Single transferable vote for the Swiss Council of States

Full Transcript:

Introduction:

Hello, and welcome to the Rules of the Game podcast, where it is my job to analyze and compare democratic institutions from around the world.

In this episode I propose to change the Swiss constitution to implement a single transferable vote electoral system to elect the members of the Council of States, what we call the Ständerat in German. I propose to use ranked choice ballots in two-seat electoral districts.

The Council of States in Switzerland is the upper of two co-equal chambers that is comparable to the US Senate, yet with exactly the equal powers as the lower chamber, called the National Council, which is comparable to a House of Representatives.

The Council of States represents the Cantons, which are the main territorial and administrative divisions of the Swiss Confederation. The Council of States has 46 members. Each canton is represented by two state councillors. You could call them Senators I suppose. There are six so-called half cantons. These are smaller cantons by population, each represented by only one state councillor.

Currently each canton decides how they elect their state councillors. All cantons except two elect their councilors using a majoritarian election system. Two use a proportional electoral system. The most common form are two-round elections, with members being elected with an absolute majority in the first round, and plurality in the second round.

While the electoral systems used in the various cantons seem widely accepted and rarely questioned, I am proposing to improve representation and reflect the actual preferences of the voters. The introduction of a single-transferable vote law with a ranked ballot for the Swiss Council of States in all Cantons would make elections fairer across all cantons, more representative and also cheaper.

This podcast episode is the kick-off of an initiative to promote the introduction of a slightly more proportional electoral system for the Council of States in Switzerland. And just to be clear, I am not blindly trying to start a popular initiative and starting to collect signatures. Such a process requires a broad coalition and substantial resources in order to get the support needed. What I want to check is what such a reform coalition could look like – who is supportive of such a proposal. In short, I want to start a in-depth discussion on the topic.

So in this episode I lay out how, as a Swiss citizen, I could start a popular initiative to change the electoral law of the Council of States. I am already convinced that the Swiss population is willing to consider improving its electoral system, yet those changes take many efforts of persuasion, based on a coalition that supports the idea.

Yet, if I really wanted to start a popular initiative, what would be the ingredients to actually change the constitution through this direct democratic process? What would be my strategy to build such a coalition? In short, the ingredients are the following:

1. A good reason to partially change the Constitution of the Swiss Confederation
2. An initiative committee of at least 7 persons.
3. A proposition of how to change the article of the constitution that you’d like to amend
4. At least three good reasons to convince the population of Switzerland of the proposed amendment
5. The collection of 100’000 signatures within 18 months of Swiss people eligible to vote
6. If the collection was successful, a majority of votes in the popular vote and the majority of the states, we call them cantons, to approve the initiative at the ballot box.

This episode wants to achieve two goals. First, to propose and present single transferable voting as an improvement of Swiss State Council elections. And Second, proposing a strategy via a popular initiative how it could be achieved.

I am your host, Stephan Kyburz. I am a political economist with a PhD in Economics from the University of Bern in Switzerland. And I previously held positions at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Center for Global Development.

I believe that a public discussion of democratic institutions is important and that people should take part in that discussion. I strongly believe in the wisdom of the people and the power of knowledge. People should be more aware of the political institutions that govern their lives.

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Main Part: 

The introduction of a single transferable voting law for the Swiss Council of States in all Cantons would make elections fairer, more representative and also cheaper. This would mean a ranked choice ballot instead of the current two-round majoritarian elections. Just to be clear, the system is sometimes also called plurality voting, since in the second round a plurality of votes is enough to be elected.

Single transferable vote would better reflect the preferences of the people, because people could actually put their true preferences of candidates on the ballot, and the need for tactical voting would be rendered unnecessary.

The current Swiss constitution leaves it to the Cantons to determine how to elect their Council of State members. Almost all Cantons use a two-round system, with candidates being elected in the first round with absolute majority and in the second round with a plurality of votes. This style of voting is also called run-off voting. The Cantons are the two-seat electoral districts.

