Taming the Electoral Beast

By Steven Hill
SPECIAL TO ITALY DAILY

Italy has been a dynamo of electoral change these last seven years. Electoral systems designers like myself are always eager to study politics and reform in action.
The goals of the May 21 referendum, one of seven issues that will be put to a popular vote, are certainly praiseworthy: to change the electoral conditions that have caused 58 short-lived governments since World War II. But beware of the “law of unintended conse-quences.” Strong evidence suggests that the proposed referendum may not achieve the desired goal.
The May 21 referendum seeks to complete the conversion of Italy’s national elections to a winner-take-all, district-based system. This electoral change, it is assumed by many, would decrease the number of smaller parties that buzz around the political landscape, creating something closer to a stable majoritarian two-party system.
But this assumption may be flawed. For instance, as a result of past reforms Italy already elects 75 percent of its national legislative seats by the winner-take-all method, and the remaining 25 percent with proportional system. And guess what? In the last national election, small political parties won more seats under the winner-take all method than under the proportional method.
Winner-take-all elections don’t always lead to the stability that Italy rightly seeks, and don’t always produce a majoritarian, two-party government.
In India, for instance, winner-take-all elections have led in recent years to a proliferation of regionally-based smaller parties and collapsing governments.
In Canada’s bizarre winner-take-all elections, regionally-based smaller parties have won numerous seats and nearly fueled secession. The Bloc Québecois Party became the third largest party in parliament, despite running no candidates outside of secessionist-minded Québec.
Italy, with its own regional splits and secessionist threats in the North, should take note.
It’s true that winner-take-all has not led to such regional balkanization in France and Britain. But in those countries, it has contributed to extremely disproportionate results. In France’s two-round system, the Socialists turned only 24 percent of the first-round vote into a majority of seats in the runoff with support from candidates. In Britain, Tony Blair’s Labour Party won 65 percent of the seats in the House of Commons with barely 43 percent of the popular vote.
In the United States, winner-take-all elections are dogged by an utter lack of competition and choice at the polls. For instance, a startling 41 percent of district races in state elections were uncontested because the parties save their resources for close races, and 90 percent of district races are not close.
This has greatly contributed to plunging voter turnouts — around 40 per-cent of eligible voters, sometimes less — because voters have few choices and little enthusiasm. While Italians have too many choices at the polls, American voters are begging for more choice.
Unfortunately, the results of winner-take-all elections around the world are not exactly encouraging. And it doesn’t seem to be working that well in Italy either. Voter turnout has begun to decline, and in the April 16 regional elections Italy experienced another frequent byproduct of winner-take-all — excessively negative campaigns devoid of issues. Debates between leaders of the center-right and center-left coalitions turned into opportunities to attack each other rather than discuss issues. Such behavior is very familiar to American and British audiences.
Given the severe drawbacks of winner-take-all elections, it may be helpful to know that there are several other ways to reduce the number of political parties and produce majoritarian government.
These include using smaller-sized constituencies of 3 to 7 seats as in Ireland, with corresponding higher victory thresholds; reducing the overly generous public financing given to smaller parties; increasing ballot access requirements that would make it more difficult for smaller parties to be placed on the ballot. Italy could even adopt a version of the new regional structure for the national elections, guaranteeing a majority of seats to the first-place political party.
The French do this for their regional governments, and it accomplishes the goal of majoritarian government. It is unfortunate that the drafting of the electoral reforms was left in the hands of the political parties themselves. This is a lot like leaving the fox to guard the chicken coop.
Whether the May 21 referendum passes are not, I’m afraid that Italy’s political difficulties are not likely to end anytime soon without reforms better targeted at the desired goal.
Mr. Hill is the western regional director of the Center for Voting and Democracy, based in San Francisco. He is co-author of “Reflecting All of Us” (Beacon Press 1999).