The Americas: General Overview - Springer Link

2 The Americas: General Overview Josep M. Colomer

The most distinguishing characteristic of the electoral and political systems traditionally and currently existing in the Americas is the separation of powers between the Congress and the Presidency. Nowadays, the only exceptions can be found in Canada and a number of small islands in the Caribbean which maintain the typically British-legated formula of parliamentary regime with a single parliamentary election in single-member districts by plurality rule. In about twenty countries in North, Central and South America the Congress and the Presidency are elected separately under two different sets of rules and procedures. As we will see in the following overview, in most countries the rules for the election of the lower or single chamber of Congress have typically been reformed over time from initially restrictive formulas based on small districts and plurality rule to more permissive devices which allow the inclusion of some minorities, up to the present dominance of proportional representation. Regarding the Presidency, the early diffusion of the United States formula of an electoral college with a second round in Congress gave way, in most countries, to direct elections which were held early on by plurality rule and, more recently, by qualifiedplurality or majority rules with a second-round runoff, whether directly by voters or by Congress.

The Congress The United States constitution of 1789 created a Congress with two chambers. For the upper chamber or Senate, two seats were allocated to each state, regardless of its population, while for the lower chamber or House of Representatives – which will be the focus of the present survey – seats were allocated to the states in proportion to the population. As discussed in Chapter 1 the basic mathematical formulas of proportional representation were invented at that time by American constitution-makers to allocate House seats to the states on the basis of population. Each state, however, was allowed to choose its own electoral system to elect its House members. Initially, most states chose multi-member districts with plurality rule to elect representatives to the federal House, thus producing a high number 81

J. M. Colomer et al. (eds.), The Handbook of Electoral System Choice © Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2004

82

Josep M. Colomer

of single-party state systems. This choice was in congruence with the rules used for their own local and state institutions. Actually, in the early twenty-first century, a majority of local officials in the United States are still elected in multi-member districts by plurality rule, while a majority of the seats on state legislatures were elected from such districts until the 1970s. Immediately after the approval of the 1789 constitution, a majority of 8 out of the 13 states organized their elections to the House of Representatives at large, that is in a single statewide multi-member district. The most common ballot procedure for both local, state and federal elections was bloc ballot, also called ‘general ticket’, in which each voter had to choose a number of candidates equal to the number of seats in the district and the winners were those obtaining the highest numbers of votes. As coordination among candidates developed and political parties began to be formed, a common consequence of this system was the exclusion from representation of all political groups but one in the state, however great the other groups could be or whatever the number of potentially smaller districts in which they might have obtained the largest popular support. Another consequence was that a few large states’ representatives obtained much decision-making power in the House thanks to the system of single-party state representation. The other five founding states, as well as most of the new states joining the Union in the further process, adopted, in contrast, systems based on single-member districts and plurality rule. However, during the first fifty years about one-third of the House Representatives came from states using at-large districts. Although the available evidence on institutional strategies at state level in this period is limited, it seems that a single dominant party tended to impose a single district at large with bloc ballot, while more pluralistic initial settings favoured the division of the state into smaller single-member districts able to produce different winners in each. The first attempt at general reform of the electoral rules for the United States House of Representatives was launched by the Whigs, one of the largest parties during the early nineteenth century, when they began to experience a significant electoral decay, mostly to the advantage of the Democrats – as analysed in the corresponding chapter by Erik Engstrom. Fearing that they could be eliminated from representation in some states by the at-large, bloc ballot electoral system, the Whigs promoted the adoption by Congress of homogeneous rules based on single-member districts for electing the members of the House across all United States territory. This formula, although still highly restrictive, would have allowed some state minorities to obtain federal representation on the basis of their larger support in some small districts. The corresponding provision was approved by Congress in 1842, but it was not actually enforced and was in fact dropped after the 1850 census. On the occasion of approving each of the following six decennial censuses, the Congress mandated once again that the elections to the House were to be organized in single-member districts with contiguity, equal number of inhabitants and compact territory, but many states continued to elect their representatives at large. With the support of the Supreme Court, the states have been allowed again to choose their own rules for the House elections since 1929. In total, at least 16 states used

