Faces On The Ballot (The Personalization of Electoral Systems in Europe) - Personalization and Election Results (2016)

Personalization and Election Results
University Press Scholarship Online

Oxford Scholarship Online
Faces on the Ballot: The Personalization of

Electoral Systems in Europe
Alan Renwick and Jean-Benoit Pilet
Print publication date: 2016

Print ISBN-13: 9780199685042
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2016
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199685042.001.0001

Alan Renwick
Jean-Benoit Pilet
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199685042.003.0009
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter begins the book’s analysis of the effects of

personalizing electoral reforms. It does so by focusing on the
most proximate potential effects of these reforms: on the
nature of the votes that voters cast and the outcomes of
elections. It presents the most detailed cross-national study
yet conducted of patterns in preference voting—that is, the
degree to which voters vote for candidates rather than just
parties—over time, finding a mixed picture across Europe’s
democracies. Some reforms have clearly increased rates of
personal voting, while others have not. Many reforms have,
nevertheless, had the mechanical effect of increasing the
number of deputies who are elected as a result of voters’
preferences.
Keywords: electoral reform, impact of electoral reform, personalization,

personal voting, preference voting
Page 1 of 45
PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2017. All
Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a
monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber:
University of Colorado at Boulder; date: 13 February 2017
We begin our exploration of the effects of personalizing

electoral reforms by focusing on elections themselves. As we
outlined in Chapter 2, the personalization of electoral systems
has two broad aspects: the degree to which voters can express
preferences among individual candidates; and the degree to
which voters’ preferences determine which individuals are
elected. Correspondingly, we examine these two aspects in
this chapter.
A few reforms unambiguously increase the scope for voters to

express their preferences. The switch from closed to flexible
lists in Lithuania in 1996, for example, gave voters an ability
to register preferences among candidates that previously had
been entirely lacking. As we showed in Chapter 3, however,
most reform activity has concerned not the rules on
preference expression, but rather the degree to which those
preferences have a meaningful impact on who is elected. In
looking at preference expression, therefore, we are primarily
interested in whether electoral reforms have encouraged
voters to use more fully the expressive powers already granted
them by the electoral system. Section 9.1 begins by looking in
general terms at trends in preference voting: what changes, if
any, have been taking place irrespective of any changes to the
electoral rules? Then we focus, in Section 9.2, upon the
relationship between electoral reforms and preference voting:
have electoral reforms triggered greater take-up of preference
voting? Is there evidence that the causal arrow may point the
other way? Then, in Section 9.3, we turn to the impact of
electoral reforms upon who is elected. Have the reforms
enacted actually increased voters’ power over who will
represent them or have they been purely cosmetic?
9.1 Trends in Preference Voting

The level of preference voting is defined as the degree to
which voters express preferences among individual
candidates. It is thus close to the concept of personal voting
used in the literature on single-member-district systems (e.g.,
Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina 1987; Gaines 1998). In some of the
systems we (p.218) analyse, it is easy to measure preference
voting, as the electoral rules give voters the option to cast
Page 2 of 45
votes for one or more candidates or to cast a straight party

vote. We can therefore look at the proportion of voters who
exercise this right. In other cases, measuring preference
voting is less straightforward and requires either more
complex analysis of electoral returns or the use of evidence
from surveys. We begin this section with the simple cases
before turning to those where finding conclusive evidence is
harder.
Optional Preference Systems

Fourteen of the thirty-one European countries covered in this
study employed list proportional representation (PR) systems
with optional preference voting at the end of our study period.
These include both open- and flexible-list systems: Latvia,
Luxembourg, and Switzerland, for example, are all open-list
systems in which voters can choose to cast a preference vote
or not; Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Sweden are among
the flexible-list systems in which voters have the same choice.
Other open- and flexible-list systems, by contrast, have
compulsory preference voting. In the open-list systems in
Finland and Poland, for example, and in the flexible-list system
in the Netherlands, voters have no option but to cast a vote for
an individual candidate. Closed-list systems clearly belong to
the opposite extreme: list systems with no option for a
preference vote. The unique Slovenian flexible-list system also
involves no option of a preference vote, in that voters have no
intra-party choice (see pp. 163–4 for details).
At least in principle, optional preference systems provide a

ready measure of preference voting: the proportion of voters
who in fact choose to express a preference among candidates.
As we shall see shortly, there are problems of data availability
in a few cases. Nevertheless, for most of the fourteen
countries, relevant evidence can be found.
Figure 9.1 begins our analysis by presenting data for the five
long-standing optional-preference systems of West-Central
Europe. It reveals two patterns across the five countries. In
two of those countries—Austria and Belgium—levels of
preference voting started low but have subsequently risen.
Indeed, in Austria before the 1980s, the number of voters
choosing to cast a preference vote was minimal: in 1979, just
Page 3 of 45
5429 voters out of a total of more than 4.7 million who cast a
valid ballot—0.1 per cent—opted to pick out an individual
candidate, meaning that the average candidate garnered
fewer than four votes. Preference voting rose slightly in the
1980s and then dramatically in 1990. It has continued to drift
up in most subsequent elections, reaching an all-time high in
2013 of 26.4 per cent of voters. We explore the factors
underlying these changes in Section 9.2. In Belgium,
meanwhile, the rising trend of preference voting extends back
further. Indeed, the pattern can be (p.219)
Page 4 of 45
observed even
in the inter-
war period. In
1921, 15.6 per
cent of voters
cast a
preference
vote, rising to
27.3 per cent
in 1939.
Preference
voting rates
Figure 9.1 Rates of Optional Preference
remained
Voting in West-Central Europe since 1945
between 20
and 30 per Note: In each case the figure shown
Sources:
cent in the is the proportion of voters casting a
1940s and valid ballot in national parliamentary
1950s before elections who expressed a preference
rising in the among individual candidates. Where
1960s and two elections occurred in the same
1970s, peaking year, we use the average of the two
at 51.9 per
figures.
cent in 1978. A
period of
stability Austria: Bundesministerium für Inneres
ensued, (1945–2013); Belgium: Belgian Federal
followed by a Ministry of the Interior (1945–2014), see
further rise to
also Wauters and Rodenbach (2014);
66.5 per cent
Denmark: Danmarks Statistik (1972–
in 2003.
2012); Luxembourg: Grand Duchy of
Preference
voting has Luxembourg (2014); Switzerland: Office
tailed off again fédéral de la statistique (2011).
in the three
most recent
elections.
In the three remaining countries—Denmark, Luxembourg, and
Switzerland—by contrast, preference voting rates started
relatively high and have shown little subsequent change
(though, in the latter two cases, data are available only from
the mid-1970s onwards). Further disaggregation of the data
from both Switzerland and Luxembourg leads to some
qualification of this finding. Swiss voters can cast an unaltered
party ballot or cast a party ballot on which they have added
and subtracted certain names or cast a ballot containing only
Page 5 of 45
names, with no designated party. The data in Figure 9.1

combine the latter two categories, but if we look only at the
final, most personalized category, we find that it has risen
steadily, from 3.6 per cent of voters in 1975 to a high of 8.6
per cent in 2011. Nevertheless, this suggests only (p.220)
that the tiny minority of firmly non-party voters has become a

slightly larger minority; the trend has not affected the great
majority of voters. In Luxembourg, Dumont and colleagues
(2010: 10) report that the proportion of voters who not only
expressed preference votes but also used the opportunity to
vote for candidates from multiple lists ‘almost doubled’
between 1979 and 2009. We do not have access to the data
underlying this observation. Figure 9.1 suggests, however,
that to compare 1979 and 2009 is to compare the low point
and the high point of preference voting in Luxembourg and
that any trend is probably therefore more limited.
Turning to the remaining long-standing democracies with

optional preference voting—Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—we
encounter greater problems of data availability. Until the
reforms of 1997 in Sweden and 2000 in Iceland, these were all
countries in which preference voting was allowed but had, in
practice, absolutely no effect on election results. It was
common to refer to them as closed-list systems even though,
strictly speaking, they were not. And in all three—until the
reforms in Sweden and Iceland and up to the present day in
Norway—data on preference voting were not collected.
Indeed, it appears that, in general, changes made by voters to
the ordering of party lists were not even counted, so obvious
was it that they were too rare to have any effect.
The longest time series on preference voting in these

countries in fact comes from local elections in Norway. As
Figure 9.2 shows, the proportion of voters casting a
preference vote has risen at every such election since 1987.
Preference voting rates for recent parliamentary elections in
Sweden, meanwhile, are shown in Figure 9.3. In the first post-
reform elections, in 1998, 29.9 per
Page 6 of 45
(p.221)
Figure 9.2 Rate of Optional Preference

