Content Categorized with "Europe"
1 - 10 of 60 results
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The 2015 Turkish Election: A More Proportional Result than Usual
- Posted: June 26, 2015
- Categories: Europe, Home, International Elections, Elections Worldwide
The Turkish election in June 2015 was remarkable for many reasons. In this short piece, FairVote's Robert Buderi explores the ins and outs of the 2015 campaign and the operation of Turkey's party list proportional system. Buderi shows that a high national threshold in a proportional representation system tends to undermine the proportionality of election results and introduce some of the problems rife in winner-take-all plurality systems like the US and Britain.
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Innovative Analysis: The World Cup of Democracy
- Posted: July 9, 2014
- Author(s): Andrew Douglas, Anthony Ramicone
- Categories: Europe, FairVote Reformer E-Newsletters, Reforms, Research & Analysis, Voting Rights
FairVote regularly publishes Innovative Analysis, an in depth look into what we’ve been researching. The FIFA World Cup is in its final week in Brazil. And while that tournament will eventually crown the best national soccer team in the world, we wondered what it would look like if it was crowning the healthiest electoral democracy in the world. With that in mind, we decided to put together an index that compares electoral health across countries and then apply it to this year’s World Cup.
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Choice Voting vs. The Challengers: The Irish Convention on the Constitution Decides
- Posted: August 7, 2013
- Author(s): Robert Fekete, Devin McCarthy
- Categories: Europe, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, Home, International Elections, Elections Worldwide, Districts Plus
The Irish Constitutional Convention was tasked with finding the best electoral system for Ireland, and all options were on the table. They decided to stick with the choice voting form of fair representation, with only 3 percent preferring U.S.-style single-member districts.
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Irish Convention Recommends Lowering the Voting Age
- Posted: July 8, 2013
- Author(s): Robert Fekete
- Categories: Europe, International Elections, Home, Elections Worldwide
The Irish Convention of the Constitution has recommended that Ireland become the 18th nation in the world to allow people under 18 years old to vote - a reform that is also gaining traction on the local level in the U.S.
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Ireland Takes Election Reform Seriously with Convention on the Constitution
- Posted: June 28, 2013
- Author(s): Robert Fekete
- Categories: Europe, Home, International Elections, Elections Worldwide
Last year the Irish Parliament decided to take a serious look at reforming their constitution, commissioning a citizen's assembly to examine their electoral system. The United States could learn from the Irish example.
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Rank the Vote: Comparing Voting in Ireland and the United States
- Posted: June 24, 2013
- Author(s): Robert Fekete, Rob Richie
- Categories: Europe, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, Home, International Elections, Elections Worldwide
Since 1919, Ireland has used a form of ranked choice voting for all its public elections. When the Irish think of voting, they think about ranking candidates in their order of preference. But here in the U.S., our conception of voting is usually just picking our one favorite candidate. FairVote examines the lessons we can learn from ranked choice voting in Ireland.
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How to Guarantee Accountable Legislatures Under Choice Voting (Without Hurting Third Parties)
- Posted: March 21, 2013
- Author(s): Devin McCarthy
- Categories: Europe, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation
You don't have to sacrifice voter choice in order to guarantee accountable governments in a choice voting system - either in Malta or in the U.S.
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Malta Elections Have 93% Turnout Using Choice Voting
- Posted: March 14, 2013
- Author(s): Devin McCarthy
- Categories: Europe, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, International Elections, Elections Worldwide
Malta's ultra-high-turnout elections demonstrate some of the many benefits that the choice voting form of fair voting could bring to legislative elections in the United States.
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Italian Elections Expose Non-Proportional and Ineffective Voting System
- Posted: February 28, 2013
- Author(s): Sara Helmi, Devin McCarthy
- Categories: Europe, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, International Elections, Home, Elections Worldwide
In the aftermath of Italy's general election on February 25-26, outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti asserted that "no country has such a bad electoral law as Italy." That may be an exaggeration, but there was plenty to be dissatisfied with in the election results.
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Gender Parity: A Case for Fair Voting and Party Rules
- Posted: February 28, 2013
- Author(s): Patricia Hart
- Categories: Europe, International Elections
The United States trails behind ninety-one countries for women's representation in its national legislature . Ranking behind most industrialized democracies, women fill a mere eighteen percent of U.S. Congressional seats. Many factors contribute to the level of descriptive representation (representation that reflects the electorate) present in a state's government. Two striking influences on representation are structural and institutional: the electoral system in place and the party rules employed.