Test Bank

Chapter 13: Elections and Electoral Systems

1. About half of the legislative and presidential elections that took place between 1946 and 2000 were held in dictatorships.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

2. Some scholars argue that elections in dictatorships serve a purpose even if they are not the mechanism for selecting leaders. They argue that elections can stabilize the dictatorship by:

A. discouraging opposition groups from challenging the dictator.

B. dividing the opposition by allowing some groups to participate but not others.

C. presenting a democratic “appearance” to satisfy international organizations.

D. all of these are reasons given to explain why dictatorships have elections.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. What is (are) the key difference(s) between majoritarian and proportional representation (PR) electoral systems?

A. In majoritarian systems, the winning candidate(s) must win a majority or plurality of the vote, whereas this is not necessary in PR systems.

B. PR systems use large district magnitudes or two-round systems in single districts to elect candidates.

C. All PR systems use party lists.

D. All of these are differences between majoritarian and PR systems.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. What is the district magnitude in a single-member district?

A. 1

B. 2

C. 10

D. Can’t say based on the information given

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

5. Is it possible for a candidate to win in a majoritarian electoral system, such as single-member district plurality, without receiving a majority of the votes?

A. Yes

B. No

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

6. Single-member district plurality (SMDP) systems are sometimes criticized because they:

A. do not allow voters to hold their representatives accountable very easily.

B. can produce very unrepresentative electoral outcomes at the district level.

C. both (A) and (B) are common criticisms of SMDP systems.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

Imagine that you lived in the constituency of St. Ives in the United Kingdom and that your preference ordering among the political parties was Labour > Liberal > Liberal Democrat > Conservative. The electoral system is a single-member district plurality system. Look at Table 1 and answer the following two questions.

Table 1: UK Legislative Elections Results, St. Ives Constituency

7. If you were to vote sincerely, which party’s candidate would you vote for?

A. Conservative

B. Liberal Democrat

C. Labour

D. Liberal

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. If you were to vote strategically, which party’s candidate would you vote for?

A. Conservative

B. Liberal Democrat

C. Labour

D. Liberal

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. The most common method used for electing presidents in the world today is the majority-runoff two-round system.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

10. The supplementary vote system is cheaper for election officials to administer than majority runoff two-round systems are.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. We can characterize all proportional representation systems as those with multimember districts and in which either a quota or a divisor is used to determine which candidates are elected in a district.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

The hypothetical election results shown in Table 2 correspond to questions 12–14.

Table 2: Hypothetical Election Results for a Hypothetical District Using a Quota.

12. The election results in Table 2 are for a district in which 10 candidates are elected. This country uses the Hare quota with largest remainders to allocate seats. If the Hare quota is calculated as the total number of votes in the district divided by the total number of seats available in the district, what is the Hare quota in this district?

A. 35,000

B. 10,000

C. 3,000

D. 100,000

E. not enough information provided to calculate the Hare quota

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

13. In the district described in Table 2, how many total seats does Party B win?

A. 0

B. 1

C. 2

D. 3

E. 4

F. 5

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

14. In the district described in Table 2, how many total seats does Party E win?

A. 0

B. 1

C. 2

D. 3

E. 4

F. 5

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

Now imagine that the votes for each party shown in Table 2 are the same, but that they are for a district where 10 candidates are elected using a highest average system to allocate seats. This means that the votes parties receive are divided by a series of numbers to give quotients. This country uses the d’Hondt method (the divisors are 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . ). Seats are allocated to the party with the largest quotient, then the second largest, then the third largest . . . until all of the seats have been allocated. In Table 3, the quotients have already been calculated for you and are shown in italics. Use Table 3 to answer Questions 15–18.

Table 3: Hypothetical Election Results for a Hypothetical District Using Highest Averages.

15. In the district described in Table 3, how many total seats does Party B win?

A. 0

B. 1

C. 2

D. 3

E. 4

F. 5

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

16. In the district described in Table 3, how many total seats does Party E win?

A. 0

B. 1

C. 2

D. 3

E. 4

F. 5

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

17. If the election results shown in Table 3 above were for a district with a magnitude of 1 and plurality rule was used (in other words, you have an single-member district plurality system), what would the outcome be?

A. Candidates from parties A and B would each win 5 seats.

B. Candidates from party A would win 10 seats.

C. A candidate from party A would win 1 seat and the other parties would get 0 seats.

D. You can’t answer this question unless you know what the second, third, fourth, and so on, preference ranking is on each ballot that was cast.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Difficulty Level: Hard

18. If the election results shown in Table 3, above, were for a district with a magnitude of 1 and the alternative vote rule was used, what would the outcome be?

