A world of voting systems: What is the right choice for Bangladesh?

Bangladesh stands on the precipice of comprehensive state reforms, a big part of which is going to be an overhaul of the election system. A government committee has been formed to look at all possibilities, discussions are taking place with the involvement of political parties, experts, and regular citizens.

While voting in elections may seem straightforward to most, the number of different electoral systems around the world is testament to the complex nature of democratically determining rulers of populations.

In Bangladesh, and many other countries in the world, the electoral process is dominated by just two parties -- which may not be the most effective when it comes to a truly representational democracy.

This allows elections to become simply about whoever gets the most votes. But if we expect more parties to get involved in a participatory democratic environment, then the weaknesses of these simple voting mechanisms start to get exposed.

What happens if there are three candidates, and one of them receives 34 percent of the votes while the others get 33 percent each? Is it fair for a politician who is supported by only 34 percent of the people to represent everyone?

With a view to making sure that every vote has an impact on deciding who gets to run the country, it's important to look at alternative voting systems. Many of these systems account for the fact that in a pluralistic democratic environment, there will be many more than two candidates or parties. Some take into account the fact that voters may have a first choice, a second choice, and so on, and all these choices have the right to be taken seriously.

This field of study has a name -- social choice theory, which is based on rigorous mathematics and economic principles. While it might be difficult to delve into too many details of social choice theory in this article, with comprehensive electoral reforms on the cards, let us look at some common voting systems around the world and see what options the future holds for Bangladesh.

Plurality voting or first-past-the-post

This is the current voting system in use in Bangladesh and at least 39 other countries for their national legislature. In it, the candidate with the most votes in an election wins, no matter the turnout, even if the candidate has achieved less than 50 percent of the votes. Many of the countries that use this system are former British colonies, and in the UK, this system has been used since the middle ages.

In first-past-the-post or plurality voting, the winner is not always the one with majority support. Photo: Creative Commons

The main criticism of this system is that it leads to candidates getting elected despite not being wanted by the majority of the voters. The system also discourages having more than two candidates in an election, because candidates with similar ideologies tend to take votes away from each other, leading to victory for a candidate with the opposite ideology. As a result, countries with this voting system invariably fall into the trap of becoming a two-party system, an effect known as Duverger's Law.

The possibility of extremist ideologies taking power has the potential to increase in this system as voters are not incentivised to vote for an alternative even when their preferred party takes up a fringe position, as taking an alternative would mean handing the opposition ideology a victory. This is possibly why Donald Trump has been able to take control of the Republican Party in the USA.

Runoff elections (two rounds)

Possibly the most famous example of this system being used is in the French presidential election. In this system, when there are more than two candidates contesting an election, a condition to victory is that the candidate with the highest number of votes must get at least 50 percent of the votes to be declared the winner. If no candidate achieves that, then the top two candidates from round one go face to face in round two. Whoever gets the most votes (which is bound to be above 50 percent) in round two wins.

Run off voting takes place in two rounds, with the top two winners from round one facing off in round two. Voters are free to change their vote from one round to the next.

The advantage of this system is that whoever wins the election does so with majority support. However, the main criticism is that from a large array of candidates, when it comes down to just two, voters may still have to vote for someone they don't like, being forced to choose the lesser of two evils. This is especially likely if the first round is close, with all candidates getting a similar percentage of votes. Another criticism is that conducting two large scale elections is cost prohibitive, while running the risk of instability and law and order issues in the time between the two rounds.

Ranked choice voting (instant runoff, contingent voting, single transferable vote)

This system takes the idea of runoff voting and tries to encapsulate the whole process in one election. Instead of voters only voting for one preferred candidate, they rank their choices. For instance, if there are five candidates in an election, then voters can rank these five candidates in order of preference on their ballots. In some systems, voters are also free to rank as few candidates as they want, while in further variations, like Sri Lanka's contingent voting system, voters can only rank three choices.

Generally, if no candidate receives over 50 percent of first-choice votes, the candidate with the least number of first choice votes is eliminated, and the votes of voters who chose that candidate are transferred to their respective second choices. This process is continued until a candidate is left with 50 percent of the votes.

In instant run off voting, this process is repeated until a winner is found.

However, there are quite a few variations of ranked choice voting, most of them varying in their counting methods. For instance, in the contingent voting system, all but the top two candidates are eliminated after the first count, and the votes of the eliminated candidates are split among the top two candidates based on how high they were ranked in those ballots.

An example of a ranked choice voting ballot from an Australian election in 2016. Photo: Creative Commons

The advantage of ranked choice voting in general is that it allows voters to vote for the candidate they want, regardless of whether they think the candidate might win. With the choices below first having significant weight in a ranked choice voting system, voters have more of a say in who gets to represent them and who does not. Some criticisms include voter confusion, as well as the fact that in some special circumstances, candidates may benefit from performing worse in the election by getting less first choice votes, as long as they can get a high number of second choice votes from candidates who are likely to lose.

Proportional representation

This method of voting has garnered some attention recently, as it has been proposed by some experts (like the last Chief Election Commissioner and eminent economist Rehman Sobhan) and even Jamaat-e-Islami. Most political parties have come out in its support, while the BNP has called it "illogical".

In this system, before an election, political parties publish lists of candidates in order of preference, indicating who they would nominate to the parliament if they have just one seat, which two they would nominate if they had two seats, and so on and so forth. During the election, voters simply vote for the party whose policies and candidates they support. After the votes are tallied, each political party gets to nominate candidates to the legislature based on the percentage of votes they get on a national scale.

For example, if in a future Bangladeshi election, Party A gets 40 percent of the vote, Party B gets 30 percent, Party C gets 20 percent, Party D gets 5 percent, Party E gets 3 percent, and Party F gets 2 percent, then these entities would be allowed to nominate MPs based on their vote share.

As the Bangladesh parliament has 300 elected seats, in this hypothetical scenario, Party A would get 120 MPs, Party B would get 90, Party C would get 60, Party D would get 15, Party E would get 9, and Party F would get 6 MPs.

This is a widely used voting method, with 85 countries in the world using it, including some developed nations in Europe. A variation of the system called "Mixed-member proportional representation", which combines elements of first-past-the-post and the proportional representation, is used in seven countries. Some other countries use the "single transferable vote" system, which includes elements of ranked choice voting too.

Proportional representation leads to minority votes being more consequential than in many other systems. Even if a party just gets one percent of the vote, they will get a few seats in parliament, and in Bangladesh's context, where one percent of the voters number more than a million people, it makes sense for them to have representation in parliament.

This system allows a multitude of parties to be involved in parliamentary politics, leading to coalition governments. While some have looked at this possibility as a positive, especially for countries like Bangladesh, where we have juggled with super majorities and near-one-party-rule for most of our history. Others are of the opinion that a large number of parties in parliament may lead to the government repeatedly losing the support of the legislature, leading to instability, nonfunctional parliaments, and chaos among lawmakers.