Voting in Norwegian Local Elections
since 1979
Source: Statistics Norway (2013),
<http://www.ssb.no>, accessed 13 July
2013.
Page 7 of 45
cent of voters
exercised the
right to cast a
preference
vote, a rate
that none of
the four
subsequent
elections has
matched.
Although we
Figure 9.3 Rate of Optional Preference
cannot know
Voting in Swedish Parliamentary
for sure, it
seems safe to
Elections since 1998
presume that Note: The data relate to votes cast
all of these for seat-winning parties only. These
figures are are the only data available before
higher than for 2010. In the 2010 election, 24.9 per
the pre-reform cent of votes cast for seat-winning
period. parties included preference votes,
In Iceland, we compared with 25.1 per cent of all
face the valid votes. In 2014, 23.8 per cent of
difficulty that votes for seat-winning parties and
the official 24.6 per cent of all valid votes
election included preference votes.
results still do
not report the
proportion of Sources: Statistics Sweden (1999: 271,
voters who 2003: 8, 266, 2007: 20, 2011: 342);
alter their Valmyndigheten (2014: Annex 1: 1).
ballots. They
do, however,
now report all the preferences expressed for each candidate,1
and Figure 9.4 shows three indicators of preference voting
based on these data. First, the thick solid line shows the
proportion of voters who changed the candidate who was
ranked first on their party’s ballot. This gets us as close as we
can to a measure of the number of voters changing their
ballots. But it clearly does not include all changes—some
voters might keep the top candidate the same but change the
rankings of other candidates. Nor does it show us how radical
voters are in (p.222)
Page 8 of 45
the changes
they make: it
does not
differentiate
between voters
who move a
first-ranked
candidate into
second place
and those who
eliminate that
candidate Figure 9.4 Indicators of Optional
entirely. The Preference Voting in Icelandic
thin solid line Parliamentary Elections since 2003
deals with this Sources: Data on the average deviation of
second point
list leaders’ points totals from the
by showing the
maximum possible in 2003, 2007, and
percentage
deviation of
2009 are from Helgason (2006: 36, 2008:
list-leading 31, 2010b: 27). All other figures are
candidates’ calculated by the authors from data
points totals available at the website of the Icelandic
from the totals National Electoral Commission, <http://
they would landskjor.is/kosningamal/
have won had althingiskosningar-/>, accessed 24 July
no ballots been
2013. We are grateful to Thorkell
altered.
Helgason for helping us to gain access to
Iceland, it may
these data in a format suitable for
be recalled,
uses a Borda analysis.
system to
determine final
list order:
candidates receive points relating to their position on the list of
candidates as submitted by each voter; these points are added up
across all ballot papers to determine final list order. To the extent
that voters demote or eliminate list leaders, these candidates’
points totals are reduced. This is the measure of preference voting
used by Iceland’s leading electoral statistician, Þorkell Helgason
(2006: 36, 2008: 31, 2010b: 27). Still, however, this allows only for
changes affecting list-leading candidates. The dashed line therefore
adds a third indicator, measuring the average deviation of each
candidate’s points total from the total they would have obtained
had no ballots been altered. Here it is possible that some voters’
alterations may cancel each other out. Nevertheless, we gain an
impression of the changes among all the seat-winning parties’
significant candidates.
Page 9 of 45
(p.223) These three indicators, unsurprisingly, track each

other closely. All show far lower levels of preference voting in
recent years than in any of the other countries we have looked
at so far. In 2003, just 1.7 per cent of voters demoted or
eliminated their party’s first-ranked candidate and the average
candidate’s points total deviated from what it would have been
had no ballots been altered by just 1.5 per cent. These figures
changed little in 2007. The election of 2009 followed Iceland’s
financial collapse, and voters’ anger appears to have fed into a
higher incidence of preference voting. A total of 4.5 per cent
of voters demoted or eliminated their party’s leading
candidate; one minister in the ousted cabinet was demoted or
struck out by 23.9 per cent of his party’s supporters; overall,
candidates’ points deviated by 4.6 per cent from the unaltered
totals. Still, these figures hardly suggest a deluge of voter
activism. Furthermore, there is little evidence that the effect
lasted: by 2013, preference voting had returned to close to its
previous levels.
We move now to countries whose current periods of stable

democracy began in the 1970s. Two of these countries—Spain
and Portugal—adopted closed-list systems and are discussed
below under that heading. Two others—Greece and Cyprus—
introduced list systems with optional expression of
preferences. We have been unable to gather preference voting
data for Greece: while, in contrast to some of the Scandinavian
cases, preference votes are certainly counted, it appears they
are not collated nationally. Data are, however, available for
Cyprus.
A broadly proportional system was introduced in Cyprus ahead

of the 1981 elections. Voters could initially express between
one and three preferences for candidates of their favoured
party, depending on the number of seats available in their
district. This was raised to one to six preferences for the
second PR election in 1985 and has remained constant since.
Figure 9.5 shows two measures of actual preference voting
since 1981. The upper line shows the average number of
preference votes cast per valid ballot paper. This rose
unsurprisingly in 1985, when the number of preferences that
voters could express was increased. It rose further in 1991,
perhaps as more voters became aware of the new rules. It
Page 10 of 45
then stabilized before dropping back somewhat in the two

most recent elections. This measure may, however, fail to
capture the degree to which voters choose to take advantage
of the opportunities available to them: first, because it is
sensitive to the scale of those opportunities and, second,
because it may be influenced by population shifts between
districts in which more or fewer preference votes can be cast.
The lower line neutralizes both of these effects by looking at
the ratio of actual preference votes to the maximum number of
preference votes that could have been cast. This fell slightly in
1985: though voters took the opportunity to cast more
preference votes, they left uncast a slightly higher proportion
of the available preference votes than before. Thereafter, the
lower line closely mirrors the upper line: population shifts
among the districts have, in fact, been very slight. (p.224)
Page 11 of 45
There is no
evidence of
any trend
change in
usage of
preference
voting over
time.
Finally, we
can turn to
the five
Figure 9.5 Indicators of Optional
former
Preference Voting in Cypriot
communist
Parliamentary Elections since 1981
countries that
* The lower line shows the ratio of the
have
actual number of preference votes cast in
introduced
each district to the maximum possible
optional
number of preference votes in that
preference
district given the number of valid ballots
voting since
cast, averaged across districts weighting
1990:
by the number of valid ballots cast.
Bulgaria, the
Czech Source: Calculated by the authors from
Republic, data compiled and kindly supplied by
Slovakia, Christophoros Christophorou from
Latvia, and Hadjikyriakos and Christophorou (1996),
Lithuania. All Cypriot Press and Information Office
of these (1996: 13–30, 2001: 19–32, 2006: 23–36),
countries and Cypriot Ministry of the Interior
allow voters (2011).
to express
multiple
preferences.
While data are published in all cases on the total number of
preference votes cast, for some there are no data on how
many voters have chosen to express preferences. Figure 9.6
therefore shows two sorts of data: panel (a) shows such data
as are available on the proportion of voters who alter their
ballots; panel (b) shows the average number of preferences
per valid ballot paper. There are no general trends over time.
Preference voting in the Czech Republic started the period low
and has tended to drift down further. The average number of
preference votes per ballot did, however, double between
Page 12 of 45
2006 and 2010, before falling back again somewhat in 2013.

In Slovakia (where we have data only since independence),
preference voting rates started higher and have continued to
rise: 80 per cent of voters opted to express at least one
preference in the most recent election, in 2012. (p.225)
Page 13 of 45
(p.226) In
Lithuania
(where we
have no data
on the number
of voters
casting a
preference
vote in early
elections), the
average voter
expressed 1.6
preferences
when list
flexibility was
first
introduced in
1996. This rose
to 2.9 in 2000
but has
subsequently
fallen back. In
Latvia, data
Figure 9.6 Rates of Optional Preference
are mostly
lacking from Voting in East-Central Europe since 1990
the 1990s. The Notes: (a) Figures for the Czech Republic
average for 2006 and 2010 are Czech Election
number of Study estimates. Those for Slovakia
preferences
relate only to votes cast for seat-winning
per voter has,
parties. (b) Figures for Slovakia relate
however,
tended to rise, only to votes cast for seat-winning
from 2.4 in parties. We have no data for the Latvian
1995 to 3.5 in elections of 1993 or 1998.
2010 and 3.4
in 2014.
Bulgaria is not shown, as preference voting has been used only
once, in 2014; 35.7 per cent of those who cast a valid ballot in that
election exercised the right to express a single candidate
preference (calculated from data available in Bulgarian Central
Electoral Commission 2014).
Page 14 of 45
Compulsory
Preference Sources: Calculated by the authors using
Systems
data available at: Czech Republic:
Four of our
elections website of the Czech Statistical
countries—
Office (<http://www.volby.cz>) and
the
additional data kindly supplied by the
Netherlands,
Czech Statistical Office; Latvia: website
Finland,
of the Latvian Central Electoral
Estonia, and
Commission (<http://www.cvk.lv>) and
Poland—use
Millard (2011); Lithuania: Lithuanian
list systems in
Seimas (1996, 2000, 2004); Lithuanian
which voters
Chief Electoral Commission (2008, 2012);
can cast a
Slovakia: website of the Statistical Office
valid ballot
of the Slovak Republic (<http://
only by voting
slovak.statistics.sk>) and additional data
for an
kindly supplied by the Statistical Office of
individual
the Slovak Republic.
candidate:
there is no
option to cast
a straight party ballot. The proportion of voters who choose to
cast a preference vote is therefore not available as a way of
measuring preference voting.
The system used in the Netherlands is, however, a flexible-

