Electoral Reform

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Electoral Reform
Negative Campaigning, Postal Voting, Compulsory
Voting, Adopt PR?

• Monday 21st April
• Amilia Rappak

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Overview

• Electoral reform in a 21st century context
• Areas where reforms have an impact
• Case study low voter turnout and the reforms
  suggested to target this
• Compulsory Voting, Postal Voting
• Conclusion do reforms work?

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Some questions about electoral reform

• Do reforms always only target one area of
  society?
• Can you think of any reforms that will affect
  society as a whole?

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Electoral Reform in the 21st Century

• We benefit from past reforms
• 19th Century
• Property restrictions are gone
• The wealthy cannot buy elections
• 20th Century
• Women get the vote
• But what about today?

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Electoral ReformWhy?

• Engage more people in the political process
• Low turnout is bad for democracy
• Include minority groups
• Make elections fairer
• True representation of political attitudes
• Campaign financing
• PR?

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Electoral ReformWhy?

• Make voting easier
• vote counting procedures,
• ballot design, etc
• the average voter can understand the system
• Transparency
• Equalise competition
• constituency borders
• incumbents advantages

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Electoral ReformHow?

• Legal
• Amend the constitution
• Change the legal framework
• Administrative
• Make the electoral system more efficient
• Political
• Change the way politicians plan to win elections

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Electoral ReformWho wants it?

• Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs)
• Agencies, lobbying and pressure groups
• Eg. The UK Electoral Commission
• The UK's electoral processes are rooted in
  nineteenth-century practices and legislation and
  need fundamental reform in order to safeguard
  public confidence (EC. Dec 2007)
• UK examples Electoral Reform Society, Make Votes
  Count Coalition, Fairshare, Aceproject.Org, etc.

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Where to Reform?

• Election management
• Registration
• Constituency boundaries
• Election technology
• Registration systems
• Voting systems
• Improve efficiency
• Preserve integrity

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What can be reformed?

• Reforms to make voting easier (vote counting
  procedures, ballot design, etc)
• Reforms to make elections fairer
• Reforms to equalise competition, giving
  candidates an equal chance
• Reforms that aim to improve turnout

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Groups that campaign for electoral reform in the
UK

• Electoral Reform Society (who campaign for fairer
  voting systems)
• Fairshare (who campaign for the introduction of
  the Single Transferable Vote system in Scotland)
• Make My Vote Count

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Reforms that have been implemented or proposed

• Implementation of Electoral Management Bodies
  the body responsible for electoral management
• Labours proposal to shift the electoral system
  to Alternative Vote in the UK
• Conservatives desire to alter the constituency
  boundaries

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Low turnout

• pB D gt C
• p ? the probability that an individuals vote
  will affect the outcome of an election.
• B ? the perceived benefit of that persons
  favoured political party or candidate being
  elected.
• D ? originally this stood for democracy or civic
  duty, but today it represents any social or
  personal gratification an individual gets from
  voting.
• C ? the time, effort and financial cost involved
  in voting.

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Verba et al.s most cited reasons for political
inactivity

• lack of time (39),
• a belief that self and family came before
  politics (34),
• that politics had nothing to do with the
  important aspects of the respondents life (20),
  
• that politics cant help with my personal or
  family problems (17),
• as an individual I dont feel I can have an
  impact (15) and
• for what I would get out of it, politics is not
  worth what I would have to put into it (14).

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Trends of Decreasing Turnout
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Negative Campaigning

• Dirty tricks generally involve leaking
  damaging information to the media. Also, feeding
  an opponents team false information in the hope
  that they will use it and embarrass themselves.
• Push polls are attacks disguised as telephone
  polls members of the opposing party are kept in
  the dark about this happening, making these
  tactics almost invisible and improvable.

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• Most open and often most effective technique of
  negative campaigning is running advertisements
  attacking an opponents personality, record or
  opinion.

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Other methods used to tackle low turnout

• Compulsory Voting
• Has kept turnout consistently high in countries
  such as Australia (94.5) and Belgium (93) BUT
  holds the problem of donkey voting and the
  question is it democratic to force people to
  vote?
• Postal Voting
• Cuts the cost and inconvenience of elections
  BUT do they actually encourage people to vote who
  would not have previously done so?
• Proportional Representation
• Makes the governing bodies more representative
  and leads to fewer wasted votes BUT can lead to
  unstable coalitions whose formation the voter has
  no say in.

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Questions

• How can reformists get around the fact that
  reforms need to be implemented by the MPs who
  were put in power by the system under scrutiny?
• Is it possible to develop reforms that would
  target society as a whole, rather than just one
  section of it?
• Should people be forced to engage in politics?