There are a few exceptions to these generally applied electoral rules. The Cantons of Neuenburg and Jura use a proportional electoral system to elect their members of the State Council. And in the so-called Half-Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden, that has only one State Councillor, she or he is elected during the Cantonal Assembly, that takes place in the main town square. That type of Assembly is very similar to the one in the Canton of Glarus, that I discussed in my second episode with Pascal Vuichard.

Sometimes parties present joint tickets presented to the voters as an alliance of parties.

Would it be beneficial for Switzerland to change the electoral law determining who is sitting in the Council of States? To appreciate this reform, one has to understand that each and every State councillor is powerful in the Swiss political game. Each has way more decision making power than a member of the House of Representatives, what we call the National Council.

Since cantons differ tremendously in population, members represent a very different number of people. Each vote in a small canton has way more power, than a vote in a larger canton. The canton of Zurich has a population of 1.55 million while the smallest canton is Appenzell Innerrhoden with just 16’293 people as of the year 2020. A voter in Appenzell ends up with approximately 39 times more power than a voter in Zurich, just looking at the Council of States, based on the number of eligible voters. This inequality of the ratio of voters to representatives is called apportionment and is an element of the federal structure, in which each canton is equally represented in the Council of States

While the federal structure and the apportionment of State Council votes as of the size of each canton is a quite well accepted feature of the Swiss Confederation, it is extremely important who is representing a canton in the Council of States.

It is crucially important that the true preferences of the voters are determining the election of a State Councillor. The preference for State Councillor is probably the most important preference that voters express – for now disregarding the direct democratic decisions, where apportionment also plays a crucial role in determining the majority of cantons that have to approve constitutional changes.

So representation crucially matters, because all legislation and parliamentary decisions have to be made and approved also by the Council of States. It is a small but powerful gathering of people, a small and potent chamber.

So why not just change the electoral system in one of the cantons? Why do I propose to change the electoral system in all Cantons? Well, because this question is about power, and power should be balanced and the preferences of the people should be truly reflected.

Proportional representation matters. Representation matters tremendously. If a group of people in a canton is very powerful, they won’t give up that power. That’s why I say that elections to a national political body should be regulated at the national level, as we regulate human rights in the national constitution, thus at the national level. Because every person deserves the same basic rights. So to me it is unclear why for the election of a national political body, people should face different conditions or different rules.

Academic research has documented how in a two-round election system that follow majority-plurality pattern, strategic voting is present among voters. Studying a 1995 Council of States election across several cantons, the author Kriesi finds that only somewhat less than half of the Swiss voters straighforwardly choose their two most preferred candidates, that means they make a fully straightforward choice. Slightly more than one third of the voters only choose their top candidate and do not use their second vote, this is a strategic choice as well, even voters may not realize it themselves. This research has shown that in total, roughly one sixth of the voters make an ‘explicitly strategic choice. In a comparative perspective, these are very high percentages of strategic voting. As Kriesi says “the voters’ strategies vary quite systematically as a function of the alliances forged by party leaders and the relative strength of the two political camps in each canton.”

Another problem that emerges time and again, is that candidates running for a State Council seat have to make strategic choices. The last State Council election in Zurich in 2019 was a telling and widely discussed example. The candidate Daniel Jositsch was elected in the first round with an absolute majority, which is the threshold in the first round to be elected. Several other candidates were thinking about running in the second round, where a simple plurality of votes is sufficient. Two similar candidates, Mariona Schlatter of the Green Party got slightly more votes than Tiana Moser of the Greenliberal party. They appealed to people on the left and center-left voters. The other candidates were all more centre-right or right wing candidates. If both would run, they would split the vote and both lose. Since Mariona Schlatter had slightly more votes, she wanted to run again – even though her views were less moderate and not appealing to voters in the centre who were likely to favor the candidate of the radical democratic party on the center-right. It may very well be that Tiana Moser of the Greenliberal party had the higher chances of winning than Mariona Schlatter. Yet Mariona Schlatter wanted to run again, which is understandable too. Tiana Moser may have beaten Ruedi Noser in ther run-off, because she appealed to moderate voters.

In the end, the voters lose out, because they don’t have the full choice of candidates. Voters can’t express their true preferences. Candidates that may have been elected on the true preferences of voters are not elected. Another point is that voter turnout usually drops substantially in the second round. In Zurich it was from 45% to 34% percent in the second round.

