Content Categorized with "International Snapshot"
1 - 10 of 17 results
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Term Limits Strengthen Colombia's Democracy
- Posted: March 10, 2010
- Author(s): Pauline Lejeune
- Categories: Home, Fair Elections, Research & Analysis, Innovative Analysis, International Snapshot, FairVote
A couple of weeks ago, the Colombian Constitutional Court rejected legislation calling for a referendum that would have increased presidential term limits from two to three terms.
This decision prevents President Alvaro Uribe from running for a third straight term in office and sends a strong signal to the international community: the burgeoning Colombian democracy won’t be part of the autocratic wave in South America. -
Iraq’s 2010 Parliamentary Election - Part 3: The Electoral Process as a Stabilizer for the Country
- Posted: March 8, 2010
- Author(s): Pauline Lejeune
- Categories: Home, Fair Elections, Fair Representation, Research & Analysis, Fair Access to Participation, Proportional Voting, Innovative Analysis, International Snapshot, FairVote
Yesterday, about 18.9 million eligible Iraqis had the opportunity to elect their 325-member Council of Representatives through an open-list proportional system. Counting is now underway and the first partial results could be released later this week. In the meantime, there is a lot to be said about how this Iraqi election is impacting the country’s political future.
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Iraq’s 2010 Parliamentary Election - Part 2: A Refined PR System to Improve Representation
- Posted: March 5, 2010
- Author(s): Pauline Lejeune
- Categories: Home, Fair Elections, Democracy SOS Project, Research & Analysis, Fair Representation, Proportional Voting, Fair Access to Participation, Innovative Analysis, International Snapshot, FairVote
This Sunday, Iraq will elect its parliament for the third time in five years. For the first time, they will use an “open” list proportional system, which is seen as a major step to cement Iraqi democracy.
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Iraq’s 2010 Parliamentary Election - Part 1: Chronicles of a Struggle for Democracy
- Posted: February 24, 2010
- Author(s): Pauline Lejeune
- Categories: Home, Fair Elections, Choice Voting, Research & Analysis, Fair Representation, Proportional Voting, International Snapshot, FairVote
FairVote starts a series of comprehensive blog posts about the Iraqi 2010 parliamentary elections, focusing on how Iraq has been working on building an inclusive fair voting system by relying on proportional representation (PR) instead of winner-take-all.
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Cleaning up politics: the UK to use alternative voting?
- Posted: February 10, 2010
- Author(s): Pauline Lejeune
- Categories: Fair Elections, Choice Voting, Home, Fix the House, Fair Representation, Proportional Voting, Instant Runoff Voting, International Snapshot
In the context of major distrust by British citizens of their almost 800 year-old democracy and their politicians, Gordon Brown proposed on February 2nd, in a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research, to get rid of the UK’s “first-past-the-post” voting system.
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International Snapshot: Japan 2009
- Posted: November 24, 2009
- Author(s): Rob Richie, Pauline Lejeune
- Categories: Reports, Research & Analysis, Proportional Voting, International Snapshot, FairVote
The Japanese parliamentary elections in August 30, 2009 marked a turning point in Japan’s political history. Since 1955, Japan has been dominated by one party, with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as the governing party for all but 11 months. But in these elections the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) defeated the LDP, winning 308 seats to 109 for the LDP in the 480-seat House of Representatives.
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U.S.-style primaries are inspiring the French Socialist Party
- Posted: October 14, 2009
- Author(s): Pauline Lejeune
- Categories: Fair Elections, Home, Fair Representation, International Snapshot
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Germany’s federal parliament: fair and accurate representation
- Posted: September 30, 2009
- Author(s): Pauline Lejeune
- Categories: Home, Fair Representation, Research & Analysis, Proportional Voting, International Snapshot
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International Snapshot: Australia 2007
- Posted: January 1, 2008
- Author(s): Aurelie Marfort
- Categories: Fair Elections, Research & Analysis, Instant Runoff Voting, International Snapshot, FairVote
On November 24th 2007, Australia elected its House of Representatives with instant runoff voting (IRV), as it has for more than eight decades. After four straight election defeats, the Labor Party won a landslide majority of seats. Under IRV, Labor's initial 44% of first choices turned into a clear majority after considering the choices of supporters of third party candidates with too little support to win seats. The Green Party's 7.79% share of the national vote largely went to Labor in House races; that share earned several senate seats elected by proportional voting. Due in large part to compulsory voting, turnout was 94.77%; Australians rank near the top of national comparisons of voter satisfaction with their government.
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International Snapshot: Scotland 2007
- Posted: July 11, 2007
- Author(s): Dan Tessler
- Categories: Reports, Research & Analysis, Proportional Voting, International Snapshot, FairVote
On May 3, 2007, Scottish voters used two proportional voting systems simultaneously: for the first time ever, choice voting (or the single transferable vote) for local councils, and once again, mixed member proportional voting for the Scottish Parliament. The local council elections saw increased participation and broadly representative results. Despite the first-time use of choice voting alongside a completely different voting system, error rates were, on average, remarkably low. The MMP elections ensured proportionality in seat shares and arguably prevented a wrong-winner result. There was early controversy over error rates allegedly around 10%, but actual error rates were lower. Later research moreover confirmed that voter error was due to critical ballot design flaws.