rather than fully open-list system: each party determines the
order of its candidates on the ballot paper and a vote for the
first candidate is, in effect, a vote for that established order. It
is therefore standard practice to use the proportion of voters
casting their ballot for a candidate other than the top
candidate on each list as an indicator of preference voting
(see, e.g., Andeweg and Holsteyn 2011). Parties in Estonia and
Poland also present ordered lists. Here, however, lists are fully
open (at least, in the Estonian case, at the district level): the
order in which candidates are elected is determined entirely
by the votes cast and the order provided by the parties is
purely indicative. In these cases, a vote cast for the first
candidate is therefore, in intra-party terms, only a vote for that
candidate, not for the whole ordering established by the party,
so the straightforward distinction made in the Netherlands
cannot be presumed. (In inter-party terms, any vote is, of
course, also a vote for the list itself.) Nevertheless, if, as
Page 15 of 45
seems reasonable, we assume that most voters who wish

simply to support a party without thinking about candidates
will plump for the first candidate on the list, then we can
expect any changes in levels of preference voting over time to
be reflected in changes in the proportion of voters who give
their vote to the first candidate. Figure 9.7 therefore shows,
for all three of these countries, the share of voters voting for
candidates other than the candidate placed first on the party’s
list. This gives clear evidence of preference voting levels in the
Netherlands and more ambiguous evidence in Estonia and
Poland.
Figure 9.7 reveals a gradually rising trend in preference voting

in the Netherlands. This occurred particularly during the
1980s and 1990s: the (p.227)
Page 16 of 45
proportion of
voters casting
their ballot for
a candidate
other than the
first on the
party’s list rose
from 7.5 per
cent in 1981 to
a high of 27.1
per cent in
2002. Rates of Figure 9.7 Voting for Non-List Leaders in
preference the Netherlands, Estonia, and Poland
voting have, Sources: Netherlands: Andeweg and
however, fallen
Holsteyn (2011: 8); we are grateful to
off in the years
Rudy Andeweg for providing the data
since then. The
underlying their graph and for updating
time series are,
of course, the data to 2012; Estonia: calculated
much shorter from data available from the website of
for Estonia and the Estonian National Electoral
Poland. Both of Commission (<http://www.vvk.ee>),
these countries accessed 13 August 2013; Poland: 1991–
show higher 2001: calculated from data at the website
proportions of
of the Political Transformation and the
voters who
Electoral Process in Post-Communist
cast their
Europe project, University of Essex
ballots for
candidates (<http://www2.essex.ac.uk/elect/
other than list database/database.asp>), accessed 22
leaders—but March 2015; 2005–11: Państwova
this could be Komisja Wyborcza (2005, 2007, 2011).
because
parties
expecting to
win, say, two or three seats in their district encourage supporters
to vote for their second and third candidates as well as the first,
rather than because many voters follow their own candidate
preferences. Voting for candidates other than list leaders rose
steeply in Estonia during the 1990s and has since remained broadly
flat. The data for Poland show no clear trend.
In the final compulsory preference list system—Finland—
parties do not present ordered lists at all: candidates are
instead named in alphabetical order. There are therefore no
list leaders, and so we must be more creative in pursuit of a
Page 17 of 45
measure of preference voting. Karvonen (2011) seeks to

develop such a measure on the basis of official election
returns by defining the absence of preference voting as the
situation in which voters randomly pick any of the (p.228)
candidates on their party’s list, such that all those candidates

receive the same number of votes. He therefore takes
deviations from equality and variation in the size of those
deviations as indicators of preference voting. He finds that
there are marked deviations, which he interprets as showing
that candidates do matter to voters’ decisions. But, looking at
the data from six elections between 1958 and 2007, he finds
no consistent pattern of change over time (Karvonen 2011: 8).
This analysis is useful, but the assumptions underlying it

clearly simplify reality. Voters who have no interest in
candidates might plump for the first candidate alphabetically
rather than vote randomly. Or voters might support particular
candidates because of their positions within the party, not
because of personal preferences. Supplementary indicators
would therefore be helpful. Karvonen does provide an
additional indicator, based on incumbency advantage. As we
discuss shortly, the bonus of votes won by sitting deputies is
an established indicator of personal voting in systems with
single-member districts. Karvonen (2011: 9–10) finds that
incumbency indeed makes a difference to candidates’ vote
shares in Finland, but again finds no trend in the level of this
advantage over time. Arter (2010), meanwhile, looks at the
geographical spread of candidates’ votes within districts and
finds many do much better in their own municipality than
elsewhere. This again points to the existence of a strong
personal vote, but the calculations relate to only one election—
that of 2007—so give no evidence as to trends over time.
A final source of evidence comes from surveys. Finnish

election studies have, since 1983, intermittently asked the
question, ‘Which was more important to you when you voted:
party or candidate?’ The results are shown in Figure 9.8. The
responses from 1983 to 2007 suggest a very gradually rising
trend of focus upon individual candidates. That came to an
abrupt halt in 2011, however, when the proportion of
respondents saying candidates were more important fell from
51 per cent to 44 per cent. This was the election that saw a
Page 18 of 45
surge in support for the populist True Finns party, and it may
be that many dissatisfied voters supported this party without
knowing much about its candidates. Whatever the reasons for
the switch from the previous pattern, however, there is
insufficient evidence here to counter Karvonen’s conclusion
that preference voting has not strengthened over recent
decades in Finland.
Closed-List Systems
Closed-list systems cover three of our cases throughout the
period of study—Spain, Portugal, and Croatia—as well as
Romania before 2008 and Bulgaria between the reforms of
1991 and 2009. They can be treated here very briefly: there is
little scope for candidate-centric voting in such systems. That
is not to say there is no scope at all: Riera (2011) finds
evidence that party lists in Spain (p.229)
do slightly
better when
led by an
experienced
candidate.
Nevertheless,
the main focus
necessarily lies
on parties. We
are aware of
no studies
besides Riera’s
Figure 9.8 The Importance of Party v.
seeking to Candidate in Finnish Elections, 1983–
measure the 2011
size of any Note: The chart shows the proportion
personal vote of respondents answering ‘candidate’
in a true to the question ‘Which was more
closed-list important to you when you voted:
system.
party or candidate?’
STV Systems
The single Source: Bengtsson (2012: 144).
transferable
vote (STV)
system, used
in Ireland and Malta, lies at the opposite end of the scale from
closed-list systems in terms of voters’ capacity to express
Page 19 of 45
candidate preferences. Under STV, as in compulsory

preference list systems, voters have no choice but to mark
their ballots for individual candidates.2 We therefore cannot
simply read off the level of preference voting from the official
election returns. In a pioneering analysis, Gallagher (1978)
developed three indicators of voter behaviour based on how
votes were transferred when a candidate was elected or
eliminated. The crucial indicator for the estimation of
preference voting was what Gallagher called party solidarity
and what we, in line with some later authors, call party loyalty.
In Gallagher’s words, ‘Internal party solidarity can be
measured by (p.230) considering what proportion of votes
remains within the party fold, where it is possible for votes to
do so, when a transfer from a candidate of that party is
made’ (Gallagher 1978: 3). That is, if a candidate is eliminated
or elected and a co-partisan of that candidate remains in the
race, do votes transfer to the co-partisan or to a candidate of
another party? Sinnott and McBride (2011: 207–10) present
party loyalty data for the three main parties (Fianna Fáil, Fine
Gael, and Labour) at each election in Ireland since 1948, while
data for all parties taking part in Maltese elections since 1921
are available on the University of Malta’s Malta Elections
website, originally compiled by John C. Lane. These data are
summarized in Figure 9.9, where, in order to maintain
consistency with other figures in this chapter, we show party
disloyalty: the proportion of votes that do not transfer to a co-
partisan when they could do so.
It is not possible to give a precise real-world meaning to the