The Americas: General Overview

83

at-large districts and the bloc ballot during some periods between the 1840s and the 1960s. The second, more successful, reform was triggered by certain reactions to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 enfranchising African-Americans in Southern states. Many of these states began implementing a single district at large with bloc ballot for their own state legislative elections, or developed new forms of gerrymandering, that is the art of designing irregular single-member districts with well-chosen territorial limits, in an effort to offset the African-Americans’ vote. Most incumbent federal Representatives, fearing that they would be threatened by this kind of state measure as well as perhaps by any corresponding Supreme Court reaction imposing some other common pattern for electoral rules, approved again a mandate for single-member districts in 1967. There were still some bloc ballot elections to the House in 1968, as well as significant pressure from some Southern states to reintroduce multi-member districts. But single-member districts have been enforced in all the United States without exception for elections to the House of Representatives since 1970. In comparison with large multi-member districts, the adoption of single-member districts as the nationwide procedure reduced the number of single-party state systems and increased the diversity of state representatives in the House. However, as discussed extensively in the introduction and several chapters of this book, plurality rule in single-member districts still tends to induce the formation of a low number of candidacies and distorts the representation of citizens’ preferences. Specifically, in 31 per cent of the elections (27 out of 88) to the US House of Representatives since 1828, a party has received a majority of seats in spite of having obtained only a minority of popular votes. In ten of those elections the majority party in seats had even obtained fewer popular votes than some other party that was reduced by the electoral system to a minority of seats. It is highly probable that the institutional devices analysed here are behind the frequently expressed fears that the United States House of Representatives will tend to produce unpredictable and unstable legislative and policy decisions. From the debates during the constituent process in the late eighteenth century to some of the most recent academic literature on the US political system, repeated claims have been made that the House tends to be dominated by impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice and other irregular and violent tendencies. Examples range from Hamilton and Madison’s ‘propensity [attributed to] all single and numerous assemblies to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions’ (Hamilton et al., 1788: ‘No. 62’) to the modern media’s obsession with congressmen corruption, and to certain textbooks on the American political system praising ‘gridlock’ or lack of congressional decisions for fear that they could foster permanent instability. It would be difficult, however, to attribute such vicious impulses only to human nature, as it would be hard to understand why a populous assembly should be more unreliable than a single individual invested with strong powers (as was the figure of the president emerging from that discussion), especially because many of the critics here alluded to have been especially diffident of ‘human ambition’. Our perspective suggests that so persistent a diffidence to the United States Congress

84

Josep M. Colomer

has been supported, at least to some extent, by the unfair and unbalanced procedures by which it is elected. If, as a result of the way they are elected, congressmen can form legislative majorities and make decisions not corresponding to the preferences supported by a majority of citizens and even contradicting those preferences in a blatant manner, it can be reasonable to favour a reduction of such an institution’s effective decision-making capability. However, while institutionally-induced legislative paralysis might be a medicine against biased representation, it is not a formula for good government. In this light, it becomes thus particularly interesting to examine alternative electoral rules for the election of Congress, such as those that have been adopted in other parts of the continent and are also being considered and experimented with in the United States – as closely examined in the corresponding chapter by Richard L. Engstrom. The choice of electoral rules for congressional elections in the many different countries of Latin America has implied, of course, more variation than in the United States. From a global perspective, we can find a pattern by which they have moved over time from old procedures of lots and indirect elections imported from Europe, through some intermediate stages closer to the experience of the US, up to the general adoption of proportional representation in more recent times. The very first electoral experiences in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the early nineteenth century leading to their independence were organized on the basis of metropolitan regulations. These included combinations of lots for nominating or selecting candidates and voting by plurality rule, as in the 1809 elections to the ‘Central Junta’ of Spain which was in charge of organizing the resistance against the Napoleonic troops and the subsequent 1810 elections to the Spanish ‘Cortes’ (assembly). Elections with these rules were held in more than one hundred cities on the American continent, including Buenos Aires and other provinces in the Vice-royalty of Río de la Plata (which became Argentina) and New Spain (which became Mexico). The same kind of rules were also used in Chile in 1822. At a second stage, indirect elections were called to the new ‘Cortes’ created by the 1812 Spanish constitution approved in Cádiz. In further periods the formula of indirect elections was also introduced according to the United States electoral college model, as well as the French experience from the medieval Estates General to the republican revolution and the restoration of the monarchy, implying between two and up to five levels of representation. Indirect elections were adopted in Latin America mostly, with the aim of permitting the socially dominant political elites to keep control of the electoral process and outcomes. This intention was revealed, for instance, by Argentine constitution-maker and politician Juan B. Alberdi who defended ‘the system of double and triple election’ as a better means of ‘purifying universal suffrage’ of the erratic impulses of the masses without reducing or suppressing it (Alberdi, 1852), while Colombian constitutionalist and politician Justo Arosemena expected that, in the absence of sufficient popular instruction, good citizens’ choices could be facilitated by ‘an intermediate elector, more apt than the voter and better known than the final candidates’ (Arosemena, 1878). Indirect elections were organized either with plurality rule, whether in multimember districts with bloc ballot as in Argentina in 1819–26, or in single-member