A. candidates from parties A and B would each win 5 seats.

B. candidates from party A would win 10 seats.

C. a candidate from party A would win 1 seat and the other parties would get 0 seats.

D. you can’t answer this question unless you know what the second, third, fourth, and so on, preference ranking is on each ballot that was cast.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Difficulty Level: Hard

19. All proportional electoral systems have natural thresholds. Some have formal thresholds written into the electoral law as well.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

20. Which type of party list gives the most power to the party leadership (over the individual candidates)?

A. closed party list

B. open party list

C. free party list

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

21. Countries with electoral tiers above the district level are typically more favorable to smaller parties.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

22. Which of the following is NOT a disadvantage of the single nontransferable vote system?

A. few incentives to build broad-based coalitions

B. encourages patronage

C. strengthens parties

D. favors well-organized parties

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

23. What is a mixed electoral system?

A. It is when the government depends on the legislature and the president.

B. It is when you have districts that elect different numbers of people.

C. It is when the electoral system uses both a majoritarian formula and a proportional formula.

D. It is when you have multimember districts.

E. It is when the winning candidate must win a majority or plurality of the vote.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

24. The electoral system used by the most countries is:

A. single-member district plurality.

B. two-round systems.

C. list PR.

D. single nontransferable vote.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

25. Most people in the world live under which type of electoral system?

A. single-member district plurality

B. two-round systems

C. list PR

D. single nontransferable vote

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Easy

26. Most dictatorships (measured by the Freedom House measure) that hold elections use which type of electoral rules?

A. majoritarian

B. proportional

C. mixed

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Easy

27. The choice of electoral systems in former colonies across the world was strongly influenced by the electoral system used by the former colonial ruler. Thus, many former British colonies use single-member district plurality, whereas many former French colonies use two-round system.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

28. The electoral system used for legislative elections (for the House of Representatives) in the United States is:

A. single-member district plurality.

B. two-round system.

C. list PR.

D. single nontransferable vote.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

29. What is measured by “district magnitude”?

A. the number of voters in a district

B. the geographic size of the district

C. the number of seats in a district

D. the relative importance of the district

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Medium

Use the information in Table 4, below, for the following two questions.

Table 4: Election Results in another Hypothetical District.

30. Imagine that the election results in Table 4 are for a country using single-member district plurality rule to elect its candidates. Which party or parties will win in this district?

A. Party A

B. Party B

C. Party C

D. Party D

E. Party E

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

31. Imagine now that the election results in Table 4 are the first preference votes in a majoritarian system that uses an alternative voting rule (like Australia) where a candidate is automatically elected if he wins an absolute majority of first-round preferences. Which party’s candidate wins the single available seat in this district?

A. The candidate from Party A.

B. The candidate from Party B.

C. Both the candidate from Party A and the candidate from Party B will win seats.

D. It will depend on the preference rankings for each candidate, so it is impossible to answer this question based on the information provided.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

Imagine now that these election results are for a district where ten candidates are elected. This country uses the Hare quota with largest remainders to allocate seats. To answer the following six questions, you may want to use Table 5, below.

Table 5: Hypothetical Election Results in a Ten-Seat District.

32. If the Hare quota is calculated as the Total Number of Votes in the district divided by the total number of seats available, what is the Hare quota in the hypothetical district in Table 5?

A. 47,000

B. 10,000

C. 1,000

D. 100,000

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

33. How many remainder seats does Party A win?

A. 1

B. 2

C. 3

D. 4

E. 5

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

34. How many total seats does Party A win?

A. 1

B. 2

C. 3

D. 4

E. 5

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

35. How many automatic seats does Party D win?

A. 1

B. 2

C. 3

D. 4

E. 5

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

36. How many total seats does Party E win?

A. 0

B. 1

C. 2

D. 3

E. 4

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

37. How many total seats does Party F win?

A. 0

B. 1

C. 2

D. 3

D. 4

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

38. Electoral systems with upper tiers (electoral tiers above the district level) are typically more favorable to smaller parties than electoral systems with a single tier.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

39. Is party discipline normally higher when open party lists are used or when closed party lists are used in proportional representation systems?

A. open party lists

B. closed party lists

D. it’s about the same

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

40. A common side effect of electoral thresholds is that voters for small parties end up wasting their votes if the party they voted for cannot surpass the threshold. This is more likely to occur when the threshold is high.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

Imagine now that we have a country that employs a mixed electoral system. In the lowest electoral tier, there are five districts, each electing one person by SMDP. In the upper electoral tier there is one big national district that elects five individuals using a List PR system. As you can see, there are 10 individuals elected in total from the two electoral tiers. The election results are shown in Table 6. Answer the following four questions.

