Electoral Reform In 2000?

The next year could see impassioned debate in the Republic over the merits of changing Ireland's method of electing its politicians. The current Minister for the Environment, Fianna Fail's Noel Dempsey, has been a strong supporter of electoral reform for some time now and has been "floating" the idea in the media for months, perhaps in an effort to give the government some idea of public reaction to the proposal. Recently it was announced that the Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrat coalition would try to win a majority of Dail deputies over to the idea, which will enable the government to enact legislation calling for a national referendum on the new electoral system. If it were to pass, a new system could be in place before the next general election.

The current system, proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote (PR-STV), has been in use in Ireland for 90 years. Under this system each Dail constituency is represented by multiple seats rather than just one. Voters rank each candidate in the constituency from first preference to last on their ballots. In each round of vote counting the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and his/her votes are then distributed to the remaining candidates according to the preferences indicated on his/her ballots. This continues until the number of remaining candidates equals the number of constituency seats. A typical result in a 4-seat constituency could be 2 Fianna Fail, 1 Fine Gael, and 1 Labour candidate getting elected.

Ireland is one of only two countries in the world to use STV (the other is the tiny state of Malta). The main problem with it, in the eyes of its detractors, is the excessively local orientation of the TDs (members of parliament) it produces. In this view Irish politicians are forced to spend too much time competing with the other TDs in their constituency in looking after constituent matters and local concerns. Satisfying these local concerns, of course, is an indispensable component of winning elections. This leaves less time available for work on issues of national importance, and also leaves less time available for work in the increasingly important European Union arena.

The alternative favored by the current government is a system of combined single-seat constituencies and list system. Voters would have two ballots, one to elect their local TD and one in which they vote for a particular party list. Constituency TDs would be elected under a first-past-the-post system like that of the US and the UK. The party list vote would then be calculated, and the percentage of seats that each party should have would be calculated from this vote. The difference between this number and the number of seats the party won through the constituency vote would be the number of seats that party fills from its list.

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