85

districts as in Mexico since 1857, or with majority rule with a second round by plurality as in Colombia in 1821 and Peru in 1823. In Brazil, which initially also adopted the electoral regulations established in the 1812 Spanish constitution, all these formulas as well as limited ballot were combined with indirect elections at different periods between 1822 and 1875. However, indirect elections – including those to presidential electoral colleges, to be discussed below – often produced the effect of a highly unpredictable electoral outcome that was unintended by the constitution-makers. Even if absolute majority rule is adopted an election in two stages can give victory to ‘a majority of the majority, who may be, and often are, but a minority of the whole’, as remarked by John Stuart Mill in a quote given in the general introduction to this book. In the words of a Latin American constitutionalist of about the same time, ‘there can be deputies hardly achieving to represent one sixth or one eighth or one ninth of the citizens of his constituency’ (Santisteban, 1874: 224). The point is that actual minority winners – including those produced by elections in several stages – are more varied and unpredictable than majority winners can be in a given electorate. If, in addition, as was the case in congressional elections in most Latin American countries during the nineteenth century, intermediate electors were not required to be more qualified than the voters, were lesser known than the candidates or were not submitted to imperative mandate, actually they could form shifting coalitions and make decisions unrelated to the voters’ preferences revealed at the first stage of voting. In fact frequent claims were raised against intermediate electors’ manoeuvrings and conspiracies. As remarked, for instance, by a Mexican liberal deputy, ‘intrigue, bribery and coercion are very easy in electoral colleges, as formed by a very small number of persons’, in contrast to the difficulty of seducing or corrupting thousands or millions of voters in direct elections (in Calero, 1989), while in Peru electoral colleges were considered ‘centers of intrigue betraying popular will’ (in Chiaromonte, 1995). Thus, at a third stage, direct congressional elections according to the US model were established in Latin American countries. This occurred for first time in Chile in 1833, but rather later in the remaining countries such as Argentina in 1853, Colombia in 1857, Brazil in 1881 and Mexico in 1911. As in the United States, most Latin American countries initially used multi-member districts with bloc ballot which, as discussed, tend to create single-party local systems. They later moved to smaller single-member districts permitting slightly more varied congressional representation, as was the case in Brazil in 1881, Colombia in 1886, Argentina in 1902 and Mexico in 1911. As had happened with indirect elections, Brazil was the country with the highest number of experiments, including not only the two procedures just mentioned, but also some other more pluralistic formulas, such as limited ballot giving typically two votes per voter to elect three seats in several periods between 1882 and 1930 (a procedure also adopted in Argentina in 1912, Ecuador in 1929, Peru in 1931 and Bolivia in 1937) and cumulative ballot in 1904 (following the experience in Chile and Peru after 1874). The latest stage has been the adoption of proportional representation. Early introductions (for direct elections) of this type of congressional rules permitting multiple

86

Josep M. Colomer

parties to exist, compete successfully in elections, receive seats and survive include Costa Rica since 1913, Uruguay since 1918, Chile since 1925, Colombia in 1931, Cuba in 1940, Brazil in 1945, Ecuador, Guatemala and Venezuela since 1946, Bolivia since 1952, Honduras since 1966, Argentina and El Salvador since 1963 and the Dominican Republic since 1966. However, as had happened before with many Latin American political regimes holding elections with electoral systems based on indirect elections or on direct elections by plurality rule, most of these experiences of electoral democracy also failed and were interrupted by violent conflicts and dictatorships, especially in the early and mid-1970s. It was during the more recent processes of democratization or re-democratization in virtually all Latin American countries since the early 1980s that proportional representation was re-established or adopted as the standard principle for electing the members of the lower or single chamber of Congress. As will be illustrated in several chapters in the following pages, during the most recent period the choice of electoral systems can be understood as a consequence of expectations, calculations and inventions by previously existing political leaders, organizations and parties. Typically, the establishment or the maintenance of plurality rule in single-member districts was the result of decisions made within dominant single-party or balanced two-party systems, that is in situations able to feed established leaders’ expectations of maintaining control of the political competition. In contrast, proportional representation systems, as well as other inclusive electoral rules such as qualified plurality or majority-runoff rules for presidential elections to be discussed below, were typically adopted in pluralistic constituent conventions or by political agreements among multiple political parties with expectations of competing in more uncertain elections or of sharing power in multiparty congresses and cabinets. The most durable experiences of proportional representation in congressional elections in Latin America are those started in Costa Rica in 1953 and in Colombia and Venezuela in 1958. More recently, they include those initiated with multi-party congressional elections in Bolivia and Ecuador in 1979, Honduras in 1981, Argentina in 1983, Uruguay in 1984, El Salvador in 1985, Brazil and Guatemala in 1986, Chile in 1989 and Nicaragua in 1990, while Mexico has used several mixed systems of plurality rule and proportional representation since 1977, as explained by Alberto Díaz-Cayeros and Beatriz Magaloni in their chapter below.