numbers in Figure 9.9. A disloyalty level of 20 per cent, for
example, does not mean that 20 per cent of voters refused to
transfer their vote to a co-partisan when they could have done
so. That is because transfers can be observed only if they are
counted, which often does not happen (see Sinnott and
McBride 2011: 206–7).
Page 20 of 45
(p.231)
Differences
between the
numbers at
different
elections are,
however,
meaningful.
They show that
far more voters
in Ireland than
Figure 9.9 Party Disloyalty in STV
in Malta have
withheld their Elections: Ireland and Malta since 1947
vote from co- Note: The figure shows the
Sources:
partisans. In proportion of votes that either did not
Ireland, the transfer or transferred to a candidate
rate of such from another party when they could
party disloyalty have transferred to a co-partisan. The
hovered sources provide data for individual
between 20
parties; we have combined these,
and 30 per
weighting for each party’s share of
cent of
observed
first-preference votes.
transfers for
most of the Ireland: Sinnott and McBride (2011: 208);
period
we are grateful to Richard Sinnott and
between 1948
James McBride for providing the data
and 1989
before rising to
underlying their graph; data on shares of
a high of 41.6 first preference votes: 1948–2007:
per cent in Nohlen and Stöver (2010: 1011–15);
2002. It has 2011: Courtney (2011: 301). Malta: Lane
fallen back (n.d.).
again slightly
in the last two
elections. In
Malta, party disloyalty fell steadily in the early post-war decades,
dipping below 2 per cent in the 1980s, when the intensity of
competition between the two dominant parties threatened the
democratic system. That is, in more than 98 per cent of observable
cases, voters transferred their support from one candidate to a co-
partisan when it was possible to do so. The disloyalty rate has,
however, drifted slowly upwards since 1987, reaching a post-
independence high of 6.5 per cent in 2013.
Page 21 of 45
Single-Member-District Systems
Two of our countries—France and the United Kingdom—use
single-member districts. For current purposes, the Slovenian
form of list PR and the Romanian mixed system also behave as
single-member-district systems, as voters cast their ballots in
(sub-)districts where each party runs only one candidate. In
these cases, voters have no choice among co-partisans:
whether they wish to support a party or a candidate, they do
exactly the same thing. We therefore again cannot read
preference voting rates directly from the electoral returns.
Rather, the standard approach to estimating preference voting
—or personal voting, as it is typically called in this context—is
to analyse variation between districts in how voting patterns
change from one election to the next.
In the UK in the 1950s and 1960s, it became common to

analyse elections using the rubric of so-called ‘uniform
national swing’. Butler and Stokes (1969: 303) intoned, ‘No
electoral phenomenon in Britain has been more widely
remarked on than that of “uniform national swing”. In election
after election since the Second World War, the net shift of
strength between the parties has amounted to a remarkably
similar fraction of the electorate in the great bulk of
constituencies across the country.’ They went on to point out
that this did not mean each district’s voters were behaving
identically; nevertheless, the patterns pointed to an absence of
any significant variation at the constituency level that might
have been attributable to candidate-centric voting.
Variation in swing between districts subsequently rose. In fact,

the standard deviation of district-level swing has been higher
at every election since 1979 than at every post-war election
before that (Curtice, Fisher, and Steed 2005: 254, n7). Of the
1992 election, for example, Curtice and Steed observed,
‘variation in the movement between one constituency and
another was again a marked feature of the election
result’ (Curtice and Steed 1992: 323).
(p.232) This does not, however, demonstrate that personal

voting has risen. First, the change has been rather small: the
highest standard deviation of (two-party) swing at a post-war
UK election was 5.1, in 1983 (Curtice and Steed 1984: 334),
Page 22 of 45
which no more than matched the lowest standard deviation

recorded by Butler and Stokes (1969: 135) in post-war
elections in the United States; subsequently, the standard
deviation of swing in the UK has tended to drift down again,
reaching 3.5 in 2005 (Curtice, Fisher, and Steed 2005: 237).
Second, variation in party fortunes between districts may be

attributable to many factors besides personal voting. Curtice
and Steed, while noting the rise in variability in 1979, added
that ‘most of the variation can be attributed to factors working
systematically throughout the country rather than to the
eccentricities of individual seats’ (Curtice and Steed: 1980:
394), prime among which was the opening of a north–south
divide. Even if there are ‘eccentricities’ in individual seats, this
may be explained by varying patterns of tactical voting in
increasingly multiparty politics (Curtice, Fisher, and Steed
2005: 243–5) or by the parties’ increasingly sophisticated use
of targeted local campaigning (Norris: 2000: 137–79; Denver
et al. 2003, 2004), rather than necessarily by personal voting.
In order to overcome these difficulties, scholars have tended

to focus more narrowly on particular aspects of variation in
vote changes between districts. The commonest relates to the
notion of incumbency advantage. Candidates need to be
familiar to voters in order to attract their votes. Those who are
already deputies can work to build such familiarity through
their activities in the district or elsewhere. If there is a
personal vote, we should therefore expect it to show up in an
advantage for incumbents. We can measure this by seeing
whether first-time incumbents gain a vote boost and whether
candidates who seek to take over a seat from a retiring
incumbent suffer a vote loss. Early studies in the UK found
that British MPs greatly increased their constituency activities
in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s and observed evidence that an
incumbency advantage did indeed exist, though on a smaller
scale than in the United States (Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina
1984; Norton and Wood 1990). The natural inference made
was that greater constituency activism should expand the
personal vote. Systematic studies tracking the size of the
incumbency effect over time have, however, struggled to find
any evidence of a rise. Gaines analysed the data between 1950
Page 23 of 45
and 1992 and concluded, ‘what is most striking is the absence

of a rise in incumbency’s value over the post-war
period’ (Gaines 1998: 185). Smith (2013) presents similar
analysis covering elections between 1983 and 2010. He does
not focus on trends over time in his discussion of his results.
But the findings give very little evidence of any change over
time: only for the Conservatives does there appear to be a
stronger incumbency effect in later, rather than earlier,
elections.
Incumbency effects are still far from offering a perfect

measure of personal voting. The incumbency advantage may,
in part, reflect tactical voting, (p.233) particularly for a small
party, where incumbency gives a clear signal that the party
can win (Gaines 1998: 185). And some personal voting is
unrelated to incumbency, where voters have other means to
judge a candidate’s quality (Smith 2013: 167). Norris and
colleagues (1992) take us a step closer to measuring the
relationship between candidate quality and votes won by
looking at whether MPs who report spending more time on
constituency work than their colleagues also perform better
electorally. But their analysis focuses only on the 1992
election, and we are not aware of any study that examines
changes in this pattern over time.
All in all, then, there is certainly a widespread belief in the UK

that personal voting has become more important. In the 2010
Nuffield election study, for example, Curtice, Fisher, and Ford
(2010: 393) comment, ‘One of the features of recent British
elections has been a tendency for MPs—and especially those
in marginal seats—to develop a “personal vote”. MPs are
seemingly able to attract a degree of support for themselves
as individuals rather than because of the party they represent
by being highly visible and active within their constituency.’
But there is in fact very little concrete evidence of a change
over time. We cannot reject the null hypothesis that personal
voting has been broadly constant in the UK over recent
decades.
In France, there is a long tradition of whole parties comprising

local ‘notables’, whose appeal to the electorate is based on
their local profiles and activities rather than their party
Page 24 of 45
affiliation (e.g., Williams 1954: 93, 107), and one recent

analysis using survey data in relation to the 2012 National
Assembly elections finds substantial evidence of local
candidate effects (Brouard and Kerrouche 2013). We are not
aware, however, of any studies that seek to measure variation
in the personal vote over time in France. The same applies to
Slovenia. In Romania, similarly, while studies have examined
various effects of the 2008 electoral reform (Marian and King
2010; Coman 2012), we are not aware of any focused on
impact upon voting patterns.
Mixed-Member Systems
We turn, finally, to levels of preference voting in mixed
electoral systems. Three of our countries—Germany, Hungary,
and Lithuania—have had mixed systems throughout the period
covered here, while three more—Italy, Bulgaria, and Romania
—have had such systems for some of the time. The unusual
Romanian system was best treated, for current purposes, in
the preceding sub-section ‘Single-Member-District Systems’.
As in the case of systems using only single-member districts,

personal voting in mixed-member systems can be studied only
indirectly: it cannot simply be discerned from the election
results. The feature of mixed-member systems (except the
Romanian) that facilitates analysis is the two-vote (p.234)
structure: voters cast ballots both for candidates in single-

member districts and for party lists. The greater the personal
vote, other things being equal, the greater will be the
differences between these. Again as for single-member
districts, however, personal voting is not the only possible
explanation for such differences: tactical voting may play a
crucial role too. Indeed, the literature on split-ticket voting
often focuses mainly on tactical (or strategic) voting (see
Burden and Helmke 2009 for an overview).
Studies that seek to distinguish the personal voting element

are relatively rare, and few of these allow any assessment of
change over time. Those that do exist focus on Germany, but,
even there, Klingemann and Wessels (2001: 285) comment
that ‘Little is known about performance-driven personal
voting.’ The proportion of German voters choosing to split
their ballots in Bundestag elections has grown markedly, from
Page 25 of 45
6.0 per cent in 1976 to 26.4 per cent in 2009 and 23.0 per cent
in 2013 (Bundeswahlleiter 2014). Writing when this trend was
still relatively fresh, Jesse (1987: 443–4) argued it was due to a
growth in tactical voting among parties, not personalization.
Bawn (1999) sought to identify the personal voting component
of split-ticket voting by gauging whether incumbents secured
larger vote bonuses. She found that they did at every election
between 1969 and 1987. Her data gave no evidence, however,
that this effect had grown over time. Moser and Scheiner
(2005: 269–71), using a different methodology, found Germany
to be unique among the cases they studied, in that tactical
voting dominated over personal voting in the explanation of
split tickets. They did not, however, assess change over time.
We are aware of no study of this sort that has used data from
the last twenty-five years to look at the issue of temporal
change.
Other analysts use other methods to gauge personal voting in