Table 6: Election Results in a Mixed Electoral System.

41. If the

SMDP = single-member district plurality

If mixed system were “independent,” how many SMDP seats would Party A win?

A. 0

B. 2

C. 3

C. 4

E. 5

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

42. If the mixed system were “independent,” how many TOTAL seats would Party A win?

A. 4

B. 5

C. 6

D. 7

E. 8

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

43. If the mixed system were “dependent,” how many single-member district plurality seats would Party A win?

A. 0

B. 2

C. 3

D. 4

E. 5

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

44. If the mixed system were “dependent,” how many TOTAL seats would Party A win?

A. 4

B. 5

C. 6

D. 7

E. 8

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

45. All electoral systems create at least some incentive for actors to behave strategically rather than reveal their sincere preferences.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

Choosing Electoral Rules: A Game-Theoretic Approach

When would incumbent politicians be likely to abandon disproportional single-member district electoral laws in favor of a “fairer” proportional representation system (as occurred in New Zealand about a decade ago)?

The following game can be used to explain the prospects for institutional reform in democracies. To keep things simple, we can think about the prospect for institutional reform (such as a change from single-member district plurality rule to proportional representation) as a game between a large party and a small party. They each must decide whether to vote for or against the proposed electoral reform. If the large party votes against reform, reform efforts fail and the next election is conducted under the existing rules.

Assume that voters prefer a more proportional electoral system. Thus, parties enjoy an electoral benefit if they vote for reform, but only if the other party votes against reform. Conversely, if a party votes against the reform, it pays a cost, but only if the other party votes for. Payoffs representing this electoral reform game are displayed in the following strategic-form game, where the large party's net electoral benefits from blocking reform are larger than the benefits the parties enjoy from being seen as lone reformers.

Figure 1. The Electoral Reform Game–Example 1

46. What strategy combination(s) form(s) a Nash equilibrium in the above game? Hint: use the form (Large strategy; Small strategy).

A. For; For

B. For; Against and Against; For

C. Against; For

D. Against; Against

D. For; Against

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

47. If this were an accurate model of a particular country at a particular time, what would you predict about the behavior of the parties?

A. Both parties will support reforms.

B. Neither party will support reforms.

C. The large party will support reforms, but the small party will oppose them.

D. The large party will oppose reforms, but the small party will support them.

E. No way to tell based on the information given here.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

Now, suppose the large party controls which bills are voted on (perhaps because it controls the relevant committee in the legislature). The game below is similar to the one above, but now the large party can choose to propose a reform (in which case the parties play a version of the game above), or they can block a reform bill before it gets to the floor (in which case they compete against the small party under existing laws). Answer the following two questions.

Figure 2: The Electoral Reform Game—When the Large Party Controls the Legislative Agenda

48. What strategy combinations form a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium to the above game? Hint: use the form (Large’s move at first node, Large’s move at second node; Small’s move at top node, Small's move at bottom node).

A. Block

B. Block, Against; For, Against

C. Block, Against; For, For

D. Propose reform, For; For, Against

D. Against; For

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

49. What does your response to the previous question say about the credibility of a large party that (a) controls the proposal process; (b) does not propose reform; but (c) claims that it supports reform?

A. the claim is credible

B. the claim is not credible

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

Now, let’s ask what happens when the parties play a game like the one in Figure 1, except that the benefit to the large party of having disproportional rules is much less, and the penalties to the smaller party from disproportional electoral rules are lower. This might be because the smaller party has been attracting a larger electorate, whereas the large party has been losing voters. This new situation is modeled in Figure 3 below. Using Figure 3, answer the following three questions.

Figure 3. The Electoral Reform Game—Example 2

50. What strategy combination(s) form(s) a Nash equilibrium in the above game? Hint: use the form (Large strategy; Small strategy).

A. For; For

B. For; Against and Against; For

C. Against; For

D. Against; Against

E. For; Against

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

51. If this were an accurate model of a particular country at a particular time, what would you predict about the behavior of the large party? The small party?

A. Both parties will support reforms.

B. Neither party will support reforms.

C. The large party will support reforms, but the small party will oppose them.

D. The large party will oppose reforms, but the small party will support them.

E. No way to tell.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

52. Compare your answers to the questions that asked you to predict the behavior of the two parties, given the particular game being examined (Questions 46 and 50). What does your analysis of the two games say about the conditions under which politicians who benefit from existing electoral laws are likely to support reforms that will help other parties?

A. Large parties will never support reforms.

B. If a large party is losing its size advantage and there is an electoral advantage from being seen as a reformer, then it will support the reform.

C. Large parties will always support reforms.

D. Can’t say based on the information given.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Difficulty Level: Hard