Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems that alters how public desires, usually expressed by cast votes, produce election results.
Description Reforms can include changes to: Voting systems, such as the adoption of proportional representation, single transferable voting, a two-round system (runoff voting), instant-runoff voting (alternative voting, ranked-choice voting, or preferential voting), instant round robin voting (called condorcet voting), range voting, approval voting, citizen initiatives, referendums, and recall elections Vote-counting procedures Rules about political parties, typically changes to election laws Eligibility to vote (including widening of the vote, enfranchisement and extension of suffrage to those of certain age, gender or race/ethnicity previously excluded) How candidates and political parties are able to stand (nomination rules) and how they are able to get their names onto ballots (ballot access) Electoral constituencies and election district borders, which can include consideration of multiple-member districts as opposed to single-member districts Ballot design and voting equipment Scrutineering (election monitoring by candidates, political parties, etc.) Safety of voters and election workers Measures against bribery, coercion, and conflicts of interest Financing of candidates' and referendum campaigns Factors which affect the rate of voter participation (voter turnout)
Electoral reforms can contribute to democratic backsliding or may be advances toward wider and deeper democracy.
The International Standards Organisation has started to formulate norms with regards to conducting elections of an acceptable quality ISO/TS 54001 is the quality management system with particular requirements for the application of ISO 9001:2015 for electoral organizations at all levels of government.
Nation-building In less democratic countries, dissidents often demand the holding of fair elections. Therefore, the most basic electoral-reform project in such countries is the establishment of a democratically elected government, in the best case scenario with a minimum of bloodshed, e.g. in South Africa in 1994. Such power transfers can be complex, and they tend to require changes to national or other constitutions to alter the balance of powers. Electoral reforms are often politically painful. The previously ruling authorities sometimes postpone reforms and fair elections as long as possible but, by doing so, risk social unrest, rebellion, political violence and civil war.
Role of United Nations The United Nations Fair Elections Commission provides international observers to national elections that are likely to face challenges by the international community of nations, e.g., in 2001 in Yugoslavia, in 2002 in Zimbabwe.
The United Nations standards address safety of citizens, coercion, scrutiny, and eligibility to vote. They do not impose ballot styles, party diversity, or borders on electoral constituencies. Various global political movements, e.g., labour movements, the Green party, Islamism, Zionism, advocate various cultural, social, ecological means of setting borders that they consider "objective" or "blessed" in some other way. Contention over electoral constituency borders within or between nations and definitions of "refugee", "citizen", and "right of return" mark various global conflicts, including those in Israel/Palestine, the Congo, and Rwanda.
Electoral boundaries
Electoral constituencies (or ridings or districts) need to be adjusted frequently, or by statutory rules and definitions, to eliminate malapportionment due to population movements. In some systems, this is done by moving the boundaries to take in more or fewer residents; in other systems, districts stay as they are and when necessary the number of members in the district is increased or decreased.
Multi-member districts are a component of many proportional representation systems. Where they are used, the number of seats in a district (not the districts' boundaries) may be altered. This satisfies one of the reasons to change electoral district boundaries: to ensure that the ratio between the number of voters (or population) and each of the members in the district is the same across districts.
The use of districts of different district magnitudes, with varying numbers of seats in each district perhaps ranging from one to ten or more, allows representation of electoral districts to be changed to be broadly proportional to the number of voters while retaining pre-existing districts, such as city corporate limits, counties or even provinces or states.
The lack of respect for "natural" boundaries (municipalities, community, infrastructure or natural areas) is a noted disadvantage of the single-member districts that are necessary for first-past-the-post voting. The lack of "natural" boundaries also appears in some criticisms of proposed reforms, such as the Jenkins Commission's proposal of the alternative vote plus system for the United Kingdom, because of its use of artificial single-member districts.
Some electoral reforms seek to have district boundaries match pre-existing jurisdictions or cultural or ecological criteria (with the number of district members adjusted, when necessary, to reflect population changes). Bioregional democracy sets boundaries to fit exactly with ecoregions to seek to improve the management of commonly owned property and natural resources. Fixing districts in place is a way to avoid gerrymandering, in which constituency boundaries are set to deliberately favor one party over another.
By country Albania In 2020, a 1 percent electoral threshold was set and the election campaign financing law was reformed in Albania.
Australia The Proportional Representation Society of Australia advocates the single transferable vote and proportional representation.
