which of their candidates gets elected. I suppose the somewhat peculiar and rather forced Australian Senate "above the line" variant of PR-STV would be one way of shoehorning some party control onto PR-STV. In the party list version of PR-STV above, that might include the extra option of ticking a single box to opt for the party's official PR-STV ordering for the candidates, which could be listed right there on the ballot paper, rather than having to individually rank the party candidates oneself. Or one of plethora of other electoral systems could be chosen to similar effect (semi-open lists, some suitable version of MMP etc.). Have strong doubts, though, as to whether the Irish public would ever buy this, even with an accompanying constitutional insistence that party grass-roots determine the candidate ordering. There are pluses and minuses to all such arrangements. Greater party control might blunt rivalry within a constituency between candidates of the same party. In an ideal world such TDs might then spend more time at national level legislating and not at parish-pump work. There's indeed some evidence that TDs who don't have a rival of the same party in their constituency do spend less time at constituency work. But, of course, an alternative possibility is that this time might instead be merely spent (in a non PR-STV setup) sucking up to party members. And TD accountability to voters becomes more indirect being partially shielded behind the party ticket. A counter to that is that Irish party organizations often resemble a loose web of local fiefdoms with volunteers motivated more by personal than overall party loyalty (think of Bertie Ahern's "Dromcondra Mafia"). Is that really such a good state of affairs?
In many electoral systems party leaderships can shield themselves to some degree from the voters' anger. In FPTP/AV single-seat systems, leaderships can get themselves placed in heartland "safe" constituencies. In PR, leaderships can buy themselves some safety by ensuring they are placed well up to the party list. Such system-based protections are not available here. Maybe that's a good thing in terms of accountability. However, it's probably inevitable that party leaderships will always try to protect themselves one way or another. This might be via explicit electoral mechanisms. Otherwise it'll still happen via other means: maybe via increased party resources to their campaigns, or for ministers, maybe significant departmental resources will mysteriously find their way to the relevant minister's constituency.
Party control is not a straightforward topic!
Our electoral system: perfectly calibrated for producing political inertia and maintaining the status quo?
One thought I've had recently on our voting system is that perhaps it's almost perfectly set up to promote inertia.
Single constituency voting systems (AV or FPTP) are relatively common, but so too are very proportionate list systems. We've a system sitting smack bang in the middle of these, perhaps neither flesh nor fowl.
In terms of party formation, PR list systems tend to lead to a much more dynamic party ecosystem. It's easier for new parties to come into being and develop and get established. One needs just enough support to get past a relatively low threshold (perhaps 3% or 5%). Generally in list systems a voter can only opt for a single party. It's a mutually exclusive choice. Hence a party only needs to maintain a certain core vote to survive. But, at least, there's usually a fairly varied range of parties to choose from and party formation isn't so difficult.
Single seater systems are quite different. There's usually just two catch-all parties/blocks of parties (Duverger's law). Unlike PR systems it's not particularly representative. However, one could argue that accountability is a strength of this electoral system. Small swings in support can lead to big swings in terms of seats. Voters can severely punish their representatives in a general election. In the UK big electoral swings are not uncommon, with up to half of the seats in a defeated party being lost.
Our PR-STV electoral system sits somewhere between these two poles. Average constituency size remains less than 4 (even when the constituencies are revised it will still remain less than 4). The word "proportional" in PR-STV is a bit of a misnomer in our case. Even in the early days of our state when there were actually some big 9 seater constituencies the average size still at most reached 5 (there were still lots of 3 and 4 seaters). I think it would be fairer to label our electoral system as being semi-proportional.
One could argue that it combines a degree of representativeness with a certain measure of accountability. I've started to wonder about even this though. Electoral swings are far smaller here than in the UK. Our use of the Seanad as a temporary staging post for failed TDs blunts possible accountability even further I would suggest. The House of Lords is not used in this way in the UK. There's actually no reason failed TDs couldn't be legislatively banned from the Seanad. I'd suggest that this use of the Seanad blunts the accountability aspect of our voting system to next to nothing. TDs generally have the opportunity to sit things out in the Seanad (with somewhat reduced pay) until better electoral times.