Germany. Hainmueller and Kern (2008) find that incumbency
has a positive effect not only in the districts but also on party
vote shares in the list voting. Gschwend and Zittel (2015) find
that candidates who run stronger local campaigns do better
electorally. But neither addressed change over time.
Even for the mixed-member system that has been subject to

the most detailed analysis, therefore, there is insufficient
evidence to draw any conclusions regarding change in the
level of preference voting.
Summing Up the Trends in Preference Voting

The data presented in this section clearly draw a mixed
picture. Of the twenty countries in our sample that were
democratic before 1990, we have clear evidence of a general
trend towards higher levels of preference voting in five:
Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Malta. We
presume that preference voting has also been substantially
higher in Sweden since the reform of 1997 than it was before,
though patterns since then have been (p.235) mixed. The
evidence is equally clear in showing broad continuity in
preference voting levels in five countries: Denmark, Cyprus,
Iceland, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. The evidence points
the same way, though less conclusively, in Finland and the
Page 26 of 45
United Kingdom, while two countries—Spain and Portugal—

give no opportunity for preference voting and one—Norway—
gives so little weight to preference voting that it does not even
bother to count the votes. There is insufficient evidence to
draw any conclusions for France, Germany, Italy, or Greece.
Among the newer democracies of Eastern Europe where

preference voting is possible, there is no case in which take-up
is comparable to the low levels formerly found in Austria and
the Netherlands and still found in Iceland (and, presumably,
Norway). Since the introduction of these systems, rates of
preference voting have consistently risen in Slovakia and
tended also to rise in Estonia and Latvia, while patterns have
been more mixed in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and
Poland. We have no evidence from the remaining five
countries.
Thus, while attachment to political parties has fallen almost

across the board, that does not necessarily translate into more
preference voting for individual candidates: as Karvonen
(2010: 41–63) argues, evidence for personalization of this kind
is patchy. There is clearly much work to be done to
understand why preference voting is rising in some cases but
not others. That, however, is not our task here. Rather, having
set this baseline, we turn in Section 9.2 to consider the
relationship between preference voting and electoral reform.
9.2 Electoral Reforms and Preference Voting

Having set out the data on preference voting in Section 9.1,
we can examine how preference voting relates to electoral
reform relatively briefly. Table 9.1 summarizes for pre-1990
democracies the basic relationship between electoral reforms
and preference voting since 1989. It appears to show a clear
pattern: personalizing electoral reforms and increases in
personalized voting tend to go together. This of course raises
the question of whether the relationship is causal. And, if it is
causal, in what direction does causation flow?
Figure 9.10 shows levels of preference voting in the seven

elections preceding personalizing electoral reform
(specifically, the first of the two such reforms in Belgium, the
Page 27 of 45
Netherlands, and Sweden) and in all the elections since those

reforms in the four countries that have experienced both
reform (since 1989) and a rise in preference voting. It also
includes the case of (p.236)
Table 9.1 Electoral Reform and Preference

Voting in Pre-1990 Democracies
Rise in preference
voting?
Yes No
Personalizing electoral Yes Austria Iceland

reform?
Belgium
Netherlands
Sweden
No Ireland Cyprus
Malta Denmark
Finland
Luxembourg
Switzerland
United
Kingdom
Page 28 of 45
Norwegian
local elections
for which we
included data
in Section 9.1:
personalizing
reform
occurred here
in advance of
the 2003
elections. The
moment of (the
Figure 9.10 The Timing of Electoral
first) reform is
Reforms and Changes in Preference
shown by the
Voting in Pre-1990 Democracies
vertical line. It
can be seen Sources: As previous figures for each
that preference country.
voting rose in
the first post-
reform election
in every case. It also rose following the second reforms in Belgium
(between elections 2 and 3 in Figure 9.10) and (p.237) the
Netherlands (between elections 1 and 2). The only exception is the
second reform in Sweden, implemented in 2014 (between elections
4 and 5), when preference voting slightly dipped. Furthermore,
preference voting has been higher in all elections since reform than
in all elections preceding reform with only one exception: the rate
in the Netherlands in 2010 dipped below the level reached before
reform in the election of 1986. This suggests that, if there is a
causal relationship, it is reform that has affected preference voting.
On the other hand, it is also apparent that in three of the cases
—Austria, the Netherlands, and Norway—the rise in
preference voting had already begun before reform took place.
In Sweden, because of the lack of data, we cannot know
whether that occurred. The only clear exception is Belgium:
here, preference voting rose almost continuously from 1954
until 1974 (which happens to be the first election on the
figure) but then stagnated, not rising significantly again until
the first post-reform election in 1995. At least in some cases,
therefore, causation may flow from voting behaviour to
electoral reform.
In Austria, for example, the first sparks of interest in

preference voting ignited in 1983. The popular leader of the
Page 29 of 45
Socialist Youth organization, Josef Cap, whose radicalism met

resistance among the Socialist Party’s old guard, was given a
lowly position on the party’s electoral list. This changed Cap’s
media image from a ‘utopian, cryptocommunist and leftist’ to a
martyr. Even the party leader and Austria’s chancellor, Bruno
Kreisky, said, ‘A man like Cap belongs in the Austrian
Parliament.’ The media highlighted the ‘obscure mechanism’
of preference voting, and Cap ended up becoming the first
person elected because of preference votes since 1956 (Müller
1983: 100–9). Having begun a journey that would take him to
the heart of the political establishment, Cap did less well in
1986. Nevertheless, the overall rate of preference voting rose
slightly, with support this time spreading across a range of
candidates (Müller 1988). Then, in 1990, preference voting
shot up, as the Socialist Party saw an opportunity to capitalize
on the popularity of the chancellor, Franz Vranitzky, by
encouraging voters who would not otherwise have supported
the party to vote for him personally. Indeed, they pointed out
that voters did not have to tick the party box at all, so long as
they ticked Vranitzky’s name (Meth-Cohn and Müller 1991:
185). Vranitzky secured just over 75 per cent of all the
preference votes cast that year (Meth-Cohn and Müller 1991:
186), though the number of preference votes for other
candidates was still more than a third higher than the total in
1986, reflecting the spread of familiarity with this feature of
the system. Though direct causal evidence is hard to come by,
it would be remarkable if these changes had not fed into the
ongoing debates around electoral reform.
The same idea of rising preference voting as fertile ground for

personalizing electoral reforms also applies in Belgium.
Though, as Figure 9.10 shows, preference voting had been
steady in the elections immediately preceding (p.238) the first
reform in 1995, the long-term growth of such voting was a
central argument used by supporters of more open lists. This
was explicitly stated in the short texts that introduced the two
bills that led to the reforms of 1995 and 2000 (Chambre des
représentants de Belgique 1995, 2000). Even parties that
opposed greater list flexibility accepted that this move would
correspond to the will of the voters and that opposing it would
be electorally damaging.3 In addition, the growing use of
Page 30 of 45
preference voting shifted the balance of power within parties.

Preference votes came to be viewed as a sign of popularity,
and popular politicians gradually gained power within parties
(De Winter 2005). The politicians who steered their parties
were therefore increasingly those who could attract large
numbers of preference votes. Such politicians perceived
further personalization of the electoral systems less
negatively.
Thus, the causality between rising use of preference voting

and personalizing reforms may clearly flow both ways.
The one obvious exception to the pattern of a connection

between personalization of the electoral system and of voting
behaviour is Iceland. Levels of preference voting there are far
lower than in any other country where the votes for candidates
are counted, and the evidence from the most recent election
suggests that the rise in 2009 was no more than a short-term
blip in response to severe economic crisis. As we saw in
Chapter 7, Iceland was also exceptional among cases of
electoral reform: the government made no attempt to
advertise the reform, either during its passage or in the
following election. In the absence of publicity, it appears that
preference voting remains the ‘obscure mechanism’ that it
was in Austria in the 1970s.
It might be said that Denmark offers a second exception.

