Ireland

The Irish parliament is considered one of the weaker international chambers. The government dominates the legislative process, and parliament is little more than an arena for its members to air constituency grievances. That this happens with the operation of the single transferable vote electoral system, which incentivizes personal behavior by deputies, is a conundrum. We seek to explain legislative activity in the Dáil by focusing on the background of its members from 1989 to 2011. We find that gender and seniority have little effect, and that party hierarchy is important. Generally speaking, those higher up in a party are more active in parliament.

The Electoral Framework and the Politics of Representation

The framework that governs electoral competition in Ireland has a profound impact on the democratic cast and character of the country’s political life. The institutionalization and organization of both constitutional referendums and national general elections constrain and shape its capacity for responsible decision-making. The former has become an increasingly significant focus of electoral decision, the latter have fostered a conservative politics in which representative impulses overwhelm the party system’s ability to provide for disciplined choice. Despite a party-focused proportional representation electoral regime, the use of the single transferable vote has generated a politician–party–voter dynamic privileging a constituency-centred politics that has persisted in the face of the social and economic changes that have transformed much of Irish life.

Gender Quotas in Ireland

This chapter considers the implementation and effect of legislative gender quotas in the 2016 general election, a first for Ireland and a first for the proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote electoral system (PR-STV). It focuses on political parties and examines how they integrated the formal gender quota law into their candidate selection processes. Particular attention is paid to whether the law changed existing candidate selection practices, many of which are guided by informal candidate selection norms, such as a preference for incumbents and those exhibiting localist traits. The chapter concludes that the gender quota law did engender change in the candidate recruitment, selection, and election of women, but, as scholars of feminist institutionalism would describe, the change was ‘nested’ and ‘bounded’ within existing practices surrounding candidate selection, thereby denting but not dismantling the gendered norms of this process.

Variants of Ranked-Choice Voting from a Strategic Perspective

Ranked-choice voting has come to mean a range of electoral systems. Broadly, they can facilitate (a) majority winners in single-seat districts, (b) majority rule with minority representation in multi-seat districts, or (c) majority sweeps in multi-seat districts. Further, such systems can combine with rules to encourage/discourage slate voting. This article describes five major versions used, abandoned, and/or proposed for US public elections: alternative vote, single transferable vote, block-preferential voting, the bottoms-up system, and alternative vote with numbered posts. It then considers each from the perspective of a ‘political strategist.’ Simple models of voting (one with two parties, another with three) draw attention to real-world strategic issues: effects on minority representation, importance of party cues, and reasons for the political strategist to care about how voters rank choices. Unsurprisingly, different rules produce different outcomes with the same sets of ballots. Specific problems from the strategist’s perspective are: ‘majority reversal,’ serving ‘two masters,’ and undisciplined third-party voters (or ‘pure’ independents). Some of these stem from well-known phenomena, e.g., ranking truncation and ‘vote leakage.’ The article also alludes to ‘vote-management’ tactics, i.e., rationing nominations and ensuring even distributions of first-choice votes. Illustrative examples come from American history and comparative politics. A running theme is the two-pronged failure of the Progressive Era reform wave: with respect to minority representation, then ranked voting's durability.

Specyfika systemu pojedynczego głosu przechodniego (PR-STV) na przykładzie wyborów samorządowych w Irlandii i udziału w nich społeczności imigranckich

The aim of the article is a critical analysis of the electoral system of a single transferable vote on the example of local elections in Ireland and its evaluation from the point of view of key participants: voters, political parties and new players – immigrant candidates. The organization of elections, the vote counting methods and the rule of transfer of votes to seats as well as the influence of the electoral system on political parties strategies and voter behavior are presented in detail. In principle, the proportional system should be more friendly to independent candidates and small interest groups, but the case of immigrant candidates running in the elections in Ireland shows that in practice it is difficult for new players to achieve election success without the support of political parties. The analysis is based on a diverse sources, the review of academic literature and statistical data is complemented by the results of qualitative research – the in-depth interviews with Polish candidates running in the local elections in Ireland in the years 2009–2019.

Alberta’s forgotten experiment with electoral reform: the hybrid single transferable vote/alternative vote and the quasi-party system

A persistent yet understudied aspect of Alberta’s “quasi-party system” is the role of the electoral system. While many authors have rightly pointed out that a majoritarian single-member plurality system has helped Alberta’s ruling parties produce disproportionate majorities, the province has not always operated under this electoral arrangement. From 1926 until 1955, Alberta had a “hybrid” system, consisting of the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies in Edmonton and Calgary and the Alternative Vote in single-member constituencies in the rest of Alberta. This unusual attempt at electoral reform played an important role in the dominance of the United Farmers of Alberta and the early Social Credit Party (until 1955). AV acted as an essentially majoritarian system in rural Alberta, producing statistically indistinguishable results from FPTP. This contrasts the Albertan case with other attempts at implementing the Alternative Vote. On the other hand, STV benefited the UFA and Social Credit in two distinct ways. STV increasing proportionality in Edmonton and Calgary, as it has in many other jurisdictions. However, due the hybrid system, the urban opposition in Edmonton and Calgary to the UFA was fragmented by a proportional system like STV. Social Credit, with its larger urban base, used STV to maximize its urban vote through a process of voter transfers. Finally, rural malapportionment is a key feature in both the hybrid system and the subsequent return to single-member plurality. Rural seats, operating under both AV and FPTP, have been the electoral bedrock for Alberta’s long lived political dynasties. The unique case of Alberta’s hybrid electoral system serves as an important potential case study in debates surrounding electoral reform in Canada and around the world. Please be aware that a revision to this article was submitted on April 30, 2021. Therefore, there may be some differences between the online version of this submission and the print version.

The transfers game: A comparative analysis of the mechanical effect of lower preference votes in STV systems

Debates about electoral reform revolve around giving voters more choice. Consequently, reformers often favor adopting the single transferable vote, a candidate-based system that allows voters to rank order candidates. Nonetheless, studies about whether lower preferences (transfers) influence STV election outcomes remain scant. To address this gap, our comparative multivariate approach tests transfers’ impact on election results in Ireland, Malta, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. We find that, on average, transfers are pivotal in the election of about one in 10 elected candidates. Hence, their impact is the exception rather than the norm. We show that when lower preferences are decisive at the candidate level, they benefit smaller and moderate parties and non-incumbents and, in Malta and Ireland, female candidates. Our results have implications for understanding the extent to which multiple preferences influence election outcomes and for debates on electoral reform.

Did That Lost Ballot Box Cost Me a Seat? Computing Manipulations of STV Elections

Mistakes made by humans, or machines, commonly arise when managing ballots cast in an election. In the 2013 Australian Federal Election, for example, 1,370 West Australian Senate ballots were lost, eventually leading to a costly re-run of the election. Other mistakes include ballots that are misrecorded by electronic voting systems, voters that cast invalid ballots, or vote multiple times at different polling locations. We present a method for assessing whether such problems could have made a difference to the outcome of a Single Transferable Vote (STV) election – a complex system of preferential voting for multi-seat elections. It is used widely in Australia, in Ireland, and in a range of local government elections in the United Kingdom and United States.