As for the proportionality/party formation aspect of our electoral system, that hasn't functioned very well either. Many small parties have come and gone, and maybe left a mark, but none have survived for the long haul. We also get occasional upsurges in independents. Sinn Féin is something new though. That's a party venturing across the border from an already strong base (and resources) in the relatively new Northern Ireland assembly. Our limited proportionality is simply not enough for sustained new party formation. Unless party has perhaps a 10-15% core vote it's unlikely to survive. If it can attract transfers it will get seats. However, a spell in government usually causes those lower transfers to dry up. It might retain a 5-10% core vote. Without reasonable transfers, though, it will simply implode.
There's also a real danger that recent restrictions on donations (ostensibly for political ethics reasons) will have the side-effect of compounding this problem further making it even more difficult for new parties to get off the ground.
I wonder if we've ended up with an electoral system which is the worst of both worlds, managing to nullify both the blunt accountability of single-seat systems and the more fluid party dynamics/proportionality of list systems? Do we actually have a system almost perfectly calibrated to promote inertia, a moribund party system and maintain the status quo?
PR-STV: a promoter of inoffensive/policy-lite politics?
A hypothesis about PR-STV has been that it has a strong centralizing influence on politics (almost impossible to empirically prove either way due to the lack of examples, only ourselves and tiny Malta use PR-STV in a main parliamentary chamber). List systems have a certain "hard" aspect to them. Almost always a voter can only chose a single party (the choice between is mutually exclusive). There are always one or two exceptions (Luxembourg and Switzerland use panachage, which also allows a voter to make up his own list from various parties). PR-STV is far far "softer" and allows a far more fine-grained and expressive enumeration of a voter's preferences. A list system forces a voter into making a "hard" choice of a single party. PR-STV allows a voter to hedge their bets to a far greater degree. Candidates may need lower transfers to get elected. This perhaps may encourage parties and candidates to be inoffensive, not to scare off lower transfers. Hence, its purported centralizing effect. With PR lists, a party is likely to target a very particular segment of the electorate (there's less attractions to being "inoffensive", it'll either get a person's vote or not, there's no middle ground).
There's no perfect voting system, all have pros and cons. A good question is whether the advantages and disadvantages of our current system are a good fit for our political environment. The centralizing effect of PR-STV could be a positive (perhaps in some riven or divided societies) encouraging moderation. One would have to wonder though, in a conservative and fairly homogenous society like Ireland with political parties with small ideological differences, whether this centralizing effect is actually the very opposite of what we need.
Greater Proportionality within PR-STV?
Having larger constituency sizes would solve some of the problems of our electoral system. Am not convinced it would make much difference to clientilism. However, it would greatly improve proportionality and the ease of party formation. I'd prefer to see an average constituency size of at least 7. I also rather like the constituency system proposed by Prof. John Coakley of UCD in a 2007 paper. This would follow continental models and largely do away with the need for an electoral boundary commission (though might require some constitutional change first to permit it). In his system, there'd be a lower bound of 3 and an upper bound of 9 on constituencies. County boundaries have to be respected as much as possible. A county with a population so low it would merit less than 3 TDs is merged with an adjacent country. A county with a population so high it would need more than 9 TDs would be subdivided into smaller constituencies (would only need to happen in Dublin and Cork). Otherwise the county boundaries would be respected. Coakley shows that such a setup would have led to remarkably stable constituency boundaries, most of them stable over many decades. His setup would lead to an average constituency size of a little less than 7 (with very little need for a boundary commission). Pushing the lower bound up to 5 wouldn't make that much difference to the constituency makeup. The reduction in constituency over/under-representation turns out to be fairly minor compared to our current system.
The Irish system as currently practiced is certainly unusual in several respects. There are few semi-proportionate systems. The Irish system lacks the mutually exclusive bluntness/"hardness" evident in both FPTP/AV and PR list systems. I suspect our use of the Seanad as a failed TD temporary staging post blunts some of the limited ballot-box FPTP-style accountability it might otherwise have. Its limited proportionality allows small parties (sometimes independents) to come and go, but with no lasting staying power. The electoral tides wash in and wash out but the main status quo parties remain. Quite substantial party funding of incumbents at around 13 million euros a year at the moment (based on past electoral success) combined with more recent donation limits may compound this even further.