There has been no formal personalizing electoral reform in
Denmark, so it appears in the lower half of Table 9.1. As
explained in Chapter 8, however, Denmark has experienced
informal reform in the sense that the parties have increasingly
opted for fully open rather than merely flexible list formations.
Despite this increase in the significance of preference votes,
there has been no rise in the rate of preference voting. On the
other hand, looking in detail at the most recent (2011)
election, in the twelve cases where flexible lists were used,
40.3 per cent of voters cast a preference vote, whereas in the
seventy-eight cases of open lists, 51.2 per cent of voters did
so. That could suggest that voters do in fact respond to the
importance of a preference vote in deciding whether to cast
one. Alternatively, it could be that voters for the left-wing
parties that reject strong preference voting are themselves
Page 31 of 45
more likely to believe that elections should be choices between

parties. We can distinguish between these possible
explanations by examining the votes cast for the Socialist
People’s Party, (p.239) which submitted flexible lists in three
districts and open lists in the remaining seven. Where it had a
flexible list, 36.8 per cent of its voters cast a preference vote;
where it had an open list, 48.7 per cent did so (all calculated
from data in Danmarks Statistik 2012: 56). Though the limited
number of cases means we must be cautious, this suggests
that Danish voting behaviour is sensitive to the degree of list
openness.
All of this evidence from the established democracies of

Western Europe points to the conclusion that, despite the
general disengagement from political parties, voters do not
shift towards voting for individual candidates in large numbers
unless prompted to do so from above. The publicity
surrounding personalizing electoral reforms can serve as this
prompt, as can high-profile campaigns for individual
candidates. Thus, the act of reforming the electoral system
does—unless it is done without publicity—affect voting
behaviour. This effect seems generally to be sustained in
subsequent elections. By contrast, in the absence of electoral
reforms, preference voting rates have been broadly constant
or risen only slightly.
In Eastern Europe, the relatively short time periods and the

frequency of reforms make graphical presentation of the form
used in Figure 9.10 less useful. We therefore refer the reader
back to the data presented in Figure 9.6. They give no
evidence of a general connection between personalizing
electoral reforms and rates of preference voting. In Slovakia,
preference voting rose following both personalizing and
depersonalizing reforms. In Estonia, the biggest rise in
preference voting occurred between the elections of 1995 and
1999, when the electoral rules were constant. In Lithuania and
the Czech Republic, the picture is mixed. Lithuanian voters
opted to cast preference votes in large numbers when list
flexibility was introduced in 1996, and did so in markedly
greater numbers when that flexibility was increased in 2002.
Since then, however, the trend has been downward, despite
Page 32 of 45
the shift from limited flexibility to full list openness in 2008. In

the Czech Republic, preference voting fell following the
personalization of 1995 and held constant with that of 2002;
only after the 2006 reform (first applied in 2010) did
preference voting rise. In Poland, the power of preference
votes was increased by the elimination of the national list in
2000, but the proportion of votes cast for candidates other
than the list leader fractionally fell in the following election.
Only in Latvia is the evidence wholly consistent with the
proposition that electoral reforms might significantly influence
voting behaviour: the country’s largest rise in preference
voting followed the reform of 2009. Yet, even here, we
certainly cannot reject the null hypothesis that this was just
part of a general trend.
One possible explanation for the apparent difference between

the older democracies of Western Europe and the newer
democracies of Eastern Europe is that, where electoral
systems are relatively new and subject to frequent tinkering,
voters are less likely to respond to changes. Alternatively,
(p.240) it may be recalled that in Chapters 7 and 8 we found
little evidence of significant public discourse around many of
the reforms in Eastern Europe, in marked contrast to most of
those in Western Europe. It may therefore be that, as in
Iceland, voters were simply not aware that their votes for
candidates would carry more weight. In this regard, the
pattern in the Czech Republic may be instructive. We found
little debate around the 1995 reform, while, in 2002, discourse
centred around the controversial issue of proportionality.
Following the 2006 reform, however, and in the run-up to the
election of 2010, a prominent campaign emerged urging
voters to use their power to ‘defenestrate’ leading politicians
who were perceived as corrupt or incompetent (Linek 2011:
953). In the polling booths, voters responded accordingly. In
2013, there was no comparable campaign, and preference
voting rates fell once again.
Overall, it appears that personalizing electoral reforms and

rates of preference voting are linked causally. That link can go
both ways. Campaigns by parties or individual candidates for
preference votes can draw attention to this system and
encourage debate about its strengthening; and the publicity
Page 33 of 45
that surrounds many personalizing electoral reforms can

similarly raise awareness, often leading to a lasting rise in
preference voting rates. In the absence of publicity, however,
reforms—except those that introduce preference voting for the
first time and therefore change the ballot paper that voters
receive on polling day—appear to have little effect.
9.3 Voters’ Influence over Who Is Elected

In this section we consider the degree to which the reforms
that have been enacted have had any effect upon who is
actually elected. Our task here is simpler than in Section 9.2:
we are looking at a mechanistic effect of the electoral rules
themselves, and need therefore examine only those cases
where personalizing reforms have in fact taken place.
The simplest measure of the impact of electoral reforms on

who is elected looks at the number of candidates who are
elected because of the preference votes they received. In
systems where parties present ordered lists—as is the case in
all flexible-list systems and most open-list systems, we can see
who would have been elected had the final list orderings been
the same as those originally submitted by the parties. Figure
9.11 shows, for the five West European countries that have
experienced reforms since 1989, the proportion of deputies
who would not have been elected under this closed-list
scenario. Of course, the numbers in Figure 9.11 take no
account of possible changes, (p.241)
Page 34 of 45
induced by list
flexibility, in
how the
parties order
their pre-
electoral lists:
we consider
this possibility
further at the
end of this
section.
In none of
Figure 9.11 Proportion of Deputies
these cases
Elected as a Result of Preference Votes in
could the
Western Europe since 1945
change be
Note: Only those West European
Sources:
said to be
democracies
Austria: that have
Müller (1990: 274),experienced
Müller and
dramatic.
personalizing electoral reforms since
Indeed, in
1989 are included.
Iceland, by
this measure,
there has Scheucher (1994: 188),
been no ‘Vorzugsstimmen’, at <http://
change at all: www.wahlrecht.de>, accessed 26 August
no deputy has 2014, ‘Josef Pröll mit fast 60.000
been elected Vorzugsstimmen’, Der Standard, 16
solely as the October 2008, ‘Kurz, Strache und
result of Spindelegger bei Vorzugsstimmen vorne’,
preference Der Standard, 10 October 2013, checked
votes since against Bundesministerium für Inneres
the first post- (1945–2013); Belgium: 1945–2000:
war election Dewachter (2003: 123); 1995–2014: our
in 1946. If we own calculation based upon the official
lower the bar election results available at the Federal
for change, Ministry of the Interior; Iceland:
we can say Helgason (2006: 36), Helgason (2010b:
that the 24), Baldur Simonarson (personal
Icelandic communication); Netherlands:
reform of Parlementair Documentatie Centrum
2000 has had (2015); Sweden: Nielsen (2007: 61),
some slight Widfeldt (2011), Valmyndigheten (2014:
impact: while Annex 6).
there were no
Page 35 of 45
cases even of a change in list ordering under either the 1959

or the 1987 rules, there have been four such changes since
2000—two in 2007 and two more in 2009. But none of these
changes affected who was elected: in every case, a candidate
was demoted by one place, but his (always his) party had
secured enough votes to ensure he was elected anyway.
(p.242) The effects have been only slightly greater in Austria

and the Netherlands. In Austria, just one candidate was
elected because of preference votes in the ten elections
between 1959 and 1990. Since then, there have been six cases
where a candidate was elected by this route. Two of these,
however, were cases where Jörg Haider—leader of the
Freedom Party and later of the Alliance for the Future of
Austria—opted for a low list position, was pushed up the list by
voters, but chose not to take his seat. In the Netherlands,
three candidates were elected by preference votes between
1946 and 1989. The reform of 1989, applied only in 1994, had
no discernible impact: no candidate was elected by preference
votes in that election. The 1997 reform has had some effect:
preference votes have affected outcomes in every election
since. But the number of candidates elected by preference
votes has oscillated between one and two without ever rising
higher.
Only in Belgium and Sweden could any significant degree of

list flexibility be said, at least by this measure, to have been
introduced. In Sweden, whereas no changes in list ordering
occurred before the 1997 reform, a number of deputies have
been elected because of preference votes at every election
since then. Twelve deputies (out of 349) were thus elected in
the first election, in 1998. The numbers subsequently fell
back, but fourteen were elected by preference votes in 2014
following the further reduction of the preference threshold, of
whom only nine would have been elected had the old threshold
still been in place. In Belgium, finally, the efficacy of
preference voting was always somewhat higher than in the
other countries discussed here: between 1946 and 1991, at
least one deputy was elected by personal votes in eleven out of
sixteen elections and twenty-three deputies were elected this
way in total. Still, that was 23 out of a total of 3382 deputies
(Dewachter 2003: 123). The first reform had little effect: in
Page 36 of 45
1995, no deputy was elected by preference votes and in 1999