This is just one example of many, where both voters and candidates have to think strategically and make choices that they may not truly want to make. But the electoral system leaves them no other choice.

Sometimes, politicians even encourage voters to pick one candidate on the right and one on the left, in order to keep the implicit power sharing agreement.

Single transferable vote simply allows people to rank the candidates according to their true preferences, to make their true choices, yielding more balanced results. Ranked choice would avoid a situation that I have just described. It’s simple and beautiful!

Finally, single transferable vote would render the second round elections redundant, since the whole set of voters preferences is recorded in one round. This would reduce election administration, would save the voters time and effort. Importantly, it also reduces the cost of running the elections that citizens have to pay with their taxes of course.

How does single-transferable vote work?

Single transferable vote is an electoral system widely applied around the world. It is a ranked preferential voting system that allows the voters to rank the candidates in order of their preferences. The most preferred candidate is ranked first, the second most preferred candidate is ranked second, third most preferred candidate is ranked third, etc. You get the idea. This allows for the full set of preference orders to be recorded on one ballot, and it is in that sense superior to a ballot that records an non-ordered preferred choice of only two candidates. Importantly STV only requires one round, hence results are determined in one go.

Single transferable vote is the terminology used for this ranked choice voting in electoral districts with at least two seats to be filled. In single seat districts the same voting method is called instant-runoff or alternative vote. An important point here to mention is that the term ranked choice voting just refers to the ballot type, but not to the district magnitude or the allocation formula. Hence ranked choice voting may be used both in single as also in multi-seat districts. In multiseat districts it is a proportional representation version of ranked choice voting.

The ranked ballots are counted and the winners of the election determined through a relatively simple procedure – even though the details differ across systems used.

To win a candidate must reach the required quota to be elected. The quota is calculated as

Ballots : (seats + 1) + 1 (Droop Quota)

For instance: 600 : (2+1) + 1 = 201 (because no more than 2 people can reach more votes)

Step 1: If a candidate reaches the quota with the first ranked votes, the candidate is elected.

Step 2: The votes for the elected candidate in excess of the quota – called the surplus – are transferred proportionally to the other candidates based on second ranked choices on these ballot papers. If none of the candidates reaches the quota, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.

Step 3: The next preferences of the ballot papers of the eliminated candidate are then transferred to the remaining candidates, in proportion to next ranked choice. Again it is checked whether the quota is reached by a candidate. Then again the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated if no one reaches the quota.

In a two seat district, this process is reiterated until two candidates have reached the quota. There are indeed minor variations in how surplus votes are transferred but this goes beyond this present discussion.

Obviously, there is a lot of research on electoral systems and how they affect representation. The reform to single transferable vote from the two-round elections would make the system slightly more proportional, thus the parties are more likely to get a seat in proportion to their vote share. Thus the kind of upgrade is not exactly revolutionary. Nonetheless, it will give candidates of small and large parties, of centre and fringe parties a fair chance of competing, without being at a disadvantage. The current two-round system favors the traditional, larger parties, because candidates from smaller parties often step-down after the first round, because they don’t want to split the vote, meaning not being a spoiler, or because of strategic voting on the side of the voters as discussed by the study I mentioned of Kriesi.

Currently the Council of States has only 26% women. Compared to the 42% National Council that is elected on open-list proportional representation. Hence only 12 out of 46 state councillors are women. Hence an electoral reform to STV is likely to improve the representation of women without imposing any quota. I don’t think quotas are useful, when we can improve the electoral process to make it more fair. What seems to be currently happening is that men crowd out women in the parties’ nomination process or senior politicians are more often men and they get to be on the ticket. Not sure there is any research on that. , even though that is changing, because parties have started to push female candidates. In a ranked version of the election, women could essentially run alongside men of the same party, and the voters would have the choice. Currently, it is an informal agreement that each party only sends one candidate into the race. That rule may become less important. It would allow for fair competition.

