Election Method to Enhance Policy Representation

Abstract

Many voters are swayed more by the charisma, personal image and communication skills of the candidates standing for election than by the parties’ manifestos, which causes them to cast votes that are actually in opposition to their policy preferences. Such behavior, known as ‘irrational voting’, results in the election of representatives who do not correspond to the voters’ own views. In this chapter, an alternative election method is proposed, whereby the voters’ policy preferences are taken into account explicitly by means of embedded referenda, testing the degree to which the candidates’ policy profiles match with that of the electorate. Next, the parties are indexed — not with respect to the percentage of votes received but with respect to their representativeness indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented) and universality (frequency in representing a majority), as introduced previously. The method is then hypothetically applied to redistribute the Bundestag seats among the party factions in proportion to their indices, producing a considerable gain in the representativeness of the Bundestag. Finally, we discuss mixed election procedures combining the