The spread of party allegiances would make a simple single-seat system unworkable, writes
GARRETT FITZGERALD.
SOME OF those who want to move away from the present multi-seat PR system favour instead a single-seat system that would employ the alternative vote, viz: 1,2,3 in order of your choice.
However, in Irish conditions this could on occasion wipe out parliamentary opposition - as actually happened in Canada some years ago, when a defeated government emerged from an election with only two seats. The only reason why this has not occurred more often in the very small number of states that have retained the British-type single-seat first-past-the-post electoral system is that party support in those countries varies widely as between different regions - so the largest party in the state does not come first in almost every constituency.
However, in Ireland political allegiances are very evenly distributed, with the result that in the most recent Irish general election in 2007, in which Fianna Fáil secured less than 42 per cent of the total vote, its candidates were first past the post in 39 out of 43 constituencies.
The record shows that, while the use of the alternative vote in single-seat constituencies would mitigate slightly the disproportionality of national results in a general election, using single-seat constituencies would not eliminate this feature. Even if the alternative vote had been used in 43 single-seat constituencies in the 2007 general election, Fianna Fáil, with less than 42 per cent of the vote, would still have won 32 or 33 of the 43 constituencies - thus securing about 75 per cent of the seats with less than 42 per cent of the vote! It is true that within some of these 32 or 33 Fianna Fáil-dominated constituencies there will be a few areas where a party other than Fianna Fáil might have a local advantage, but it is patently clear that, even with a much larger number of single-seat constituencies, at least two-thirds of the seats would nevertheless have gone to Fianna Fáil, and at most one-third to all the other parties which, in that election, secured over 58 per cent of the popular vote.
So, the fact is that, even with alternative voting, the fairly even geographical spread of party allegiances in our State would make a single-seat system unworkable without a significant modification.
Logically this leaves only two alternatives that are used in various parts of Europe and elsewhere. Either an electoral system in which people would vote for party lists of candidates rather than individuals, or else a single-seat system modified or supplemented in such a way as to ensure proportionality between votes cast and seats won.
Under the first of these two systems each party would present constituency candidate lists, and, depending upon the votes received, those highest on each list would be elected. Some list systems permit voters to buck the party ordering of candidates on their chosen list by expressing a preference for a particular candidate or candidates of their choice. However, I would judge that, even with that modification, Irish people would far prefer to be able to vote for individuals than for party lists. Furthermore, our politicians would also prefer to be voted for as individuals rather than as a name on a party list - especially as the order of placement on such a list would determine their chance of being elected and would have been decided by party managers.
That seems to me to leave only one kind of alternative to our present system, namely some variant of the German electoral system, also used in Scotland, Wales, Hungary and Lithuania. Under this system the majority of members of parliament are elected in single-seat constituencies, but are then supplemented by additional members in such a way as to ensure that the full parliament will be proportionately representative of the wishes of the electorate, as expressed by the voters in that election.
What proportion of Dáil membership would need to consist of additional members in order to ensure that in practice the numbers elected initially for any party in the single-member constituencies would not turn out to exceed their eventual proportionate share of Dáil membership? Research I undertook a decade ago suggests that in order to ensure that this does not happen, not more than 60 per cent of deputies should be elected from single-seat constituencies, the remainder to be additional members.
For the existing TDs to accept such a system it would, I believe, be necessary for most of the additional members also to be selected by the electorate rather than by the party managers. This could be done if, after the TDs in the single-seat constituencies were elected, the party lists for additional members were constituted of those who, in the final count, had the second-highest share of a constituency vote. If this were done in 30 per cent of the constituencies, then half of these would have two personally elected TDs instead of one.
The remaining 10 per cent of TDs could then be drawn from short party lists, so preserving personal selection of TDs for 90 per cent of Dáil membership. The parties might be enabled to secure some additional expertise among their parliamentary membership.
Note: In this article I have used the last election, in which Fianna Fáil secured over 40 per cent of the votes, to illustrate my points. With so much uncertainty about the current political situation the boot could next time be on another foot. But the argument remains valid whatever party might be dominant.