STV is currently used to elect the upper house at the national level and in four states, and the lower house in two states.
Canada Several national and provincial organizations promote electoral reform, especially by advocating more party-proportional representation, as most regions of Canada have at least three competitive political parties (some four or five) and the traditional first-past-the-post election system operates best where just two parties are competing. The leading alternatives to first past the post currently are STV, mixed-member proportional representation (MMP; uses both single-member districts and top-up seats), and rural–urban proportional representation (which combines STV in multi-member districts, single member districts and top-up seats). Others are dual-member PR, local PR and list PR in multi-member districts. These PR systems emphasize either proportional allocation of seats to parties (or their candidates) or a high rate of effective votes (votes actually used to elect someone), through transfers away from where initially placed if that means they would be wasted (STV) or through many parties electing representation (most forms of PR). Both proportionality and a raised rate of effective votes result, whichever strategy is emphasized.
The Constitution of Canada prevents votes from moving across provincial borders, so without constitutional change, no overall proportionality can be guaranteed. Multi-member districts are currently prohibited, but that is at the discretion of the Parliament of Canada. Federal elections, as well as elections in every province, have used multi-member districts in the past. Historically, all electoral systems used in Canada have allowed voters to cast a vote (or votes) only for a specific candidate (or candidates); casting a vote for a party list has never been done in Canada.
There are several electoral reform advocacy groups. Fair Vote Canada is a large non-party organization advocating electoral reform nationally. The Equal Vote Coalition has organized a multi-year research campaign involving many of the world experts on electoral reform.
The Election Districts Voting organization advocates a particular form of proportional representation where a vote is used in successively larger districts. The plan is intended to ensure large majorities of voters directly elect party candidates of choice, not just parties of choice.
Canada has not always used the single-winner first-past-the-post system that is now ubiquitous. As recently as the 1990s, plurality block voting was in use. The provinces of Manitoba and Alberta used proportional representation (single transferable voting) to elect some of their members of the Legislative Assembly from the 1920s to the 1950s. Since Canadian Confederation, the franchise has been extended to give the vote to women and to adults of races or ethnic groups previously barred from voting,status Indians and adults younger than 21. So far none of those changes have followed a referendum, with the sole exception being extension of the franchise to (some) women in British Columbia in 1916.
Several referendums to decide whether or not to adopt proportional representation have been held at the provincial level since 2005. None thus far has resulted in a change from the plurality system. The referendum threshold for adoption of new voting systems has regularly been set at a "supermajority": for example, 60 percent of ballots cast approving the change in order for the change to be implemented. In most provincial referendums, the change side received less than 40 percent support. But in two cases, a majority of voters voted for change.
In the 2005 electoral reform referendum held in British Columbia, a majority of votes were cast in favour of change to STV, but the government did not assent to the public will.
In the November 7, 2016, electoral reform plebiscite on Prince Edward Island, the government declined to specify in advance how it would use the results. Mixed-member proportional representation won the five-option instant-runoff voting contest, taking 55 percent of the final vote versus 45 percent for first-past-the-post. The PEI government did not implement a proportional voting system, saying the turnout of only 36 percent made it "doubtful whether these results can be said to constitute a clear expression of the will of Prince Edward Islanders". PEI regularly sees turnout above 80 percent in most elections.
seven provincial level referendums on electoral reform have been held: 2005 British Columbia electoral reform referendum 2005 Prince Edward Island electoral reform referendum 2007 Ontario electoral reform referendum 2009 British Columbia electoral reform referendum 2016 Prince Edward Island electoral reform referendum 2018 British Columbia electoral reform referendum 2019 Prince Edward Island electoral reform referendum
During the 2015 federal election, all three major opposition partiesthe Liberals, the NDP and the Greenspromised some measure of electoral reform before the next federal election. The NDP promised to implement mixed-member proportional representation with regional (sub-provincial) districting and open lists, based on the 2004 recommendations of the Law Commission.
The Liberal leader at the time, Justin Trudeau, promised to make the 2015 election the last that would use first-past-the-post. He promised, if elected, to form an all-party committee to investigate various electoral reform options "including proportional representation, ranked ballots, mandatory voting and online voting". Trudeau admitted that in 2015, he preferred a winner-take-all, preferential voting system known as instant-runoff voting. Despite his misgivings about proportional representation, Trudeau promised he would approach the issue with an open mind.