Draft:History and use of electoral systems

An electoral system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Elections and referendums have been organized by governments, business, non-profit organisations and informal organizations. There are many variations in electoral systems, with the most common systems being first-past-the-post voting, the two-round (runoff) system, and proportional representation.

The study of electoral methods is called social choice theory or voting theory, and this study can take place within the field of political science, economics, or mathematics, and specifically within the subfields of game theory and mechanism design.

Timeline

A chronological list of discovery, invention, development, description, or first known adoption and major use of electoral systems.

Pre-Arrovian

Premodern

• c. 5th century BCE - Direct democracy in ancient Greece. Ostracism by plurality vote in Athens. A early version of score voting in ancient Sparta, by measuring how loudly the crowd shouted for different candidates.

• 1201–1300 – Venice adopts rules closely-related to score voting to elect their Great Council and Doge of Venice.
• 1299 – Ramon Llull devised the earliest known Condorcet method (Copeland's method) and Borda's method.
• 1401–1464 – Nicholas of Cusa independently discovers the Borda count.

18th century

• 1770 – Jean-Charles de Borda first proposes the Borda count.
• 1788 – In his foundational writings on voting theory, Nicolas de Condorcet first describes his majority-rule principle and explains the spoiler effect.
  • Condorcet invents instant-runoff (IRV) as an example of a non-majoritarian system, and rejects it on these grounds.
• 1792 – Birth of apportionment methods.
  • Future U.S. president Thomas Jefferson invents the D'Hondt (or Jefferson) method.
  • Alexander Hamilton invents Hamilton's method.
• 1793 – Condorcet invents Bucklin voting.

19th century

• 1819 – Thomas Wright Hill proposes the first rule for proportional representation, the Single Transferable Vote (STV).
• 1830 – The two-round system is first adopted as part of the reforms of the July Monarchy.
• 1832 – Webster's method, also called the Sainte-Laguë method, is first described by American senator and orator Daniel Webster.
• 1868 – The Droop quota is discovered by Henry Richmond Droop.
• 1870 – Cumulative voting is adopted for elections to the Illinois House of Representatives.
• 1876 – Dodgson's method is first described by Charles L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll).
• 1878 – D'Hondt method re-invented independently by Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt.
• 1880 – Gregory's method refines the single transferable vote by eliminating randomness in vote transfers.
• 1882 – Nanson's method first invented.
• 1884 – A form of liquid democracy is first described by Charles L. Dodgson.
• 1892 – Instant-runoff vote used to elect the Legislative Assembly of Queensland.
• 1895 – Proportional approval voting invented.
• 1899 – Phragmen's voting rules published.
• 1899 – Sequential proportional approval voting first described.

• 1912 – Interactive representation first proposed.
• 1923 – Benito Mussolini implements the majority jackpot by the Acerbo Law as part of the rise of Italian fascism.

Post-Arrovian (Modern social choice)

• 1948 – Kenneth Arrow publishes his paper on the general impossibility theorem, inaugurating the modern field of social choice theory.
• 1948 – Duncan Black publishes his paper describing the median voter theorem.
• 1949 – Mixed-member proportional representation implemented in West Germany.
• 1959 – The Kemeny–Young method is first extensively studied by John Kemeny, who shows it returns the maximum likelihood ranking of candidates.
• 1972 – Allan Gibbard proves his seminal theorem on the impossibility of strategyproof voting rules.
• 1977 – Doron and Kronick are the first to demonstrate the perversity of instant-runoff.
• 1978 – Steven Brams and Peter C. Fishburn give the first extensive analysis of approval voting, including its strategic behavior.
• 1987 – Ranked pairs (RP) is invented by economist Nicolaus Tideman.
• 1990 – Positive vote transfer system using a mixed single vote is adopted in Hungary.
• 1992 – The Society for Social Choice and Welfare adopts approval voting for its internal elections.
• 1993 – Negative vote transfer system is implemented in Italy, where the mechanism is called scorporo.
• 1997 – Schulze method developed by Markus Schulze.
• 1998 – Alternative vote plus (AV+) proposed by the Jenkins Commission in the UK.

21st century

• 2003 – Fair majority voting (a type of biproportional apportionment) first described.
• 2007 – Majority Judgement is invented by Balinski & Laraki.
• 2008 – Wright system first described.
• 2013 – Dual-member proportional representation (DMP) invented.
• 2014 – STAR voting first described.
• 2016 – Rural–urban proportional representation (RUP) first proposed in Canada.
• 2017 – The Method of Equal Shares, a proportional method of participatory budgeting, is invented.
• 2019 – Usual Judgement invented.

History and use of major systems

Plurality voting and winner-take-all

Instant-runoff voting

Main articles: History and use of instant-runoff voting and History and use of instant-runoff voting in the United States

Proportional and semi-proportional systems

Single transferable vote

Main article: History and use of the single transferable vote

Historically, the single transferable vote (STV) was the first electoral system designed to achieve proportional representation.

It has seen a series of relatively modest periods of usage and disusage throughout the world; however, today it is seeing increasing popularity among proponents of electoral reform as a method of proportional or semi-proportional representation. This is especially prominent in the English speaking world, where reformers advocate for STV due to its similarity to FPTP in that voters primarily vote for candidates, not party-lists. By contrast, countries which developed or reformed their electoral systems later, without the long-lasting tradition of plurality or majoritarian voting (often implemented before modern party systems), list PR was more likely to be adopted.

STV has been used in many different local, regional and national electoral systems, as well as in various other types of bodies, around the world, notably in Australia, Ireland and Malta.

List PR

Party-list PR is the newer and by far the most common version of proportional representation, although it is relatively less common in English speaking world, where majoritarian representation via first-past-the-post is still often dominant. The historical reason for the is the Westminster system of government and it's influence among former colonies of the United Kingdom.

Electoral reform in list PR systems often focuses on implementing open lists, instead of closed lists, giving voters more control on which candidates get elected. However, there are parties which promote majoritarian systems for various reasons, ranging from simplicity, governability, and personalised representation. An example is the Dutch Democrats 66 party. Others campaign for the opposite, increasing proportionality by larger constituencies (sometimes a single, national constituency) and abolishment of electoral thresholds.

Use by country

Main article: List of electoral systems by country

References

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