There are three fundamental criteria for evaluating an electoral reform. First, we want a reformed electoral system to possess technical merit, i.e., we wish the law to define practical and consistent means to whatever ends the reform was intended to accomplish. Whether those ends are to improve the equality of representation or to make the party system more manageable, it should be possible to decide election outcomes objectively, efficiently, and quickly in every possible situation. Vagueness, inconsistencies, and impracticalities in an electoral reform undermine technical merit surprisingly often. Second, we want a reformed electoral system to achieve a true break with the past when that is what people are demanding. Most of the time, especially in established democracies, people do not demand much of a break; in fact, the legitimacy of an electoral system often depends on continuing traditions hallowed by past practice. However, in the atypical situations in which people do call for a reform, the process should make it possible to achieve a real break with the past. Finally, the outcome of a reform process should be viewed as legitimate by as many citizens as possible. The more legitimate the reform is, the better the electoral system can resolve the struggle for the right to rule and the longer the electoral system is likely to last. A legitimate electoral system is a necessary part of an institutionalized democratic regime.
How well an electoral reform lives up to these three criteria depends a great deal on what process produces it. There are four basic types of electoral reform process:
If a reform takes place within a regime that is already democratic, with institutions that represent society relatively well, then democratic institutions can be expected to produce a legitimate outcome with minimal miscalculation. Some democracies, however, have developed institutions that do not represent some important societal interests or identities well. Some electoral rules, parties, legislatures, or executives exclude or under-represent certain regions, ethnic groups, economic interests, religions, ideological persuasions, or women. Electoral reforms that take place in such regimes are less likely to produce a legitmate reform, either because the interests that are over-represented are in a position to perpetuate their own power or because well-meaning reformers do not have enough information to anticipate the strength or preferences of the excluded groups accurately. In many cases electoral reforms have been imposed during authoritarian periods, with little input from parties or civil society. As the intent behind such reforms usually is to prevent certain electoral outcomes from a prior democratic period or to protect ideas and interests identified with the authoritarian regime, this is the most exclusionary process of all. Reforms that take place during a regime transition begin under authoritarian conditions but move toward democratic conditions as the transition approaches. However, because the negotiating parties' interests change during the process, and because no election tests their relative strengths before the transition takes place, this type of process is handicapped by uncertainty.
It may appear that technical errors are less likely to creep in if an electoral reform is designed by a panel of experts insulated by an authoritarian regime from conflicting pressures, irrational compromises, and piecemeal decision-making. This is not necessarily the case, however: some authoritarian rulers seek out the best technical advice available, while others delegate the task to a committee of amateurs. Moreover, in either case the authoritarian reformers lack reliable information about citizen preferences that is abundant in democratic regimes, and are therefore more likely to produce a reform that will have unanticipated consequences. Reforms adopted in established representative democracies are most likely to avoid such surprises. Furthermore, if authoritarian rulers wait until a regime transition has begun before attempting to design a new electoral law, the transition dynamic soon takes over. The more precipitous the transition, the higher the uncertainty and the more likely mistakes of all kinds become.
A Venezuelan example of adaptation to reform:
In 1989, Venezuela shifted from a closed-list PR system to a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system in which half the seats were filled in single-member districts. This reform was supposed to make national deputies more accountable to their local constituents and less beholden to national party leaders who had ranked candidates on party lists. But in 1993, national party leaders frustrated this reform by retaining control over nominations for the single-member-district seats and by expelling deputies who broke party discipline.
In many situations a radical reform of the electoral system is neither desirable nor desired, particularly when the system is perceived to be working well (in representative democratic regimes) to have worked well previously (in an authoritarian regime or during a transition). However, in unrepresentative democracies there is almost always some desire to reform the system, either because electoral laws are blamed for the inequities in representation or because electoral reform is believed to provide an appropriate remedy for problems caused by other factors. In some countries the electoral system has been blamed for problems contributing to the breakdown of the democratic regime; in these cases electoral reform is often high on the agenda of subsequent authoritarian rulers and can become an issue during a transition back to democracy. Therefore, one obvious precondition for a reform that breaks with the past is a perceived need for reform. But when this condition is satisfied, what conditions affect the chances that a satisfactory reform will be adopted?