just one was thus elected. Following the second reform, in
2003, however, seventeen deputies—11.3 per cent of the total
—secured their seats because of personal support. Yet, even in
Belgium, the strength of the effect can be doubted, for the
number of deputies elected this way has fallen at each election
since 2003, dropping to just seven in 2014.
Figure 9.12 shows comparable data for the six former

communist countries for which the number elected by
preference votes can be calculated. What is immediately
apparent is that the flexible-list systems introduced in Eastern
Europe since 1989 are considerably more flexible than the
older systems of Western Europe, even after the recent
reforms. Furthermore, the changes introduced since the first
democratic elections have had substantial effects. In the
Czech Republic, no candidates were elected because of
preference votes in 1990. Under the 1992 system, three
candidates were thus elected, and the direct effect of the
electoral reform can be seen from the fact that only one
candidate would have been elected by preference votes had
the old threshold still been in force. Nevertheless, the change
is clearly small and, despite a (p.243)
Page 37 of 45
further
liberalization
of the rules, no
candidates
were elected
by preference
votes in 1996
and only two in
1998.
Meaningful
change began
with the 2002 Figure 9.12 Proportion of Deputies
reform: twelve Elected as a Result of Preference Votes in
candidates Eastern Europe since 1990
were elected * Figures for Lithuania relate only to the
by preference
seventy deputies elected from parties and
votes in 2002
are expressed as a proportion of those
and six in
2006. But truly
deputies.
important ** We have no data for the Latvian
change came elections of 1993 or 1998. In Latvian
only in 2010: elections before 2010, candidates were
at this election able to run in multiple districts and were
forty-seven
declared elected from the district in
candidates
which they won the largest points total.
were elected
because of
To determine which candidates would
preference have been elected with closed lists in
votes—almost these elections, we assume that seats
a quarter of would have been filled according to pre-
the whole election list order in the various districts
legislature. in turn, starting with the district in which
The the party won most votes and continuing
mechanical
through all the districts to that in which it
effect of the
won fewest votes.
reform can be
seen in the fact
that only
twenty-four candidates would have been elected had the previous
threshold still been in place. Still, twenty-four clearly represents a
substantial rise on the previous election and reflects the impact of
the ‘defenestration’ campaign conducted that year. In the absence
of such a campaign, the impact of preference votes fell back in
2013.
Page 38 of 45
(p.244) In
Sources: Authors’ calculations using:
Slovakia, the
Czech Republic: Elections website of the
effects of both
Czech Statistical Office (<http://
the
www.volby.cz>) and additional data
kindly supplied by the Czech Statistical
Office; Latvia: website of the Latvian
Central Electoral Commission (<http://
www.cvk.lv>) and Millard (2011);
Lithuania: Lithuanian Seimas (1996,
2000, 2004); Lithuanian Chief Electoral
Commission (2008, 2012); Slovakia:
website of the Statistical Office of the
Slovak Republic (<http://
slovak.statistics.sk>) and additional data
kindly supplied by the Statistical Office of
the Slovak Republic.
depersonalizing reform of 1998 and the personalizing reform

of 2004 are clearly visible: between these dates, just one
candidate was elected out of list order, whereas more
substantial numbers were thus elected both before and after.
The impact of preference votes has been greater since 2004
than it was before 1998, though this is likely to be due to the
growth in the level of preference voting recorded in Section
9.2: as we explained in Chapter 3, we treat the current
electoral system in Slovakia as broadly equal to that of 1992 in
terms of personalization.
In Lithuania, though preference voting was first introduced in

1996, no candidates won seats as a result of that innovation in
the election of the same year: the degree of list flexibility that
had been created was very low. The subsequent reforms of
2000 and 2008 increased that flexibility considerably, such
that, at the peak in 2008, twenty-two of the seventy list
deputies were elected by preference votes. The potency of the
2008 reform is shown by the fact that the number of deputies
elected in this way rose by almost half while the number of
preference votes fell.
Page 39 of 45
For the three remaining countries in Figure 9.12, we show the

data on overall election by preference voting as a matter of
record, but this measure does not capture the effect of the
electoral reforms that have taken place. The electoral system
in Latvia used fully open lists both before and after the reform;
the change—the elimination of candidacy in multiple districts
—was intended to eliminate the pattern under which the
candidates who secured most votes in a district were often not
elected there, as they had also won election elsewhere. In
2002 in the district of Zemgale, for example, the four
candidates elected for the People’s Party were the four who
had secured the lowest personal vote totals; the four most
popular candidates had won over twenty times more votes.
The 2010 reform eliminated this gap.
In Estonia and Poland, the reforms ended the use of closed

lists for the national tier of the system: in the former case, a
degree of list flexibility was introduced; in Poland, the national
tier was simply abolished. The extent of the flexibility created
in the Estonian national tier was, however, very low: in the
three elections held since the reform, just two candidates have
been elected from the national lists because of preference
votes (both in 2007) out of a total of seventy-two candidates
elected at this tier. The underlying intention of the electoral
reforms in Estonia has been to increase the proportion of the
most popular candidates who secured election: just 51 of the
101 candidates receiving the highest share of the vote in their
district secured election in 1992. That proportion rose to sixty-
seven in the following two elections and above seventy in each
of the most recent three elections. But this change appears
largely to be attributable to the consolidation of the party
system rather than to the changes to the electoral rules.
To assess the significance of the elimination of national lists in

Poland, the relevant questions to ask concern who was elected
via the sixty-nine national-list (p.245) seats. In 1991, ten of the
sixty-nine were candidates who had failed to win seats in their
districts because of preference votes. That is, these were
candidates who occupied seat-winning positions on the pre-
electoral lists submitted by their parties, but who were
demoted to non-seat-winning positions by voters. That number
rose to fourteen in 1993 and fifteen in 1997. Thus, across
Page 40 of 45
these three elections, between 11 and 14 per cent of the

candidates whom voters had, in effect, voted out through their
preference votes in the districts got back in through the
national list. Whether these were candidates who mattered to
the parties—and whether, therefore, the elimination of the
national lists represented a substantial reduction in the ability
of the parties to secure the election of the people they wanted
in parliament is, however, less easy to judge. In 1991, six of
the candidates who won election by this route had led their
district party’s list. But this fell to two in 1993 and none in
1997. This may indicate that the national lists had ceased to
have any significant value for party leaders.
Romania is not included in Figure 9.12 because the

personalized rules introduced in 2008 are very different from
those employed elsewhere. It is worth while to note,
nevertheless, that, of the deputies elected through the main
competition (that is, excluding ethnic minority
representatives), 28 per cent were elected having obtained an
absolute majority of the votes in their district in 2008 and 71
per cent were thus elected in 2012 (Marian and King 2010: 14;
King and Marian 2014: 312). Compared with the closed-list
rules previously in force, this represents a substantial increase
in the connection between votes cast and the election of
individual representatives.
In the two remaining cases—Slovenia and Bulgaria—the

number of candidates elected by preference votes cannot be
calculated, as voters have no choice among candidates from
the same party (in the Bulgarian case, we refer here to the
mixed-member system introduced in 2009, not the flexible-list
system used in 2014, which falls outside our time period). The
Slovenian case is, however, similar to those of Estonia and
Poland: here, the personalizing reform of 2000 eliminated the
parties’ ability to present a closed list for up to half of the
seats they won at the national tier. In the two elections in
which the closed-list option was in place, most parties chose to
use it: seven out of eight parties winning national-list seats did
so in 1992, as did five out of seven in 1996. Twenty-one seats
were available for filling through closed lists in 1992 and ten
in 1996, and, in practice, the parties chose to use this route to
fill a total of nineteen seats in 1992 and six in 1996
Page 41 of 45
(Republiška Volilna Komisija 1992: 3408–10, 1996: 5486–8).

