Is the scorporo system used for voting, birth control or to eliminate enemies in the Mafia?
It is the system used in Hungary in their elections for the National Assembly held last Sunday and it isn’t simple. Wikipedia explains.
“Scorporo is a partially compensatory mixed-member majoritarian electoral system, sometimes referred to as a negative vote transfer system (NVT),whereby a portion of members are elected in single-member districts(SMDs) and a portion are elected from a list. It may be fully defined as a parallel voting system, which excludes a portion (up to 100%) of the SMD winners’ votes in electing the proportional tier, to result in a more proportional outcome.”
So now you know. The only thing I know is that it produced a decisive change of government and the incumbent stood down gracefully. Any form of proportional representation is often though to produce coalitions but not this time, I think because the opposition parties came together to provide one united option for change. In Hungary a two thirds majority is needed to transact significant constitutional changes. It was on the World Service so must be true. One wonders why a higher bar was not put in place for the 2016 plebiscite in the UK. One hopes that it may be in the event of another referendum on Scottish secession from the UK.
A lot of aspects of democracy are perplexing. Many countries gave women the vote in the 19th and early 20th centuries; Britain was among the last, France waited until the end of WW II and the last canton in Switzerland reluctantly agreed in 1990.
I wonder if the UK and US are getting left behind democratically having first past the post? They are not alone as many countries, often former British colonies, have FPtP. In the UK proportional representation is creeping in for some local and mayoral elections but it would be a big change to introduce some PR variant for elections to the H of C. The Senedd, that’s the joke known as a parliament in Wales, have changed their recipe this year.
“The new system is called a ‘closed proportional list system.’ This means the number of seats a party or independent candidate wins will more closely reflect the percentage of votes they get.
- Political parties will prepare a list of up to eight candidates for each constituency. Independent candidates can also stand for election.
- On election day, everyone age 16 and over will have one vote for the party or independent candidate they want to represent their constituency.
- Your ballot paper will show the candidate lists for your area, so you can see who is standing for each party, along with any independent candidates.
- Seats will be allocated based on the share of votes each party or independent candidate receives.
- So, if Party A gets 50% of the votes in a constituency, it is likely they would get three of the six seats. If Party B gets 30%, it is likely they would get two of the six seats.
- Under the list system, if a party wins enough votes to gain three seats, the top three people on their list will be elected as Members of the Senedd.
- Independent candidates will also win seats if they have enough votes.” (Senedd Wales)
Maybe Westminster is better off sticking with a system voters usually understand even if it embraces the Condorcet loser paradox. But that’s another story.