Musings on electoral systems: proportional representation, Swiss-style

Switzerland adopted proportional representation for federal elections in 1919, after a ballot initiative passed on the third attempt. The system used is a variation on the open-list proportional system common in Europe; but whereas most such systems allow the voter to cast one vote for either a party or an individual candidate, Switzerland adds complexity to maximise voter choice.

In a Swiss federal election, parties present one or more lists of candidates, ideally comprising as many candidates as there are seats to be filled (up to thirty-four in Zurich, the largest canton). Lists can be combined together, forming an apparentement, the result of which is that their vote totals are counted together, and thus their remainders over their original quota of seats can be combined to earn another seat. The apparentements also give voters an idea of which other parties a party can work with; for example, elections in Geneva are dominated by a Socialist/Green/Labour bloc and a Liberal/Radical/Christian Democrat bloc. Lists presented by the same party can also form a sous-apparentement within an apparentement. For example, parties can nominate all-female and all-male lists, a separate list for their youth branch, a list of candidates appealing to expatriate voters, or different lists for different regions of a canton.

The Swiss voter has as many votes as there are seats to be filled; for this example I will use eleven, Geneva’s representation in the National Council. She can cast a straight-ticket vote (vote compact), giving eleven party votes to the party of her choice and one personal vote each to its candidates. She can cross out (latoisage) the name of a disfavoured candidate on her party’s list, giving eleven party votes to the party but only ten personal votes to each of the non-eliminated candidates. She can cross out one candidate on her party’s list and give a second vote (cumul) to a favoured candidate; this gives eleven party votes and eleven personal votes (two to one candidate, one to nine, and none to one). She can replace a crossed-out candidate on her party’s list with a candidate from a different list (panachage); thus casting ten party votes for her original party and one for the party of the written-in candidate. And she can combine all these three methods on one ballot.

A list’s vote is the sum of personal votes received for its candidates and unused personal votes on its ballots (for example, when a voter crosses out a name but doesn’t replace it with any other candidate or a second vote for another candidate). The seats are distributed proportionally between all stand-alone lists and apparentements, and then between sous-apparentements and between their component lists, all without any electoral threshold. The seats won by each list are given to the candidates with the most personal votes.

The Swiss system allows the voter maximum freedom of choice: she can cast votes for candidates on different lists and cast double votes for candidates she particularly wants to see elected, and her influence on the ordering of the candidates on a list is in proportion to how many votes she cast for that list. By ensuring that a personal vote cast for a different party’s candidate means a party vote is cast for that list, the system prevents a voter from influencing another party’s candidate selection without throwing their lot in with that party. This stands in contrast to open primaries in the United States, where independents and supporters of other parties can vote in a party’s primary, then vote against it in November. (This can be the source of mischief, as when some Democrats tried to boost Rick Santorum’s chances against Mitt Romney this year.)

The system of apparentements means that voters can support a small party which is unlikely to win seats without wasting their vote, provided it is allied to larger parties. In the 2011 federal poll in Geneva, for example, the Greens retained their seat despite polling a lower percentage of the vote than in the previous election. The reason was the surge in support for smaller left-wing parties, who won no seats themselves but who helped the Socialist/Green bloc to increase its vote share. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Switzerland’s electoral system, however, is the way in which parties run multiple lists. The youth branches’ lists seem a good way to get more young people into elected office and would give the young activists valuable experience in running an election campaign. The expatriate lists look like a better way to ensure expatriate representation than the French and Italian experiments with (heavily gerrymandered) overseas constituencies, and the concept of sous-apparentements could be useful for promoting cross-ethnic parties in divided societies (for example, a party in Northern Ireland pooling the votes of a Protestant list and a Catholic list).

How would the Swiss system work if exported to the United States? Let’s assume a larger House of Representatives – I like the idea of one thousand members. The seats would be allocated to the states: Wyoming, the smallest, would have two; California would have over one hundred and twenty, and might need to be broken down into smaller regions. Primaries would become unnecessary, as all party factions and interest groups could be accommodated either by places on the main party ticket, or by the use of the sous-apparentement system – a list of establishment Republicans and a list of Teabaggers could pool their votes while retaining a certain distance from one another. In any case, the ability to replace candidates on lists and to cast double-votes for others would replicate the effect of primaries by allowing a party’s voters to determine which of its candidates are elected. With Duverger’s Law beaten, the Democratic-Republican duopoly could be replaced by a two-bloc system (for example, a Democratic-Green coalition might face off against a Republican-Libertarian-Constitution entente, and unhappy members of the current major parties could gravitate towards new or currently marginalised parties). And without wasted votes or the spoiler effect, no American voter need worry that casting a third-party vote will do a Ralph Nader to their preferred major party.