All of this suggests that the closed national lists were a non-
negligible safety net for the parties and that those parties did
give up a meaningful amount of control over who was elected
by abolishing them.
The evidence presented so far in this section suggests that

personalizing electoral reform has had the strongest effect on
who is elected in Lithuania— (p.246) hardly surprising, given
that this is the one case of a move (in several steps) from
entirely closed to entirely open lists. Substantial increases in
list openness, amounting to a change at the peak of at least 10
percentage points in the share of deputies elected by
preference votes, have also occurred in Belgium, the Czech
Republic, and Slovakia, and substantial increases in the
connection between votes and seats have taken place in Latvia
and Romania. Lesser effects can be detected in most of the
remaining countries for which a measurement can be made—
greatest in Sweden and smallest in Austria and Estonia. Only
in Iceland has reform had no impact at all on election
outcomes.
Some further thought is needed before drawing conclusions as

to how to interpret these numbers. In the first place, we
should remember that when we find that, say, 10 per cent of
deputies have been elected because of preference votes, that
does not imply that the country in question has lists that are
10 per cent of the way towards being fully open. Parties and
those parties’ voters often agree with each other as to which
are the best candidates, so even where voters express genuine
preferences among candidates, they do not necessarily change
candidate orders. In Latvia and Lithuania, for example, even
though lists at recent elections have been fully open, only
around a quarter to a third of the candidates elected would
not have been elected had lists been closed; the equivalent
figure in the most recent Swiss election, in 2011, was 24 per
cent (calculated from data in Office fédéral de la statistique
2011); and in Poland in 2011 it was 20 per cent. Thus, a
flexible-list system where 10 per cent of deputies are elected
this way is actually more like a third to a half of the way
towards having fully open lists.
Page 42 of 45
Second, we have counted candidates as elected by preference

votes only if they secure election having occupied a non-seat-
winning position on their party’s pre-electoral list; in fact,
however, even many of the successful candidates who do not
fit this test are elected only because of the preference votes
they receive. That is the case for all successful candidates in
fully open-list systems: even list-leading candidates in such
systems are elected only if they win more votes than their
party colleagues. It is also the case for some candidates in
some flexible-list systems. In recent Czech elections, for
example, there have been many cases where the number of a
party’s candidates passing the preference vote threshold has
exceeded the number of seats won by that party in the district.
In effect, the list then becomes fully open; even candidates
placed high on the party list can secure election only if they
have high personal vote tallies. In Lithuania, under the
multiplier form of list flexibility used between 1996 and 2004,
a candidate’s personal vote total was multiplied by a number
related to his or her list placement; for no candidate,
therefore, was high list placement a guarantee of success: she
or he had to secure at least some preference votes as well.
(p.247) Third, preference voting may affect who is elected by

mechanisms other than those captured by the votes cast on
polling day. Most notably, a group of Swedish economists
analysing data over successive local government elections in
Sweden since the introduction of preference voting have found
that a higher share of personal votes in one election greatly
increases a candidate’s chances of moving up the party’s list
at the next election (Folke and Rickne 2012; Folke, Persson,
and Rickne 2014). In the Swedish parliamentary election of
2010, though only eight candidates were elected because of
preference votes, fifty-nine of those elected had passed the
preference voting threshold. The analysis of Folke and
colleagues—if it holds true for general as well as local
elections—implies that these preference votes mattered even
to the fifty-one candidates who were already in seat-winning
positions on their parties’ lists.
These various considerations suggest that the impact of

personalizing electoral reforms on voters’ control over who
gets elected has been greater than a first glance at the data
Page 43 of 45
implies. Once we calibrate our scale appropriately and take

account of mechanisms not captured by our basic measure, we
can see that a substantial level of voter control has been
introduced by reforms in at least six countries: Belgium, the
Czech Republic, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Sweden.
Smaller changes have also occurred in Austria, Estonia, the
Netherlands, Poland, and Slovenia. Even with this extended
understanding, however, it is difficult to find any substantial
effect in Iceland. One list-leading candidate in 2009 secured
just 76 per cent of the points that he would have obtained had
all ballots remained unaltered. This appears to have had some
effect in 2013: the candidate in question—Guðlaugur Þór
Þórðarson—was demoted from first to third on his party’s list.
But this was still enough for him to secure a seat, and he is
now vice chair of his party’s parliamentary group.
9.4 Conclusions
The findings of the analysis presented in this chapter are
mixed. On the one hand, we see clear evidence that many
personalizing reforms have had a mechanical effect in
strengthening the impact of preference votes upon who is
elected. We have identified substantial effects of this kind in
six countries and more limited effects in five more; among the
countries that have experienced at least one personalizing
reform (excluding Greece, for which we have no data, and
where the only personalizing reform since 1990 was, in any
case, very limited), only in Iceland is it impossible to discern
any effect on who is elected.
(p.248) On the other hand, evidence of an effect upon voting

behaviour is more limited. In some countries—most clearly in
Sweden, where preference votes before reform were
meaningless—reforms have triggered substantial increases in
rates of preference voting. In a range of other countries, the
reforms seem to have had some effect too, though it is harder
to distinguish this from a general rise in voters’ desire to vote
for individual candidates. It appears, however, that such
effects are contingent upon publicity: the Czech Republic, for
example, saw a dramatic rise in preference voting when a
campaign was waged to encourage the ‘defenestration’ of
unpopular politicians; in Iceland, where reform received no
Page 44 of 45
publicity, preference voting rates barely moved. Furthermore,

in several countries—including Belgium, the Netherlands,
Sweden, and Lithuania—the level of preference voting in the
most recent elections—since the early 2000s—has seemed to
drift back downwards.
Our tentative conclusion, therefore, is that politicians have

enacted meaningful changes—at least in some countries—but
voters have, nevertheless, on the whole been unimpressed.
Whether this conclusion is accurate, however, requires deeper
investigation of voters’ behaviours and attitudes. We turn to
this in Chapter 10.
Notes:
(1) To be precise, the data are available only for candidates in
the top portion of each party’s original list, where the top
portion includes twice as many candidates as the number of
seats the party has won in the district. Under the 2000
electoral law, lower candidates cannot win a seat no matter
how many preference votes they obtain and are therefore
excluded from the count.
(2) The modified form of STV used for Australian Senate

elections does allow voters to cast an ‘above-the-line’ vote for
a party list (Farrell and McAllister 2006a: 44), but that does
not apply in the European countries using STV.
(3) See the interview with Louis Tobback, president of the

Flemish Socialist Party from 1994 to 1998, in Pilet (2007).
Access brought to you by: University of Colorado at Boulder
Page 45 of 45

Faces On The Ballot (The Personalization of Electoral Systems in Europe) - Personalization and Election Results (2016)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Faces On The Ballot (The Personalization of Electoral Systems in Europe) - Personalization and Election Results (2016)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Faces On The Ballot (The Personalization of Electoral Systems in Europe) - Personalization and Election Results (2016)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Personalization and Election Results

University Press Scholarship Online

Faces on the Ballot: The Personalization of

Print publication date: 2016

Personalization and Election Results

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter begins the book’s analysis of the effects of

Keywords: electoral reform, impact of electoral reform, personalization,

We begin our exploration of the effects of personalizing

A few reforms unambiguously increase the scope for voters to

9.1 Trends in Preference Voting

votes for one or more candidates or to cast a straight party

Optional Preference Systems

At least in principle, optional preference systems provide a

names, with no designated party. The data in Figure 9.1

that the tiny minority of firmly non-party voters has become a

Turning to the remaining long-standing democracies with

The longest time series on preference voting in these

Figure 9.2 Rate of Optional Preference

(p.223) These three indicators, unsurprisingly, track each

We move now to countries whose current periods of stable

A broadly proportional system was introduced in Cyprus ahead

then stabilized before dropping back somewhat in the two

2006 and 2010, before falling back again somewhat in 2013.

The system used in the Netherlands is, however, a flexible-

seems reasonable, we assume that most voters who wish

Figure 9.7 reveals a gradually rising trend in preference voting

measure of preference voting. Karvonen (2011) seeks to

candidates on their party’s list, such that all those candidates

This analysis is useful, but the assumptions underlying it

A final source of evidence comes from surveys. Finnish

candidate preferences. Under STV, as in compulsory

It is not possible to give a precise real-world meaning to the

In the UK in the 1950s and 1960s, it became common to

Variation in swing between districts subsequently rose. In fact,

(p.232) This does not, however, demonstrate that personal

which no more than matched the lowest standard deviation

Second, variation in party fortunes between districts may be

In order to overcome these difficulties, scholars have tended

and 1992 and concluded, ‘what is most striking is the absence

Incumbency effects are still far from offering a perfect

All in all, then, there is certainly a widespread belief in the UK

In France, there is a long tradition of whole parties comprising

affiliation (e.g., Williams 1954: 93, 107), and one recent

As in the case of systems using only single-member districts,

structure: voters cast ballots both for candidates in single-

Studies that seek to distinguish the personal voting element

Other analysts use other methods to gauge personal voting in

Even for the mixed-member system that has been subject to

Summing Up the Trends in Preference Voting

United Kingdom, while two countries—Spain and Portugal—

Among the newer democracies of Eastern Europe where

Thus, while attachment to political parties has fallen almost

9.2 Electoral Reforms and Preference Voting

Figure 9.10 shows levels of preference voting in the seven

Netherlands, and Sweden) and in all the elections since those

Table 9.1 Electoral Reform and Preference

Personalizing electoral Yes Austria Iceland