The President The first popular-based election of a president of a republic was organized in the United States according to the electoral college formula included in the 1789 constitution. The initial choice of this procedure – which, as we will see, was later diffused across the continent – required a complex process of bargaining and invention by the US constituents. During the Convention gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, three basic proposals were presented. First, there was the proposal of parliamentary regime, by which the chief executive would be elected by Congress, as included in


87

the initial federalist plan elaborated by delegates from Virginia. This proposal was congruent with the way most states in the then existing Confederation were organized, since in 8 out of 13 states the governor was elected by the legislature. However, as most of those state legislatures were elected with highly distorting electoral systems (typically including multi-member districts, bloc ballot and plurality rule, as reviewed above), they were highly vulnerable to criticisms of inefficiency and demagoguery. In the absence of proposals for a better electoral system for the new Congress, the federal parliamentary proposal was open to similar criticisms, which gave leverage to the defenders of the separation of powers between the legislative and the executive. In its aim to create a strong new central government, the parliamentary proposal was also resisted by the defenders of the founding states’ powers. The second proposal, which can be mainly associated with republicans from Pennsylvania, was direct election of the president by the people in order to establish a neat separation of powers from Congress. This proposal was particularly disadvantageous to the small states, whose influence in the election would have been minor, as well as to the South, where voting rights were allocated to significantly lower proportions of the population than in the North. Finally, the small states proposed that the executive be appointed by the state governments. This proposal was consistent with the way the Continental Congress was elected at the time under the Confederation rules. It was also in line with the previous constituent decision to form the Senate with equal numbers of seats per state, regardless of population, to be filled by the state legislatures. The small states’ proposal for the presidential election was supported directly by a few participants in the Convention, but they were determined in their position because their political existence depended in some sense on the consolidation of the states’ powers. It can also be assumed that without the support of a few even if small states, there would not have been a constitution at all. Its is possible that the constituents’ preferences might have produced a cycle in a hypothetical process of decisions open to all imaginable comparisons, by which the proposal of a parliamentary regime might have been preferred to direct election by a majority of federalists and small states’ delegates, direct election would have been preferred to the appointment of the president by the states by both republicans and federalists in favour of creating a strong federal government, and perhaps the appointment of the president by the states would have been preferred to parliamentarism by both the small states and the republicans in favour of a separation of powers. Even if it is not possible to identify clearly this cycle in retrospect, the fact is that the Convention voted in favour of different formulas during the process of elaborating, discussing, revising and approving proposals in a series of committees. The parliamentary proposal was approved initially and on two more occasions, although by introducing different procedures for choosing the president involving joint or separate sessions of the two chambers of Congress. Opposition to parliamentarism, however, developed strongly, especially using the type of arguments previously referred to regarding the electoral rules for the US Congress and indirect elections, specifically the fear that the choice of president by a populous assembly would be

88

Josep M. Colomer

the occasion of ‘intrigue’, ‘cabal and corruption’. This didn’t mean in practice much more than the formation of congressional multi-party majority coalitions, which is typical of parliamentary regimes, but this experience was alien to the American constituents of the time. The crucial move was that the Republicans in favour of separate powers lowered their support for their own formula of direct presidential election – aided also by fears over of people’s ignorance and manipulability – while giving priority to preventing the alternative of establishing a parliamentary regime. Perhaps led by the manoeuvring skills of delegate Gouverneur Morris from Pennsylvania, the republicans in favour of separation of powers formed a coalition with the small states’ delegates. During the last few days of the Convention, the matter was referred to a committee from which a new invention emerged, able to reunite all those opposed to parliamentarism. The new formula of indirect election was based on an electoral college. As has been shown in the general introduction of this book, precedents of indirect elections of electors can be found in Greek assemblies, the Roman comitia, Mediterranean cities and, for the election of a single high magistrate, in the college of cardinals electing the pope and the colleges of princes and bishops electing a number of central European kings and the German emperor. In the context of making the United States constitution, the formula of electoral college implied that the election of the president would be separated from Congress, while its specific procedure would likely give the small states a high influence in the decision. According to the rules which were established in the United States constitution, the electoral college is formed by electors chosen in each state in a number equal to the sum of federal representatives and senators from the state – so giving the small states some overrepresentation due to the malapportionment of Senate seats. The procedures to select the electors are decided by the states themselves – which initially allocated the choice, in most cases, to the state legislatures, but also permitted direct elections. Actually the college never meets. During the constitutional negotiations, it was agreed that the electors of each state would gather in the state’s capital to cast their votes, which, at that time, seemed a very contingent concession to peripheral states fearful of the high costs of travelling to Washington. This decision also eliminated the perils that a new version of parliamentary ‘intrigue’ would emerge in the college, but, at the same time, reduced the expectation that electors would use their presumed higher capabilities of ‘insight and reflection’ than voters, as had been argued by some republicans. In case no candidate obtained a majority support of electors in the college, the choice of president would be transferred to the Congress among the five (later three) candidates with most votes in the college. However, the congressional decision would be made on the basis of an equal number of votes per state, both in the preliminary version that allocated it to the Senate and in the finally approved version transferring it to the House but by the rule of one vote per state (to be decided by majority of each state’s representatives). In short, the procedure, first, confirmed that the presidential election would be separated from congressional elections and, second, gave overrepresentation to the small states, thus


