Representation: Elections and Beyond

Chapter 1. Evaluating U.S. Electoral Institutions in Comparative Perspective

CHAPTER 1 Evaluating U.S. Electoral Institutions in Comparative Perspective André Blais The purpose of this chapter is to provide an evaluation of U.S. electoral systems and electoral institutions more broadly, in comparative perspective. I will first determine how typical or untypical U.S. institutions are. I will then indicate how comparativists tend to judge these institutions. Finally, I will ascertain how well or poorly these institutions are seen to perform by citizens. My argument is that the United States has odd institutions, which most comparativists judge negatively (and do not recommend for new democracies ), yet American citizens seem to be relatively satisfied. I contend that comparativists are right and people are wrong. Americans should not be satisfied with what they have. So the question becomes: why are Americans satisfied with their institutions (when they should not be)? A Weird Set of Institutions I start with the electoral system. Almost all elections in the U.S. are held under first past the post (FPTP), under which the candidate with the most votes is elected in single-member constituencies. The dominant pattern in contemporary democracies is to have proportional representation (PR) or a mixed system with some dose of proportionality. First-past-the-post elections are not exceptional. They prevail in Canada, the Caribbean Islands, India, and the UK, basically in former British colonies. But they do not exist 16 André Blais outside former British colonies, and quite a few of these colonies have abandoned them: Ireland for the single transferable vote (STV), Australia for the alternative vote (AV), and New Zealand for a mixed-member-proportional (MMP) system. Even in the UK, FPTP is now used only for national legislative elections. Furthermore, none of the new democracies have adopted it. Most experts believe that FPTP is not a very good system. Bowler, Farrell , and Pettitt (2005) asked international experts to rank-order nine electoral systems. First past the post came out six out of nine in mean rank, far behind MMP, STV, open-list PR, AV, and even closed-list PR. Expert international opinion is that there should be some dose of proportionality. I should add that expert support for PR has weakened recently, especially among economists who have argued that coalition governments produced by PR systems foster logrolling (see Persson and Tabellini 2003; Bawn and Rosenbluth 2006). The new trend is to argue that the “best” system is one with a weak dose of proportionality, that is, low magnitude district PR (see, most especially, Carey and Hix 2011). Still, the majority view among experts is that first past the post is not a “good” system. American presidential elections are not held under first past the post. The voting rule is majority, that is, a candidate must obtain more than half of the votes within the Electoral College (though electors are chosen by plurality rule within states). The U.S. is, on this score, unique. No other contemporary nonparliamentary democracy elects its president indirectly (Shugart 2000). The few electoral colleges that existed, such as in Argentina and Taiwan, have been abolished. As Shugart (150) notes, “as long as the representatives who make the selection are themselves democratically elected and accountable through subsequent election, indirect election arguably is no less democratic than direct election, and it may be especially consistent with principles of federalism.” Yet the point is that electoral colleges are almost unanimously viewed as “dépassé” and unacceptable in a democracy. The electoral system literature has come to acknowledge that it is not sufficient to distinguish voting rules on the basis of the electoral formula or district magnitude, but that it is also crucial to take into account how much freedom the voting rule allows citizens to express their views about the candidates (see especially Carey and Shugart 1995; Colomer 2011). From this perspective it is important to consider the system used for the selection of party candidates. In the U.S., the dominant mechanism is the primary. As Jewell (2000: 224) observes, “The United States is the only country in which almost all party nominations are made directly or indirectly by the voters U.S. Electoral Institutions in Comparative Perspective 17 rather than by the leaders or groups of persons who are active in the party.” Here again, the United States is exceptional, but contrary to the previous dimension (the Electoral College), the U.S. may be construed as “avantgarde ,” as something to be emulated...