Better representation of smaller political parties. Even though, or on the account that proportionality in two-seat districts is mathematically limited, it is important to allow for a balanced competition reflecting the true preferences of the voters. The Council of States is occupied only by the larger parties that are also the government parties – except for the Green party that currently has 5 seats out of the 46. These numbers show that when it comes to political power, larger parties are favored over smaller parties – which is part of the democratic game of course to some degree.

I would love to hear what political scientists working on Swiss elections have to say about my arguments.

Where is single-transferable voting used?

The single transferable vote system is used in many different countries with success.

In 1896, Andrew Inglis Clark persuaded the Tasmanian House of Assembly to be the first parliament in the world elected by what became known as the Hare-Clark electoral system. The system is named after himself and Thomas Hare.

Then it was also adopted for Australia’s Senate elections, where Senators are elected in 12 seat electoral districts using the so-called Hare-Clark system, that is a standard single transferable vote system.

The Hare-Clark system is also successfully used for parliamentary elections in Ireland and Malta. Ireland has adopted STV after its independence from Britain in 1922. The 166 members of the Dáil are elected from around 40 constituencies, each returning three, four or five members.

In the U.S.A., single transferable vote was used in 25 cities during the progressive era and the new deal. But in most cases, the system was repealed after some years. Of these cities, just two still use it: Cambridge (MA) and Arden (DE) (Santucci 2021). You may also want to listen to my other podcast episode with Jack Santucci on proportional representation in the US.

History of Electoral Reform in Switzerland

The most important electoral reform in Switzerland happened pretty much one hundred years ago. In 1918, the Swiss – back then – male population decided to harmonize the electoral law for the election of the National Council, that is the lower house. Switzerland introduced proportional representation using an open-list system in multi-seat districts. This reform changed the character of the Swiss democracy tremendously, as it allowed smaller parties to compete and win seats proportionally, and most importantly it terminated the dominance of the radical democratic party both in parliament and slowly also in the federal council, the executive branch of the government that is composed of seven members. Interestingly, this reform was never again questioned because it seemed fair and logical to have fair representation of all parties in the lower chamber of parliament.

The elections of the State Councillors were always the responsibility of the cantons. Six cantons elected their state councillors at the Cantonal Assembly directly by the people. In the other 19 cantons, the councillors were elected by the cantonal parliament and not by direct popular elections. Only in 1869, the cantons of Zurich and Thurgau changed to direct elections of their representatives by the people. Only in 1977 all cantons had switched to direct popular elections of the members of the Council of States.

Hence it is not so long ago that the people still lacked the power to elect their most important and powerful representatives. The introduction of single transferable vote would give all voters in Switzerland an equal mode of electing their representatives, and in my view the best possible option. I really don’t see a reason why people should not have the best available option to elect their State Councillors.

Who could be part of the reform coalition?

Since the current electoral system mainly favors the traditional parties in the more conservative and rural cantons. – as I mentioned, all state councillors come from just 5 parties – I would not expect the currently strongest parties to favor a reform of the State Council elections. The reform coalition thus would need to be built by the smaller parties and the population in general, that should have an interest in getting the best possible choice of electoral system to elect their most powerful parliamentary representatives. Building a reform coalition would also require lots of educational work on the part of voters. Still, if people realized that there is a better option of electing the member of the state council that would also get rid of the second round elections, while making the electoral system slightly more proportional, this should be possible.

Strategically, successfully launching a popular initiative requires to build an initiative committee of at least seven people that builds the core of the coalition. Then as many political parties and civil society groups as possible would need to be convinced of the superiority of single transferable vote. Such a coalition may make it possible to gather the necessary 100’000 signatures in 18 months. To win the popular vote to change the constitution accordingly, would require tremendous educational work to convince a majority of the population. Furthermore, for a popular initiative to be approved, a majority of the Cantons has to approve the initiative. Hence both a majority of the people and a majority of the cantons have to approve the initiative in order for the constitution to be amended.

If anyone in Switzerland is listening to this podcast, please get in touch if you think it’s a good idea or if you see arguments against it. I would love to discuss!

To my international audience, please provide feedback if you have any thoughts, ideas or concerns about my proposal.

You can reach me at [email protected]

Thanks a lot for listening!