Mixed member proportional representation
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Mixed member proportional representation, also termed mixed-member proportional representation and commonly abbreviated to MMP, is a voting system used to elect representatives to numerous legislatures around the world. MMP is similar to other forms of proportional representation in that the overall total of party members in the elected body is intended to mirror the overall proportion of votes received; it differs by including a set of members elected by geographic constituency who are deducted from the party totals so as to maintain overall proportionality. In the United Kingdom, the form of MMP in use for several bodies is known as the additional member system (AMS), although the term additional member system can also be more broadly applied to include parallel voting, a non-proportional system.
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[edit] Use
MMP is currently in use in:
- Bolivia
- Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados), the lower house
- Germany
- Bundestag, the federal lower house
- all state parliaments except Saarland, Hamburg and Bremen.
- Lesotho
- National Assembly, the lower house
- New Zealand
- South Africa
- United Kingdom
- Scottish Parliament, unicameral
- National Assembly for Wales, unicameral
- London Assembly (the system would have been used for the other proposed regional assemblies of England, but this process has stalled since the No vote in the Northern England referendums in 2004)
The unicameral National Assembly of Hungary has a complex voting system that results in a less proportional representation than MMP but more proportional than Parallel voting.
[edit] Proposals for elections in the United Kingdom
In 1976, the Hansard Society recommended that MMP be used for UK parliamentary elections, but instead of using closed party lists, it proposed that seats be filled by defeated candidates, on the 'best runner-up' basis used by the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg.
A similar system was proposed by the Independent Commission in 1999, known as Alternative Vote plus (AV+). This would have involved the use of the Alternative Vote for electing members from single-member constituencies, and regional party lists. However, contrary to the Labour Party's earlier manifesto promises, there was not a referendum before the 2001 general election and the statement was not repeated.
[edit] Procedures
The voter makes two votes: one for a constituency representative and one for a party (or, with open-list in Bavaria, for one of the party's list candidates.) In a lesser-used variant, which is used by some of the several States of Germany, both votes are combined into one, so that voting for a representative automatically means also voting for the representative's party.
In each constituency, the representative is chosen using a single winner method, typically first-past-the-post (that is, the candidate with the most votes, by plurality, wins).
On the regional or national level (i.e. above the constituency level) two different methods are used:
- The total number of seats in the assembly are allocated to parties proportionally to the number of votes the party received in the party portion of the ballot. Subtracted from each party's allocation is the number of constituency seats that party won. The number of seats remaining allocated to that party are filled using the party's list.
- Alternatively, something like a highest averages method is used to allocate the list seats, but the number of seats already won in the constituencies is taken into account in setting the denominators used in the calculations for the list seats.
If a candidate is on the party list, but wins a constituency seat, they do not receive two seats; they are instead crossed off the party list and replaced with the next candidate down.
[edit] Overhang seats
Because a party can gain fewer seats by the party vote than needed to justify the won constituency seats, overhang seats can occur. There are different ways of dealing with overhang seats. In Germany's Bundestag and the New Zealand House of Representatives the overhang seats remain. In some systems the other parties receive extra seats to restore proportionality. Both cases raise the total number of seats. In the British cases (Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, London Assembly), overhang seats are compensated by giving fewer seats to the other parties: the total number of seats remains the same, but at the expense of the other parties.
For example, in New Zealand's 2005 General Election the Māori Party won 2.1% of the Party Vote, entitling them to 3 seats in the House, but won 4 "electorates" (constituencies), leaving an overhang of 1 seat, which results in a 121-member house. If the party vote for the Māori Party had been more in proportion with the constituency seats won, there would have more likely been a normal 120-member house.
[edit] Threshold
In order to be eligible for list seats in the New Zealand and German systems, a party must either earn at least 5% of the total party vote or must win at least one constituency seat (three constituency seats in Germany). If neither of the two conditions are met, no candidates from the party list are chosen. Candidates having won a constituency will still have won their seat. Having a member with a 'safe' constituency seat is therefore a tremendous asset to a minor party in such a system.
[edit] Potential for tactical voting
In terms of tactical voting, the vote for the constituency representative is normally much less important (than the party vote) in determining the overall result of an election; but in some cases a party may be so certain of winning seats in the constituency elections that it expects no extra seats in the proportional top-up. Some voters may therefore seek to get a double representation by voting tactically and splitting their votes, though this runs the risk of unintended consequences.