The outcome depends on the relative power of the proponents and opponents of reform. In a stable authoritarian regime, the authoritarian rulers are necessarily far more powerful than any other political actor, and therefore are able to dictate whatever modifications to the electoral law they wish. The Pinochet regime of 1973-1990 in Chile is a good example. General Pinochet appointed a Study Commission on the New Political Constitution in 1973, gave it detailed guidance in 1977, submitted the commission's draft to the (regime-appointed) Council of State in 1978, accepted some of the Council's suggested revisions, and obtained ratification of the revised constitution in a rigged referendum in 1980. This new constitution contained many radical changes in the electoral system, including the adoption of two-member districts. When Pinochet lost a referendum in 1988 on whether he should continue as president, the transition to democracy began; but pro-democracy party leaders by and large decided to abide by the rule of the electoral law imposed from above rather than jeopardize the entire transition. Another example is Alberto Fujimori's radical revision of the electoral law following his autogolpe (presidential coup) in 1992. His rules for electing a constituent assembly ("Democratic Constituent Congress") abolished the upper chamber, preference voting, and even the allocation of seats by department. In their place he decreed an 80-member unicameral legislature elected by closed and blocked lists in a single national district.
A radical break with the past is least likely in a highly representative democratic regime, in part because high-quality representation itself usually indicates reform is not a high priority for most citizens, and in part because electoral reform usually runs counter to the interests of the representatives who were elected under the existing rules, and who are well-situated to block reform efforts. These conditions together account for the lack of fundamental electoral reform in the United States, outside of voting rights and redistricting. However, there is a situation in which representatives can conclude that a reform would serve their interests well: when voting patterns change to the detriment of the traditional parties. In such cases, representatives of the traditional parties may be motivated to change the electoral system in an attempt to stem or slow their own decline: a reform to avoid reform, so to speak. This was the surprising motivation behind the adoption of proportional representation in much of Western Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: not necessarily to be fair to the emerging working-class parties, but to allow liberal and other governing parties in decline to hold onto some of their former power.
The chances for deep reform are hardest to predict in the case of unrepresentative democracies, because strong pressures for reform confront strong resistance. Pressures for reform are strong because underrepresented groups sooner or later demand a fairer electoral system and they tend to demand radical change. They also have the benefit of basic civil liberties and political rights, which make it possible for them to organize a powerful reform movement. However, they confront politicians and parties who benefit from the existing electoral system and feel threatened by proposals for change, and yet who occupy the positions that give them the power to defeat attempts to legislate reform. Any outcome, from a radical break with the past to delays or a preservation of the status quo, is possible depending on the relative strength of the forces for and against change at any given moment. In such situations reform is often blocked or delayed for years, and if a reform passes, it tends to be watered down so much that reform movements are not satisfied. But occasionally reform movements gain enough influence to overwhelm the opposition of entrenched interests.
One of the best examples of a reform process in an unrepresentative democracy comes from Colombia. Dictatorship gave way to elected governments in Colombia in 1958; however, for the next 16 years governments were elected under the terms of the "National Front" pact, which rendered party competition meaningless in several ways. First, only the traditional Liberals and Conservatives were allowed to candidates for elected office. Second, these two parties backed each other's presidential candidates in alternate elections, ensuring alternation in power without giving voters a choice. And third, the electoral law allocated 50 percent of the legislative seats to each party regardless of the proportion of the vote won be each party; therefore, voters could have some impact on the choice of candidates or factions, but not on the parties themselves. Some degree of representation was afforded by the fact that the national leadership of the parties lost control of their parties' labels, which made it possible for various groups to present candidates on Liberal or Conservative slates; but even these candidacies relied on heavily clientelistic bases of support, and some groups, particularly on the left, preferred not to adopt one of the traditional party labels. As a result, electoral turnout was shockingly high and growing throughout the National Front period (Hartlyn 1988). Leftist groups shunned electoral competition in favor of armed rebellion even after the pact expired in 1974, in part because hundreds of former guerrillas or leftists who dared to try the electoral path were assassinated by death squads.