89

making a majority coalition of constituent delegates opposed to parliamentarism possible. Apparently, the widest expectation at the time was that there would be a proliferation of states’ favourite sons as presidential candidates and, as a consequence, usually no majority would be formed in the college. In order to reduce the territorial dispersion of candidates, the initial regulations established that each elector in the college should vote for two candidates, one of them not an inhabitant of the same state, from which the president and the vice-president would be selected. However, the confusion between candidates for the two offices led to a modification of this rule in 1800. Basically, it was expected that the college would nominate a selection of candidates from which the House would choose one by forming a coalition of a majority of states. Actually, the first five presidents of the United States were nominated as candidates by congressional caucuses, implying thus some degree of ‘intrigue’. The sixth, lacking a majority in the college, was appointed by the House of Representatives in spite of having been second in both popular votes and among college electors, in 1824. Political leaders from large states soon realized that it was to their advantage to unite around presidential candidates able to obtain broad support and win in the college rather than to have to negotiate with the overrepresented small states in the House. The best way to reinforce the influence of the large states’ electors in the election of the president was to choose an appropriate electoral system of electors. From 1828 on, most large states introduced direct elections of electors to college by at-large districts, bloc ballot and plurality rule, that is the electoral system known as ‘general ticket’ that was also widely used at the time for the election of the House of Representatives as well as for local and statewide institutions, as has been discussed above. Most of the smaller states could not but adopt the same formula in order to reduce the corresponding larger states’ advantage. The consequence of these further electoral reforms at state level was that the college became a rubber stamp of the outcome of direct elections held under highly distorting rules. The procedure of at-large districts, bloc ballot and plurality rule, together with malapportionment of electors gave rise to a number of unintended consequences. In spite of the requirement for an absolute majority in the college, the president of the United States can be elected with the support of only simple pluralities in a few large states. In fact, many presidents have been elected with a minority support in popular votes since 1828 (17 out of 44, or 39 per cent) – including Abraham Lincoln, the president that triggered the Civil War after having been elected by the college in 1860 with the lowest proportion of popular votes ever. In at least three cases, the winning president in the college had even obtained fewer popular votes than some other candidate – including George W. Bush in 2000. The procedures to elect the president in most of the many countries of Latin America have also been more varied than those that have been used in the United States, as happened with congressional elections reviewed above. First, it should be remarked that parliamentary formulas by which the Congress elected the executive president, initially inspired by the 1812 Spanish constitution, were established in

90

Josep M. Colomer

Argentina in 1819, Chile in 1822 and again during the period from 1891 to 1925, Peru in 1823, Ecuador in 1830 and 1845, and Uruguay in 1839 and for a collegial executive from 1952 to 1966. Second, the US-inspired formula of electoral college was later taken up widely, including the regulations established in Venezuela in 1819, 1830 and 1874, Colombia in 1821, 1832, 1863 and 1892, Mexico in 1824 and 1857, Central America in 1824 and the countries that separated from the confederation thereafter, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, Argentina in 1826, 1853 and 1983, Bolivia in 1828, Peru in 1828, 1860, 1874 and 1890, Chile in 1828, 1833 and 1874, Brazil in 1834 (for the Regent), the Dominican Republic in 1844 and Cuba in 1902 and 1940. Typically, however, the Latin American electoral assemblies (or juntas as they were usually called rather than ‘colleges’) introduced some innovations into the procedures. On the one hand, certain electoral assemblies in large, territorially diverse countries were organized on the basis of an equal number of votes (either one or two) per state or province, as in Venezuela in 1819, 1830 and 1874, Mexico in 1824 and 1857 and Colombia in 1863. This somehow reflected the strength of the territorial elites, which – as discussed above – had already been highly relevant in the constitutional choice in the United States, as well as the territorially inclusive role that the electoral formula pretended to play. With formulas like these, the electoral college formula for presidential elections even increased the disadvantages of indirect elections already identified for congressional elections – basically, the unpredictability of electoral decisions which were hardly related to voters’ preferences. On the other hand, in almost all countries the provision of a second-round runoff by Congress, usually between the two candidates with the most votes, was regulated on the basis of its existing composition – in contrast to the US formula of giving one vote to each state’s representatives. This probably reflected the tradition of parliamentary formulas and implying the will of a closer collaboration between the Congress and the Presidency. In fact, and in contrast to the United States, a significant number of presidents in Latin America were elected at the second round by Congress after not obtaining a majority in the college, including four presidents in Colombia in 1837, 1841, 1845 and 1849 (plus another two in 1909 and 1910 following the resignation of the incumbent), three in Bolivia after 1828, one in Mexico in 1874 and one in Venezuela in 1877. A consistent alternative to majority rule in the electoral college with a second round in Congress, in order to avoid the disadvantages of indirect elections, was direct elections by majority rule with a second round in Congress. This system creates incentives for a multi-party majority to be formed both in support of the president and for legislating in Congress, in this way making cooperation between the two institutions, governance and broad social support for policy decisions easier to achieve. Precedents include Bolivia in regulations introduced in 1871, in 1967 and again since 1979, Honduras since 1879, El Salvador since 1886 and again in 1963, Brazil in 1892, Nicaragua in 1911, Costa Rica from 1913 to 1932, Chile from 1925 to 1970 and Guatemala in 1944. A large number of Latin American presidents have been elected at the second round by Congress after not obtaining a majority of the popular vote in direct elections, including three in El