In systems with a threshold, tactical voting for a minor party that is predicted to poll slightly below the threshold is relatively common, especially by voters who are afraid that the minor party missing the threshold would weaken the larger political camp that the minor party belongs to. For example the German moderate-right Free Democratic Party (FDP) has often received votes from voters who preferred the larger Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, because they feared that if the FDP received less than five percent of the votes, the conservative camp would be weakened so much that the CDU wouldn't be able to form a government. Conversely, in New Zealand, some voters who preferred a large party have voted for the minor party's local candidate to ensure it qualifies for seats. In the latter case the tactic does not distort the outcome but makes it more proportional by by-passing the 5% threshold. In the former it also ensures that votes are not wasted, but at the cost of giving the FDP more seats than CDU voters would really have preferred.
[edit] Decoy lists
Political parties can also abuse the system. They can separate their party in two. One contests the electorates seats, the other contests for the list seats. This will produce an overhang. They can co-ordinate their campaign and work together within the legislature, while remaining legally separate entities. This can also give other advantages in areas such as party funding.
For instance in the 2001 Italian elections, the two main coalitions (the House of Freedoms and the Olive Tree) linked many of their constituency candidates to decoy lists (liste civetta) in the proportional parts, under the names Abolizione Scorporo and Paese Nuovo respectively, so that if they won constituencies then they would not reduce the number of proportional seats received by the coalitions. Between them, the two decoy lists won 360 of the 475 constituency seats, more than half of the 630 total number of seats, despite winning a combined total of less than 0.2% of the national proportional part of the vote. In the case of Forza Italia (part of the House of Freedoms), the tactic was so successful that it did not have enough candidates in the proportional part to receive as many seats as it in fact won, missing out on 12 seats.
Decoy lists are not used in most countries using MMP, where most voters vote for candidates from parties with long-standing names.
[edit] Voter understanding
There is some evidence that many Scottish voters did not understand the implications of the system. In the first election for Scotland's new Parliament, the majority of voters surveyed misunderstood some key aspects of the difference there between the "first" (constituency) vote and the "second" (regional list) vote; indeed in some ways the understanding worsened in the second election. The Arbuthnott Commission found references to first and second votes fuelled a misperception that the constituency vote should be a first preference and the regional vote a second one. That misperception was not helped by the Green Party's tactic of running only regional candidates and appealing for "second votes."
In New Zealand the party vote is the first vote. In Scotland, to deal with the misunderstanding between "first" and "second" votes, the ballot for the coming Scottish Parliament election will be changed as recommended by the Arbuthnott Commission. The British government announced on 22 November 2006 that the two separate ballot papers used in previous Scottish Parliament elections would be replaced for the elections in May 2007 by a single paper — with the left side listing the parties standing for election as regional MSPs and the right side the candidates standing as constituency MSPs.
| Scottish Parliament Election Study 1999 and Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2003 | % answering correctly | |
|---|---|---|
| Question (and correct response) | 1999 | 2003 |
| You are allowed to vote for the same party on the first and second vote (True) | 78% | 64% |
| People are given two votes so that they can show their first and second preferences (False) | 63% | 48% |
| No candidate who stands in a constituency contest can be elected as a regional party list member (False) | 43% | 33% |
| Regional party list seats are allocated to try to make sure each party has as fair a share of seats as is possible (True) | 31% | 24% ? |
| The number of seats won by each party is decided by the number of first votes they get (False) | 30% | 42% |
| Unless a party wins at least 5% of the second vote, it is unlikely to win any regional party lists seats (True) | 26% | 25% |
| Average | 45% | 39% |
However, the detailed results of the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, 2003, show the confusion was about "first" and "second" votes, creating an average of 28% wrong answers:
- You are allowed to vote for the same party on the first and second vote (True): correct 62.9%, incorrect 10.8%, DK 26.2%
- Regional party list seats are allocated to try to make sure each party has as fair a share of seats as is possible (True) correct: 47.3%, incorrect 14.7%, DK 38.1%
- Unless a party wins at least 5% of the second vote, it is unlikely to win any regional party lists seats (True? Regionally, yes, but the Greens won a seat in 1999 with less than 5% Scotland-wide) Yes: 32.8%, No: 16.7%, can't say (the correct answer) 50.7%.
- No candidate who stands in a constituency contest can be elected as a regional party list member (False): correct 24.0%, incorrect 21.5%, DK 54.5%
- The number of seats won by each party is decided by the number of first votes they get (False): correct 25.9%, incorrect 41.5%, DK 32.7%
- People are given two votes so that they can show their first and second preferences (False): correct 23.8%, incorrect 52.7%, DK 23.4%
[edit] See also
- List of democracy and elections-related topics
- Voting system
- Leveling seat