In terms of proportionality, our version of PR-STV is hobbled. Its proportionality is fairly limited. There are good historical reasons for that. Large constituencies give a chance for smaller parties to be created or continue to exist. Average constituency size here never exceeded more than about 5, but at least in the past there were some big constituencies, e.g. the Galway 9-seater. It was De Valera who gradually eliminated the big constituencies (a perfectly logical move from the perspective of his own big party), with the 9-seaters vanishing around the time of the introduction of the 1937 constitution. Nonetheless, three 7-seaters remained (Tipperary, Dublin South and Limerick). It was the threat of new party, Clann na Poblachta, that got him to finally get rid of these and engage in a serious bit of Gerrymandering, with the introduction of a whole host of new 3-seaters. This did the trick, Clann na Poblachta got far less seats than their vote might previously have merited (in the long term probably helped see off their threat).
It seems to me limited proportionality PR-STV helps maintain the status quo (the way we use the Seanad and maybe even donation limits and general political funding for incumbents based on past electoral performance may exacerbate this). That probably would not hold for full-blooded decently proportional PR-STV (but that's not what we have or are even likely to get any time soon).
For a young TD starting out in one of the established parties and contemplating a long-term political career (over maybe 30 years) the current setup is pretty attractive.
In the UK there are often big electoral swings and roundabouts. Most MPs will likely spend some time in the wilderness outside the Commons. Here, the electoral swings are normally not so big. And there's the Seanad as a fallback. If one keeps in the good books of party leadership there's a decent chance one will be able to sit things out in the Seanad.
If as a young TD you've the good sense (being sarcastic/cynical here) to choose a mainstream established party, then good move, chances are that party will doing just fine in another 30 or 40 years. Perhaps some upstart young party will make some inroads during that period, but it's likely they'll run out of steam and implode sooner or later anyway. Outside the big three, no party started in the Irish Republic has ever lasted the distance in the almost 100 years of our state (ok, Sinn Féin is something of a new thing, a strong party from a neighbouring jurisdiction, maybe that will last the distance, or maybe not). What are the chances that we'll have just the very same three parties (Fine Gael, Labour, Fianna Fáil, plus maybe Sinn Féin in some form or other) in 30 years time? Pretty good I'd say.
Proportionality and Stable Government Formation
Another argument made in favour of the limited proportionality PR-STV we use is relative stability in government formation. Some countries with PR list systems have had quite unstable series of governments, e.g. Israel and Italy (particularly in the past). However, many countries (e.g. Germany and most of the Nordic countries) have enjoyed stable government in spite of high proportionality. This is because they also have additional mechanisms which stabilize government formation (which Israel and some other countries lack): constructive votes of no confidence mechanisms, restrictions on government dissolution, fixed/semi-fixed terms, and/or voting support thresholds. Government formation arguments are a bit of a red herring IMO. Many countries with very proportionate systems still have strong government.
One common stabilizing measure, in the context of a list system, is the presence of a threshold; this typically blunts proportionality by not allocating any representation to a party that fails to meet some set share of the vote (perhaps 3%). With PR-STV, the combination of a German-style constructive vote of no confidence mechanism (i.e. a vote of no confidence is only allowed if the name of an alternative Taoiseach is attached who becomes the new Taoiseach if the motion succeeds) and semi-fixed (perhaps 5 year) terms (modeled after the Swedish Riksdag setup rather than the more inflexible and artificial German approach) would help ensure stable governments even with the injection of extra proportionality.
From page 86 onwards of the 1996 constitution review group report gives a suitable wording for a constructive vote of no confidence in the context of our own constitution. In Sweden, "ordinary" parliamentary elections are always held exactly every four years. However, the Prime Minister also has the option of dissolving parliament and calling midterm "extraordinary" elections. But a parliament formed in this way can then only last up until the next scheduled date for ordinary elections. This incentivizes parliaments to last their full term but is flexible enough to also recognize that sometimes early parliamentary dissolution is a necessary evil.
As to whether 4 year or 5 year terms would be better I'm not sure. Longer 5 year terms might possibly promote slightly more long-term thinking, though shorter 4 year terms might promote greater accountability (it's a bit of a tradeoff).
