The Italian Bug: A Flawed Procedure for Bi-Proportional Seat Allocation

Aline Pennisi

A chapter in Mathematics and Democracy, 2006, pp 151-165 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract There is a serious technical flaw in the newly approved Italian electoral law. The flaw lies in the method used to allocate the Chamber of Deputies seats to parties (or coalitions) within multi-member regional constituencies. The procedure stated in the law could produce contradictory results: it could end up assigning a party more (or less) seats than it is entitled to receive on the basis of the same law. At least two types of paradoxes may occur. Although they have been utterly overlooked in the debate over electoral reform, they can be critical in practice when trying to determine the actual seat allocation. The failure of the current Italian electoral law was inherited from the previous one but the consequences are worse. Moreover, a correction mechanism introduced into the law at the last-minute does not prevent it from producing contradictory results. The paradoxes that undermine the Italian electoral law are pointed out and a solution is proposed. A broad conclusion is that a more extensive use of mathematics in the design and evaluation of electoral systems would help identify flaws and deliver more transparent, logical and fairer electoral laws.

Keywords: Bi-proportional allocation; Italian electoral system; proportional systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:stcchp:978-3-540-35605-9_11

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DOI: 10.1007/3-540-35605-3_11

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