91

Salvador in 1903, 1907 and 1911, three in Costa Rica in 1914, 1924 and 1932, four in Chile in 1946, 1952, 1958 and 1970, and six in a row in Bolivia since 1982. However, most Latin American countries, guided in many cases by re-elected presidents supported by single-party dominance (as well as by some authoritarian rulers), eventually suppressed completely the role of Congress and established direct presidential elections by plurality rule. These were introduced in Colombia in 1853, 1910 and 1958, Uruguay in 1918 and 1966, Brazil in 1945, Dominican Republic in 1962 and Nicaragua in 1984. All these countries, nevertheless, moved to more inclusive formulas later on. Only five Latin American countries still keep plurality rule for presidential elections in the early twenty-first century: Mexico since 1917, Venezuela since 1958, Honduras since 1981 and Panama and Paraguay since 1989. As discussed, plurality rule tends to produce winners with a minority of the popular vote, as was actually the case in 70 per cent of the direct presidential elections (38 out of 54) in South America since 1945. On many occasions the winning president with minority support in popular votes was located at an extreme position in the ideological space and didn’t have the support of the median voter, which made the formation of an alternative political majority possible (in other words, the winner was the Condorcet-loser able to be defeated by absolute majority by some other plurality-loser candidate). A number of political crises, often leading to violent civil confrontations and military coups, were produced in Latin American countries during the twentieth century as a consequence of political and social opposition to minority, unpopular presidents elected by plurality rule. The most durable presidential democracies in Latin America during the twentieth century have been those in which – according to the typical constituents’ expectation – a single dominant party could secure an absolute majority support in popular votes for the elected, even if plurality or other rules not requiring an absolute majority to win were implemented. Cases include Costa Rica, with the national liberation party (PLN) having been in government most of the time since 1953, Colombia with the long-term dominant liberals (PLC), and Venezuela with a comparable role for the social-democrats (AD), both since 1958. Situations like these successfully supported the introduction and maintenance of plurality or less-than-majority rules for presidential elections. However, the establishment or re-establishment of democratic regimes in other countries, as well as the more recent political evolution of those just mentioned, has been characterized by more pluralistic flourishing of political parties. Multi-party constituent assemblies or multi-side political negotiations favoured the replacement of plurality rule for presidential elections with more inclusive rules, namely majority rule with a second-round runoff between the two candidates with the most votes – for similar reasons as proportional representation was introduced for congressional elections, as discussed above. This analytical framework of multi-party settings choosing majority-runoff rule for presidential elections can fit rather well the cases of Ecuador and Peru in 1978, El Salvador and Guatemala in 1984, Brazil in 1986, Colombia in 1991 (the two latter developed, respectively, by Jairo Marconi Nicolau and by Arturo Valenzuela and Miguel Ceballos in their corresponding