An Electoral Commission
There's a good argument for having a proper constitutionally-based Electoral Commission. Such a body would perhaps be of even greater importance if constituency sizes were larger, because then the purely legislative requirement to follow county boundaries as much as possible, as in the current electoral act, might not be quite as relevant or perhaps could be set aside (following county boundaries at least cuts down on the scope for Gerrymandering). An Electoral Commission would greatly limit the likelihood of a future government being tempted, or even able, to go down the Tullymandering route again. The monitoring of ethics in politics and other issues like lobbying could also be placed under its remit.
Options for the Convention
I'd feel the creation of constitutionally-based electoral commission would be a reasonable uncontroversial move (though Coakley's scheme would obviate some of the need for this). There are some technical changes to PR-STV that could be considered. I hope the convention won't spend its time bogged-down on such technicalities.
One possibility would be to recommend a move towards less proportionality. Despite what I said earlier about the blunt accountability of FPTP/AV, I wouldn't be in favour of this. There's actually a chance it might improve things. But there's also quite a big risk it might make things worse. Other factors come into play in countries with this system. Canada and Australia have strong federal systems which devolve significant amounts of power. Australia has a strong proportionally elected Senate to counterbalance a main chamber elected via single-seaters. The US has a presidential system (a 2-party system to provide an effective counterbalance to a strong president makes a lot of sense). New Zealand, which was rather similar to us in many ways, abandoned FPTP in favour of mixed-member PR. The UK, with its long parliamentary tradition, actually has a decently functioning parliament (even its second chamber despite its archaic setup makes a decent contribution, none of which can be said to be true here). Anyway, the Irish public in several past referendums have already rejected this option. This path would be a quick road to nowhere I would think.
The other option is for a system with more proportionality. There's much to be said to PR list or mixed-member PR systems. Party control is a complicating factor. The Irish public would be (perhaps justifiably or not) suspicious of the potential increased party control of these systems. They'd make a hard sell. Opinions polls have shown the Irish public's like for PR-STV.
Using the KISS ('Keep It Simple Stupid') principle mentioned earlier in this thread, I think the only realistic recommendation the convention could make, which the Irish public actually might opt for, would be to increase the proportionality of our current PR-STV system. There's nothing of course to stop this being done legislatively at present. Electoral law could set a lower bound on constituency size as high as it wants (unless it doesn't go against the article 12.2.6: "No law shall be enacted whereby the number of members to be returned for any constituency shall be less than three."). Decent proportionality would IMO require average constituency sizes of at least 7 or 8 (not the average of 4 we have at the moment). Beyond a certain point PR-STV does indeed get unwieldy. But we coped perfectly well with constituencies of 9 in the past. OK, maybe we shouldn't go past constituency sizes of 10-12 or so. However, an average constituency of just 4 equates to seriously hobbled proportionality.
I'd suggest you argue for a very simple change to article 12.2.6. At the moment this reads:
IMO this lower bound should be changed to at least six or seven. Some political members of the convention (Sinn Féin, independents, possibly even Labour) might even support such a suggestion.No law shall be enacted whereby the number of members to be returned for any constituency shall be less than three.
This might counter some (if not all) of the downsides of PR-STV, and lead to a more dynamic party system, give some more space to new parties (even if I doubt that bigger constituency sizes will have much impact on clientilism).
If there was a big bump in proportionality, though, then some thought might also have to be given to stability of government formation. That's not a big deal. As I've mentioned already, many Scandinavian/Northern European countries (Germany too) with PR systems make dissolving parliament awkward (or have other stabilizing measures). They manage to combine highly proportionate electoral systems with strong government (Germany with semi-fixed terms and a constructive vote of no confidence mechanism, Sweden with semi-fixed terms, Norway with fixed terms etc., other countries involving Presidents in dissolution).
A straightforward amendment for a constructive vote of no confidence mechanism would be changing:
to:28.10.The Taoiseach shall resign from office upon his ceasing to retain the support of a majority in Dáil Éireann unless on his advice the President dissolves Dáil Éireann and on the reassembly of Dáil Éireann after the dissolution the Taoiseach secures the support of a majority in Dáil Éireann.
(and deleting article 13.2.2)28.10.The Taoiseach shall resign from office upon his ceasing to retain the support of a majority in Dáil Éireann demonstrated by the loss of a motion of no confidence which at the same time nominates an alternative Taoiseach.