Although no institutional reform by itself could bring peaceful participatory democracy to Colombia, many university students and NGO workers decided that a constitutional reform, including electoral reform, was a necessary part of the solution. The congress, however, was unwilling to reform the constitution, so none of the desired reforms was adopted for decades. But in 1990 the students and NGOs distributed an unofficial constituent assembly ballot that voters could deposit along with their official ballots in the May 1990 presidential elections. When this grass-roots referendum turned out to be overwhelmingly positive, new President César Gaviria convoked a December 1990 referendum and election of delegates to a National Constituent Assembly, even though the constitution allowed only the congress itself to amend the constitution. In the next year, this assembly changed the basis of election of the Senate to a single national district; introduced state-produced ballots that made it possible to split votes for legislative seats for the first time; eliminated (temporarily) the election of suplentes (alternates), which had been a big source of patronage; and separated the election of national and local officials. The assembly also provided for the direct election of governors and mayors and increased opportunities for popular referendums (Taylor 1996). Thus an unrepresentative congress delayed reform for a very long time in Colombia, at a very high political cost, but eventually civil society found an effective, although strictly speaking, unconstitutional, solution.
Regime transitions do not necessarily entail electoral law reform, because electoral laws are not always held responsible for the deficiencies of any prior democratic regime. But when the existing or prior electoral laws are perceived to be problematic, a regime transition provides a favorable environment for a significant break with the past. The direction of the break, however, depends fundamentally on the timing because the defining characteristic of a transition is a shift in power from the authoritarian rulers to the democratic forces (O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986). Early in a transition, the authoritarian rulers have the upper hand in initiating and defining the content of an electoral reform, while in the late stages of transition, politicians and parties have greater influence. Therefore, an early reform is more likely to break with any democratic past and a late reform is more likely to break with the authoritarian past.
Mexico can be said to have been in a very slow and controlled regime transition since the late 1970s. Electoral reforms took place in Mexico about every 3 years, starting in 1977, but for decades the object of these reforms was to preserve the dominance of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). At first reform liberalized opportunities for opposition parties, but divided them; then it granted favors to the smallest challengers while discriminating against the largest one; then it increased opportunities for all challengers while adding guarantees for the PRI's majority. Only since 1994 has the electoral law been reformed sufficiently to ensure fair balloting and vote counting. In this case, therefore, many reforms took place at an early stage of transition when rulers were able to prevent major breaks with the authoritarian past.
A reform that takes place late in the transition is more likely to reflect the interests of the democratic politicians. A good example comes from Brazil, where the transition was nearly completed by the accession of an opposition-backed candidate to the presidency in March 1985. By that time, most Brazilian parties had already taken shape as loose national agglomerations of regional, candidate-centered machines. Two months later, the congress approved Constitutional Amendment No. 25, which 1) lowered the national and state thresholds for winning a seat in congress, 2) eliminated the military regime's ban on party-switching, and 3) eliminated sanctions against legislators who broke party discipline in congress. In December, it passed laws allowing coalitions in legislative elections and allowing voters to split their votes in executive and legislative elections. All three reforms made it easier for small parties and regional parties to win seats and strengthened candidates vis-à-vis parties (Mainwaring 1991 and 1997). The previous electoral law already contained incentives favorable to these outcomes in that it provided for proportional representation in large-magnitude districts with open-list voting, which meant that preference voting for candidates completely determined the assignment of seats within parties. The new laws intensified the independence of candidates by allowing winning candidates to keep their seats even if their party or alliance failed to pass the threshold, if they would switch parties within 60 days. The 1987-88 constituent assembly maintained all of these provisions.