92

Josep M. Colomer

chapters below), Dominican Republic in 1995 and Uruguay in 1996. Interestingly, in some other cases the incumbent military rulers also introduced majority runoff in the fear that a large but minority extreme party could take over power in an open election, as was the case in Argentina in 1972 and in Chile in 1989. A variant of second-round procedures is the rule requiring some qualified-plurality short of a majority, such as 40 or 45 per cent of votes, to win the election, while a second-round runoff is held only if no candidate obtains such a support. This type of rule tends to be adopted in situations of moderate multi-partism, in which the incumbent party calculates or simply feels that it can obtain larger support than any of the opposition groups but it is less sure of its dominance than in other settings previously referred to. In relatively balanced negotiations, this proposal can also be accepted by the opposition if it considers itself able to challenge the incumbent party’s candidate to obtain such a threshold and force a second round. Apparently, the earliest experiences with this type of requirement took place in Peru, where a 25 per cent rule was established in 1931, and a one-third rule with a second round in Congress was used from 1933 to 1963. Present cases include Costa Rica with a 40 per cent rule since 1936, and Argentina with a rule requiring either 45 per cent or 40 per cent with 10 percentage points of advantage to the second candidate since 1994 – two cases that are analysed, in separate chapters, respectively by Fabrice Lehoucq and Gabriel Negretto, below – as well as Nicaragua, which first adopted 45 per cent in 1995 to be replaced by 40 per cent in 1998, and Ecuador with 40 per cent with 10 percentage points advantage since 1997. The election of president by inclusive rules with a second round has produced more efficient results than previous or still surviving experiences with plurality rule. For 88 presidential elections in nine countries (all South American except congressional Bolivia and non-democratic Paraguay, plus democratically stable Costa Rica) from 1945 to 2000, the comparative results can be summarized this way: less than 60 per cent (16/54) of presidents elected by plurality rule obtained the support of the median voter and were able to form a consistent political majority, while more than 85 per cent (29/34) of those elected with majority or qualified plurality rules with a second-round runoff obtained the support of the median voter at the first round. In all countries in which the electoral rule was changed – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay – the results have been better from this point of view than with plurality rule in the previous period. Thus looking at institutional choices in Latin America from a long-term historical perspective, it can be argued that the development of multi-partism and the consequent adoption of inclusive electoral rules, especially proportional representation for Congress and more-than-simple-plurality rules with a second round for president, have decisively helped to make electoral results widely acceptable. In contrast to exclusive political and electoral regimes existing in previous periods – like the indirect electoral college or direct elections by simple plurality rule – the present rules in most countries are favouring wider acceptance and longer-lasting democratic regimes than ever before in the region.


93

References Alberdi, Juan B. ([1852] 1957) Bases y pensamientos de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina. Buenos Aires: Sopena. Arosemena, Justo (1878) Estudios constitucionales sobre los gobiernos de la América Latina, 2 vols. Paris: Libreria española y americana de E. Denne Calero, Manuel ([1908] 1989) ‘Cuestiones electorales’, in En torno a la democracia: El debate politico en México (1901–1916). Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, pp. 181–242. Chiaramonte, José Carlos (1995) ‘Vieja y nueva representación: los procesos electorales en Buenos Aires, 1810–1820’, in Antonio Annino (ed.), Historia de las elecciones en Iberoamérica, siglo XIX. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, pp. 19–64. Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison and John Jay ([1788] 1961) The Federalist Papers. New York: New American Library. Santisteban, José Silva (1874) Curso de Derecho Constitucional, 3rd edn. Paris: A. Bouret (cit. in Jorge Basadre (1980) Elecciones y centralismo en Perú. Apuntes para un esquema histórico. Lima: Universidad del Pacífico).

Further reading • Annino, Antonio (ed.) (1995) Historia de las elecciones en Iberoamérica, siglo XIX. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

• Bens, Walter (ed.) (1992) After the People Vote. A Guide to the Electoral College. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.

• Botana, Natalio ([1977] 1998) El orden conservador. La política argentina entre 1880 y 1916. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana.

• Calabrese, Stephen (2000) ‘Multimember District Congressional Elections’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 25, 4: 611–43.

• Calvin Jillson, (1979) ‘The Executive in Republican Government: the Case of American Founding’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 9: 386–402.

• Chapell, Jr, Henry W. and William R. Keech (1989) ‘Electoral Institutions in the Federalist • • • • • • • • • •

Papers: A Contemporary Perspective’, in Bernard Grofman and Donald Wittman (eds), The Federalist Papers and the New Institutionalism. New York: Agathon, pp. 39–52. Flores, Nicolas (2000) A History of One-Winner Districts for Congress. Thesis, Stanford University. Glennon, Michael J. (1992) When No Majority Rules. The Electoral College and Presidential Succession. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly. Graham, Richard (1990) Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Jones, Mark P. (1995) ‘A Guide to the Electoral Systems of the Americas’, Electoral Studies, 14: 15–21. Jones, Mark P. (1995) Electoral Laws and the Survival of Presidential Democracies. Notre Dame, IN and London: University of Notre Dame Press. Jones, Mark P. (1997) ‘A Guide to the Electoral Systems of the Americas: An Update’, Electoral Studies, 16: 13–15. Linz, Juan J. and Arturo Valenzuela (eds) (1994) The Failure of Presidential Democracy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mainwaring, Scott and Matthew S. Shugart (eds) (1997) Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Malamud, Carlos (ed.) (2000) Legitimidad, representación y alternancia en España y América Latina: las reformas electorales (1880–1930). Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Milner, Henry (ed.) (1999) Making Every Vote Count: Reassessing Canada’s Electoral System. Peterborough, On.: Broadview Press.