Page 86 of the constitutional review group report talks about what would need to be amended to have a fixed term Dáil. Fixed terms are too inflexible IMO. A semi-fixed setup based upon the Swedish Riksdag would be very appropriate in this case (e.g. see articles 3.3-3.5 of the Swedish constitution).
Apologies for the length of this post (a throw everything-but-the-kitchen-sink type article! ). Hopefully you'll find something of interest in it. And, of course, if previous governments have never been previously able to bring themselves to increase the proportionality of the electoral system via ordinary legislation, then why would they contemplate doing it now via referendum? Nonetheless, I feel this is precisely the recommendation this convention should make. 0 -
Cheers finbar10. I'm still trying to digest all of that
We will be meeting this weekend. This hasn't happened before but for those that will be arriving on Friday evening, there will be an hour long "master class" as an introduction to the current system. Maybe a mock election and how the votes are counted etc.
This is just a primer for the weekend and not everyone will attend. Not everyone arrives on Friday nights. It's really only those that are traveling from vast distances.0 -
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Cheers finbar10. I'm still trying to digest all of that
We will be meeting this weekend. This hasn't happened before but for those that will be arriving on Friday evening, there will be an hour long "master class" as an introduction to the current system. Maybe a mock election and how the votes are counted etc.
This is just a primer for the weekend and not everyone will attend. Not everyone arrives on Friday nights. It's really only those that are traveling from vast distances.
Good luck with the weekend! (and apologies for that almighty lump of text above, a bit much entirely perhaps for a discussion board like this! )
I have a suspicion you'll be diverted to slightly arcane things like alternative(maybe even better) ways of transferring votes in PR-STV and an electoral commission. Worthy but hardly earth-shattering. But maybe those are realistic topics given the limited nature of the convention (especially having looked at its terms of reference). The electoral system wouldn't be at the top of my list of things to reform about our system. Nonetheless, it still is easily the most important concrete systems reform item on its agenda. I'd also agree with Thomas that culture is at least as much a problem as the system (but I do think systems are important also, and impact on culture too in their own way).
To try be concise, one of my principal arguments was the neither-one-thing-nor-another nature of our electoral system. With such things one hopes to get the best of both worlds. Often, though, it seems one simply ends up with the worst of both. I've wondered if that true for our electoral system.
If forced to choose I would obviously opt for proportionality over the blunt accountability of AV/FPTP. One thing I neglected to say is there are other ways of increasing proportionality while still largely keeping PR-STV using a top-up system. Mixed-member PR tops up single-seaters with an equal number (1/2) of list seats to restore proportionality. There's no reason, though, why one couldn't have, say 5-seater PR-STV constituencies and restore proportionality with a 1/6 of seats in a top-up list. That's moving a bit away from the KISS principle I suppose (and complicates things with issues such as the degree of party control over such lists). But Daniel Sullivan has in the past proposed quite an elegant scheme (based on a form of MMPR practiced in the one of the German Lander) which uses a top-up list to restore full proportionality to PR-STV (and which isn't party controlled). His system proposes that it would be party candidates who do the best in individual constituencies who would get the party seats.
So suppose the Green party (for the sake of an example) make something of a comeback in the future and get 5% of first preferences nationally but only manage to win 1 actual seat in constituencies. In a 120 seat Dáil they'd be proportionately entitled to 6 seats. One setup might be to have 20 conventional five-seaters (100 seats) with a top-up of 20 seats. Under this system the Green party would be allocated 5 seats from the top-up portion. Under Daniel Sullivan's scheme it would be the five individual candidates who did best in the constituency competitions who would get the seats (no party control). He does have a submission to the convention which does discuss this. It's a top up method which doesn't depart too much from PR-STV. He also mentions non-geographical constituencies.
In general, that's a pretty interesting notion, e.g. see here for a description. There's definitely something to the idea (kind of already exists with regard to the Seanad). But how compatible it is with large-scale parliamentary elections I'm not so sure (though one person proposed such a scheme a while back on thejournal.ie, 12 ten-seater constituencies for the Dáil, with people allocated to constituencies according to the month they were born in, or one could do in randomly). Something intriguing about this general idea (not sure about its workability though, could work nicely for a smaller chamber like the Seanad though).
Anyway, good luck on the weekend and hope you have some interesting discussions.0 -
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