David Chapman
Democracy Design
Forum, Suffolk, U.K.
7 July 2004
1. Combining the advantages
This paper puts forward a new electoral
system designed to enable a stable and well-functioning democracy to be
established in a short time, even at the first election using the system. It
could be used in a country without democratic traditions and experience, or in
a country where one of the conventional systems is in use but is performing
badly. The new system seeks to combine the various advantages which different
conventional systems can achieve when they work well. These advantages which
the system is designed to obtain are the following.
2. Outline of NAV
The new system is referred to as the National
Alternative Vote,
or NAV for short. NAV is a variation on the Alternative Vote, the system
currently used in Australia to elect the lower chamber of the legislature. An
outline of NAV is as follows. One party is elected to be the sole government
party. This is done by the Alternative Vote method, but used in one nation-wide
constituency to elect a whole party, instead of its normal use to elect one MP
in a single-member constituency. The government party and the
“runner-up” party are designated as the two main parties, and are
given a special subsidy in order to strengthen the competition between them.
The MPs are elected, also by the Alternative Vote method, each in a
single-member constituency, and if the elected government party gets less than
a certain fixed majority, it is given extra seats to bring it up to this
number.
Under NAV, the required
element of Proportional Representation and representation of the smaller
opinion groups, is provided not by the MPs of the legislature, but by a separate scheme of
“Advisory Representatives”, who are elected and publicly funded
lobbyists. These Advisory Representatives can better represent the variety of
minority opinions and groups, than could the MPs of a legislature elected by
even the most proportional electoral system.
3. The rules of NAV
A fuller account of the rules of NAV is
as follows. The country is divided into single-member constituencies, that is,
one constituency for each MP to be elected. Independent candidates or
candidates of small parties may stand, but only parties which have put up a
candidate in each constituency are considered for election as the government
party. Electors vote by putting the candidates standing in the constituency in
order of preference, writing in “1” against the first-preferred candidate,
“2” against the second-preferred, and so on.
First, one party is elected as
the sole government party. For this purpose, a vote for an individual candidate
is counted as a vote for the candidate’s party. The whole country is
treated as one nation-wide constituency.
In the first stage of the
counting, each vote (that is, each ballot paper) is allocated to that eligible party for whom the voter has
indicated the highest preference. (An eligible party is a party which has
candidates in all constituencies and so may be elected as government.) If there
are more than two eligible parties, the eligible party which has fewest votes
is excluded, and its votes are transferred, each vote going to that continuing
eligible party for which the voter has indicated next preference. If there are
still more than two eligible parties, the eligible party which then has fewest
votes is excluded, and its votes are transferred. And so on, if necessary,
until there are only two eligible parties remaining.
That one of the two eligible
parties which is preferred to the other by more voters is declared elected as
the sole government party, and the other is designated as the main opposition
party. The government party is guaranteed a certain minimum of seats, a
majority of let us say 54 per cent.
It is then determined which of
the individual candidates of each party are to be elected as MPs. For this
purpose, each candidate’s percentage of the first-preference votes in his
constituency is found. The candidate who has the lowest percentage in the
whole nation
is excluded, and each of his votes is transferred to that continuing candidate
in the same constituency for whom the voter expresses next preference. The
percentage of each continuing candidate is recalculated, to take account of any
votes transferred, and the candidate who then has the lowest percentage in the
whole nation is excluded. And so on, transferring votes, recalculating
percentages, and excluding the candidate with the lowest percentage in the
nation, until either
there is only one candidate left in each constituency and each of them is
declared elected, or
the number of continuing candidates of the elected government party is reduced
down to its fixed minimum majority. In the latter case, the candidates of the government
party are declared elected, and in the other constituencies, exclusions
continue of the candidates with the lowest percentages, until there is only one
candidate left in each constituency, and each of them is declared elected.
4. Strengthening the two-party system
Each elected MP, whether of the
government party, the main opposition party, or some other party, is paid a
normal parliamentary salary. But in order to strengthen the two main parties
and the competition between them, two additional measures are introduced.
Firstly, the non-elected candidates of the government party and of the main
opposition party are paid a salary, let us say two-thirds of that of an elected
MP. This will enable them to take a more active part in the running of the party,
and to campaign for their own election at the end of the current term.
Secondly, each of these two main parties is paid a substantial monthly subsidy,
the same for either party, in order to quickly establish a “two-party
system” of two equally competitive parties.
5. Advisory Representatives
Lastly, this paper puts forward a further
new proposal, designed to strengthen the country’s “civil
society”, and to make its democratic system more representative. NAV,
like any other single-member-constituency system will tend not to give
representation to small parties. Therefore, this paper proposes, as an adjunct
to the NAV-elected legislature, a system of Advisory Representatives, who are elected by a highly
proportional method of election. These Representatives will have only consultative status, and will be without
any actual powers in the legislative or governmental process. In brief,
electors vote for these Advisory Representatives (ARs for short), and the ARs
are paid income in proportion to these votes. Thus with this income, the ARs
have both the incentive, and the resources, to lobby on behalf of the electors
who have voted for them.
To explain the scheme in more
detail, the elector has one vote, which he may give to one AR, or may split
between any number of ARs, in any way he likes. Each AR’s total of votes
is then found, and he is given a certain amount of income for each vote
obtained (let us say, for each vote, 1/3000 of the average per-person income in
that country). However, there are two exceptions: (1) the AR gets no income if
he gets fewer votes than some minimum, let us say 500; (2) he gets no more
income than some maximum, let us say six times the average income.
The voting is carried out not
by use of the normal ballot paper, but by the "coupon" method, which
is as follows. A coupon is printed for each AR, at the AR’s expense, and
it bears the AR's name and message, and most important, his personal
bar-code. The ARs distribute their
coupons to electors they think might vote for them, and also make their coupons
available at any polling stations where they think they might have support. The
elector votes in the privacy of the polling booth by putting the appropriate
coupons in a special envelope provided to him by the polling officer, putting
in more than one coupon for a given AR if he wishes. To count the votes, each
envelope is opened, and the coupons in it are read by a bar-code reader
attached to a computer, which calculates the total votes of each AR. For
example, if an elector has put in his envelope one coupon from A and two
coupons from B, this will be counted as one-third of a vote for A and
two-thirds of a vote for B.
The coupon method should be
used for the first election of the ARs. But in later elections, a ballot paper
could be used, bearing the names of those ARs who got most votes in that area
in the previous election (let us say the top 50 ARs). Any other ARs who sought
support in the area could also be voted for, but only by means of coupons.
How then can these Advisory
Representatives be expected to operate in practice, and what functions can they
be expected to perform? Since they will have no powers in the legislative
process, and since they will be extremely diverse in their interests and
concerns, it seems unlikely that they will want to meet as a body, in the same
way as a conventional second chamber would do. Instead, the ARs will act
separately, each lobbying on behalf of the electors who have voted for them
with government or parliament or perhaps with business, operating in a similar
way to the interest groups which exist at present.
The ARs will be continually seeking new interests and causes
to represent, in order to attract votes from electors who support them. Thus
latent interests which at present are not organised at all, will be articulated
and will then be able to exert influence. This scheme can be expected to reduce
the likelihood of demonstrations and riots, since it provides an alternative
way, one which is more peaceful and probably more effective, of making known to
the authorities the needs and grievances of the people.
Tel [int. 44] (0)1449 736 223
Fax [int. 44] (0)1449 612 274
e-mail: chapman@democdesignforum.co.uk