In the short term, the legitimacy of an electoral law is a direct result of how well the reformers represent the citizens who must live with the law. Therefore, a reform is most likely to enjoy legitimacy when it is adopted in a representative democracy and least likely to be legitimate when it is adopted in an authoritarian regime; unrepresentative democracies should produce an intermediate result. The legitimacy of a reform during a transition depends partly on the timing, which determines whether it is a more democratic or a more authoritarian reform. It also depends in part on the degree of uncertainty about the relative strength of the parties to the negotiation: the greater the uncertainty, the more the reform process approximates the conditions of John Rawls' "veil of ignorance," which creates incentives to adopt a proportional electoral system (Schiemann and Benoit 1997).
Societies do change, however, some faster than others. What citizens expect of their electoral law can therefore change also. In the long term the legitimacy of an electoral reform may diminish as new interests, parties, issues, and priorities arise, even in the most representative democracies. Uruguay is a good case in point. For presidential elections it long used the Double Simultaneous Vote (DSV), in which the winning candidate was the most-voted candidate within the most-voted party. Factions (sublemas) of the same party (lema) would run different presidential candidates, and the electoral law in effect created a direct primary held at the same time as the general election. It also guaranteed proportional representation of both lemas and sublemas in congress. For decades this electoral law reinforced an attractive balance between the governability afforded by a two-party system and the flexibility afforded by the varying sizes of the factions within the parties and the turnover among them. In the late 1960s, however, the hegemony of the two-party system began to erode as a third lema, the Broad Front, succeeding in winning a growing percentage of the vote, a trend that continued after the return to democracy in 1984. One negative side effect of the change in the party system was that on two occasions, the most-voted presidential candidate did not win the election, because he was not the candidate of the most-voted party. In response to growing questions about the legitimacy of election outcomes, congress reformed the electoral system in 1996 to prohibit parties from running more than one presidential candidate and institute direct popular election of the president, with a majority runoff if necessary.
In the long run, the legitimacy and survival of an electoral reform also depend on its technical merit and the degree to which it effectively addresses past problems. On balance, every reform process has its strengths and weaknesses. A preemptive reform in an authoritarian regime is good for achieving a true break with the electoral laws of the democratic past, but the new laws are less likely to enjoy popular legitimacy, and technical merit is not guaranteed. Reform in an unrepresentative democracy may be more likely to ensure technical merit, but is less likely to break with the past and probably will not enjoy win popular support, either. Reform early in a transition to democracy is similar to that in an authoritarian regime, with a greater probability of technical errors due to the uncertainty and the pressure to adopt a reform quickly. Reform late in a transition is more likely to win legitimacy (especially if uncertainty is high) while breaking with authoritarian legacies, but is prone to the same kinds of technical problems. Perhaps reform in a representative democracy is optimal: it may be less likely to break with the past, but less change is necessary, and at the same time it minimizes the chances that the new laws will suffer from technical flaws and maximizes the chances of popular legitimacy.
Hartlyn, Jonathan. 1988. The Politics of Coalition Rule in Colombia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mainwaring, Scott. 1991. "Politicians, Parties, and Electoral Systems: Brazil in Comparative Perspective." Comparative Politics 24:1 (October).
-----. 1997. "Explaining Choices of Political Institutions: Interests and Rational Politicians in Brazil, 1985-1988." Unpublished ms.
O'Donnell, Guillermo and Phillippe C. Schmitter. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Transitions. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schiemann, John W. and Kenneth Benoit. 1997. "The Origins of Hungary's 1989 Electoral Law." Center for International Affairs Working Paper No. 97-5, Harvard University (May).
Taylor, Stephen L. 1996. "Electoral Reform and Political Effects in the Post-1991 Colombian Senate." Paper prepared for presentation at the XX International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Guadalajara, Mexico, April 17-19, 1997.