Elections occur in all democracies and many nondemocratic regimes as well. They determine who will hold public office and who will have the power to govern. They connect citizens to those whom they choose to make decisions on their behalf and who regulate their behavior. This book looks comparatively at the key aspects of elections. In addition to describing types of electoral systems, it discusses the implications of the various systems for the administration of elections, voter participation, representation, government stability, and other factors. Where appropriate, it examines efforts to reform a nation's (or a sub-national entity's) system, exploring the impetus for reform and the effects of those reforms when implemented.
L. Sandy Maisel and Jennifer A. Yoder lay out the variety of electoral systems in the broadest terms—single-member district plurality systems; proportional systems; and mixed systems. They discuss voting and the various electoral institutions used to implement the ways in which voting occurs and how votes are tabulated across electoral systems. They analyze the consequences of each system, first for the functioning of the democracy, and second for the electoral strategies politicians employ, closing with a discussion of reforms under consideration in a number of countries.
Few Americans and even fewer citizens of other nations understand the electoral process in the United States. Still fewer understand the role played by political parties in the electoral process or the ironies within the system. Participation in elections in the United States is much lower than in the vast majority of mature democracies. Perhaps this is because of the lack of competition in a country where only two parties have a true chance of winning, despite the fact that a large number of citizens claim allegiance to neither and think badly of both. Or perhaps it is because in the US campaign contributions disproportionately favor incumbents in most legislative elections, or that largely unregulated groups such as the now notorious 527s have as much impact on the outcome of a campaign as do the parties or the candidates' campaign organizations. Studying these factors, you begin to get a very clear picture indeed of the problems that underlay our much trumpeted electoral system.
This Very Short Introduction introduces the listener to these issues and more, providing an insider's view of how the system actually works while shining a light on some of its flaws.
