The US Could Increase Voter Turnout By Changing the Way Americans Vote

A referendum on whether to change the electoral system is set to take place next year in British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province, where progressive activists are hoping that a new voting format could stoke youth turnout and benefit green and social-democratic parties. In the United Kingdom, local members of parliament such as Bognor Regis and Nick Gibb, in addition to various local organizations, are campaigning for voting reform. They will first introduce a bill to parliament to make local elections use a proportional system, seeking to set a successful precedent for the next general election. In the constituency of West Sussex, over 100,000 voters have signed a petition initiated by Tim Ivorson of the organization Make Votes Matters which calls for a switch to proportional representation. Single-member districts disproportionately favor winning parties, fueling a democratic deficit when seats don’t match votes. A study conducted by Accurate Democracy comparing OECD countries found that voter turnout was significantly higher in countries with proportional representation than in those featuring first-past-the-post or winner-take-all systems (where losing parties win no representation at all). Countries like Belgium, Austria or Spain have much higher turnout rates than the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The study argues that voters are more likely to show up if they can support politicians who share their values and convictions and can represent them in parliament. It’s also no secret that many young voters favor proportional systems that allow them to choose fringe and progressive parties, such as Podemos in Spain or Die Linke in Germany, that tackle issues that they feel are most important to them.

If elections in the United States were governed by proportional representation for example, Bernie Sanders could easily create his own social-democratic party and contest Democrats in most constituencies, galvanizing progressive youth voters. If we choose to believe polls, a progressive movement led by Sanders could wield 20-25 percent support in Congress and defend the Vermont senator’s policies on free state education, universal healthcare and the minimum wage. Instead, more often than not, voters who adhere to Sanders’s platform resort to voting for a moderate Democrat if and when they decide to cast a ballot.

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Allow me a moment of political fiction: Had America adopted an electoral system like Sweden’s, Hillary Clinton would be what amounts to America’s prime minister and would have formed a coalition with Bernie Sanders, who in turn would have assumed a high-level cabinet position and struck deals on a host of policy matters. At first glance, proportional representation seems like the fairest and most democratic way of selecting representatives. But it can increase the risk of political instability. Proportional systems often lead to hung parliaments, compelling winning parties to form unlikely coalitions and putting a strain on their ability to govern (It’s worth noting that some countries with a first-past-the-post system like Canada have also experienced hung parliaments due to a high number of parties running for election). Were Germany’s voting system entirely winner-takes-all, Chancellor Angela Merkel wouldn’t be struggling to unite the Green Party and the Free Democrats – two potential governing allies possessing opposing policy agendas. Had Italy’s system been first-past-the-post, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi wouldn’t have brought separatist party Lega Nord into government.

In December 2017, the Austrian conservative party, which prevailed in the latest election, just struck a deal to form a governing coalition with a neo-Nazi party. Italy’s record of hung parliaments has plagued decision-making and fueled political unrest. In 2017, Italian lawmakers passed an electoral law to increase the chances of winning parties building a majority government and setting their agendas into motion, with the aim of curbing the rise of populist leader Pepe Grillo's Five-Star movement. The Italian parliament reached an agreement on a mixed system in which some seats are allocated based on proportional representation and others on a traditional first-past-the-post system.

In Europe, proportional representation systems have also allowed for the rise of extreme parties, providing them with a platform to spew their hateful views and gain legitimacy. Conversely, systems in which the candidate with the most votes in each constituency is elected set a high threshold, barring populist movements from entering parliament and reducing their influence on political life.

Consider France: In the 2014 European elections, the xenophobic Front National won the most seats. In the last parliamentary election, it only won seven seats (out of 577) despite obtaining 15 percent of the votes cast. The same goes for UKIP, a British populist party that helped the Brexit campaign gather steam thanks in part to its resounding victories in European elections. In the 2015 national elections, UKIP’s best result so far, it achieved third place in terms of votes but only 10th place in terms of seats. One could imagine that under a proportional system in the United States, the Tea Party could propel hundreds of representatives and senators into office. No electoral system is perfect. Under proportional representation, every vote counts, encouraging a rise in voter turnout by allowing citizens to cast their ballots for the party they feel represents them the most. But the method sometimes makes it impossible for the winning side to introduce the legislation it had spelled out on the campaign trail, notwithstanding the rise of extremist groups these systems have spurred. Single-member districts and winner-take-all elections discourage voters who feel their ideas or parties will not get any representation, turning certain elections into a denial of democracy.

But they are well-equipped to safeguard institutions and preserve political stability. In countries like the United Kingdom or the United States that are steeped in a culture of first-past-the-post elections, the best course of action is to follow the British Electoral Commission’s initiative to introduce a degree of proportional representation in local elections, and assess whether it is successful in increasing voter turnout.