Reconciling Electoral Choice and Accountability

The normative debate on the best electoral system is paralyzed by the opposition between first-past-the-post systems (FPTP), which offer clear accountability while reducing electoral choice, and proportional representation (PR), which offers more choice and more diversified assemblies but dilutes responsibility in government coalitions, hampering popular accountability (Dummett 1997; Lijphart 1999; Anderson 2000; Powell 2000; Rosenbluth & Shapiro 2018). Moving beyond this opposition requires more imagination. In this paper, I put forward and defend an alternative voting method – Evaluative Voting with Majority Premium (EVMP) – that allows for multipartyism (thus increasing electoral choice) without threatening popular accountability through coalition governments. This method asks voters to evaluate all parties on a 0-5 grade scale instead of picking only one (evaluative voting). It then distributes seats in proportion to the share of points gathered by each party, with a majority premium for the most consensual party to secure a legislative majority. This is an original proposal since evaluative voting is usually advocated in the selection of a single winner (Balinski & Laraki 2010; Laslier 2019), not for the apportionment of seats. After introducing the different motivations for using this method, I address several objections. The disproportionality objection argues that the majority premium creates large and unfair disproportionality between votes and seat distribution. I reply that FPTP systems also create disproportionality and, in contrast with the winner of an election under FPTP and PR, the winner under EVMP enjoys much wider support because the method selects the most consensual party, thus lowering the disproportionality claim. The agonistic objection claims that EVMP, by selecting the most consensual candidate, is biased in favor of the political Center and would only promote very consensual policies. I reply by, first, distinguishing the more consensual candidate from the most centrist one. Second, I argue that EVMP does not reduce political competition and thus the agonistic dimension of democracy. To the contrary, it offers better prospects of social change by allowing multipartyism, which increases competition, and by facilitating the access to power to initially small, challenger parties. Finally, the complexity objection worries about the high complexity of EVMP compared to uninominal voting methods, which could be off-putting for some voters who would thereby be tempted to abstain. I reply by distinguishing the complexity of use from the complexity of seat distribution and argue that the use of EVMP is not that complex and that voters can handle complexity of seat distribution as already happens in complex electoral systems. References: Anderson, C. J. (2000). Economic voting and political context: a comparative perspective. Electoral Studies, 19, 151–170. Balinski, M., & Laraki, R. (2010). Majority judgment: measuring, ranking, and electing. MIT Press. Dummett, M. (1997). Principles of electoral reform. Oxford University Press. Laslier, J. F. (2019b). Voter autrement. Editions de l’ENS. Lijphart, A. (2012). Patterns of Democracy. Yale University Press. Powell, G. B. (2000). Elections as instruments of democracy: Majoritarian and proportional visions. Yale University Press. Rosenbluth, F., & Shapiro, I. (2018). Responsible parties: Saving democracy from itself. Yale University Press.