Fremdverwertung und Personenstimmenparadox: Negatives Stimmgewicht im Bremer und Hamburger Bürgerschaftswahlrecht - Nomos eLibrary

ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen / Fremdverwertung und Personenstimmenparadox: Negatives Stimmgewicht im Bremer und Hamburger Bürgerschaftswahlrecht

ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen / Fremdverwertung und Personenstimmenparadox: Negatives Stimmgewicht im Bremer und Hamburger Bürgerschaftswahlrecht

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ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen , page 561 - 577

Fremdverwertung und Personenstimmenparadox: Negatives Stimmgewicht im Bremer und Hamburger Bürgerschaftswahlrecht

Autoren

Valentin Schröder

DOI
- doi.org/10.5771/0340-1758-2015-3-561
- ISSN: 0340-1758
- ISSN online: 0340-1758
Zusammenfassung

The 2011 reforms of the laws guiding the elections to the state parliaments in Bremen and Hamburg introduced systems of combined open and closed list proportional representation: Each voter can now cast five votes for party lists (list vote) and/or specific candidates (candidate vote). Seats are assigned as “list” or “candidate” mandates according to quotas derived from the list vote and candidate vote totals. This system can result in a paradox situation in which contenders can miss a seat due to having won too many candidate votes; twice this has happened in the four post-reform elections. Ensuing negative weights of their candidate votes implies a breach of the principle of electoral equality. Moreover, since voters pondering whether to cast candidate votes or not cannot gauge whether their decision will lead to negative weights, the electoral system is not transparent. The problem could be solved by introducing a mechanism that corrects for negative voting weights candidatewise. But this would make the electoral system more complicated. Alternatively, the quota system could be replaced by assigning candidate mandates only to contenders whose candidate vote totals surpass the natural hurdle, i.e. the minimum number of votes needed to win a seat. This would reduce both the number of candidate mandates allotted and the electoral system’s complexity. [ZParl, vol. 46 (2015), no. 3, pp. 561 – 577]

Abstract

The 2011 reforms of the laws guiding the elections to the state parliaments in Bremen and Hamburg introduced systems of combined open and closed list proportional representation: Each voter can now cast five votes for party lists (list vote) and/or specific candidates (candidate vote). Seats are assigned as “list” or “candidate” mandates according to quotas derived from the list vote and candidate vote totals. This system can result in a paradox situation in which contenders can miss a seat due to having won too many candidate votes; twice this has happened in the four post-reform elections. Ensuing negative weights of their candidate votes implies a breach of the principle of electoral equality. Moreover, since voters pondering whether to cast candidate votes or not cannot gauge whether their decision will lead to negative weights, the electoral system is not transparent. The problem could be solved by introducing a mechanism that corrects for negative voting weights candidatewise. But this would make the electoral system more complicated. Alternatively, the quota system could be replaced by assigning candidate mandates only to contenders whose candidate vote totals surpass the natural hurdle, i.e. the minimum number of votes needed to win a seat. This would reduce both the number of candidate mandates allotted and the electoral system’s complexity. [ZParl, vol. 46 (2015), no. 3, pp. 561 – 577]
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