94

Josep M. Colomer

• Nohlen, Dieter (1993) Enciclopedia electoral latinoamericana y del Caribe. San José: Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos.

• Nohlen, Dieter, Sonia Picado and Daniel Zovatto (eds) (1998) Tratado de derecho electoral comparado de América Latina. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

• Posada-Carbó, Eduardo (ed.) (1996) Elections Before Democracy: The History of Elections in • • • •

Europe and Latin America. London: Macmillan – now Palgrave/New York: St. Martin’s Press – now Palgrave. Riker, William H. (1984) ‘The Heresthetics of Constitution-Making: the Presidency in 1787, with Comments on Determinism and Rational Choice’, American Political Science Review, 79: 1–16. Shugart, Matthew S. and John M. Carey (1992) Presidents and Assemblies. Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Valenzuela, J. Samuel (1985) Democratización vía reforma: La expansión del sufragio en Chile. Buenos Aires: IDES. Weaver, R. Kent (2001) ‘Electoral Rules and Electoral Reform in Canada’, in Matthew S. Shugart and Martin P. Wattenberg (eds), Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 542–70.

1952: Universal MS 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964 // 1966 // 1980, 1985, 1989, 1993

Bolivia 1924:

1963: 1963, 1965 // 1973 // 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001

1946: 1946, 1951 // 1957, 1958, 1960, 1962 //

1912: Universal MS 1912, 1914, 1916, 1918, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1930 //

1853: 1862–1882, 1886, 1892, 1896, 1900, 1902, 1906, 1908

5

4

4

5

2

4

102–130

243–257

149–158

120–158

114–150

44

Argentina 1826: 1828 //

4

Seats

Term

8–9

24

149

15

15

15

No.

Districts

The Americas: Assembly (lower or single chamber)

Country Law year Election years

Summary Table 2A

7–28

1 ≥3

3–35

1

1–11

2–12

>1

Magn.

Closed list

Single Limited

Closed list

Single

Secret Limited 2/3

Bloc

Public Bloc

Ballot

Proportional – Hare

Plurality

Proportional – d’Hondt

Plurality

Plurality

Plurality

Plurality

Rule/Formula

1 quota

3% nat. 8% dis.

Threshold

95

4

3

1890: 1890

1892: 1894, 1896, 1899, 1903

1932: 1933 //

2

3

4

1904: 1906, 1909, 1912, 1915, 1918 // 1927, 1930

4

1881: 1881, 1885, 1886, 1889

214

212

205

205

122–125

122

122

4

1875: 1876, 1878

130 62 68

Seats

102–111

5

Term

4

(Continued)

Brazil 1824: 1826, 1830, 1834, 1838 // 1860: 1860, 1864, 1867, 1869, 1872

1996: 1997, 2002


Summary Table 2A

22

21

63

21

122–125

20

20

19–20

9 9 68

No.

Districts

2–37

4–7

2–37

2–37

1

2–20

2–20

1–20

5–31 5–31 1

Magn.

Secret Double: Open list Single

Limited M-1/ Cumulative

Limited 2/3

Bloc

Single

Limited 2/3

Bloc

Public Single/Multiple

Single

Ballot

3% nat.

Threshold

Parallel: Proportional – Hare Plurality

Plurality

Plurality

Plurality

Direct Majority/2nd round runoff

Plurality

Plurality

Indirect Plurality


Rule/Formula

96

1980: Universal MS 1993, 1997, 2001

1925: 1925 // 1932, 1937, 1941, 1945, 1949, 1953, 1957, 1961, 1965, 1969, 1973 //

1879: 1879–1924

Chile 1833:

1972: 1972, 1974, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1993, 1997, 2000

1874: 1874, 1878, 1882, 1887, 1891, 1896, 1900, 1904, 1908, 1911, 1917, Universal MS 1921, 1925, 1926, 1930, 1935, 1940, 1945, 1949, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965, 1968

Canada 1867: 1867, 1872

1950: 1950, 1954, 1958, 1962 // 1982, 1986, Universal MS 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002

1945: 1945

4

4

3

4 5

4

5

4

4

110–120

132–152

118

264–301

206–265

181–200

326–513

286

55–60

28

264–301

206–301

181–200

25–27

22

2

1–18

1

Most 1 Some > 1

1

1–75

2–35

Secret Open list

Open list

Cumulative

Public Bloc

Single

Secret Single Bloc

Public Single

Open list

Open list



Plurality

Plurality

Plurality

Plurality

Plurality



1 quota

97

(Continued)

Costa Rica 1893: 1894, 1896, 1898, 1900, 1902, 1904, 1906, 1908, 1910, 1912

4

4

2

1958: 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1968

1970: 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1994, 1998, 2002

2

2

4

Term

1951: 1951, 1953 //

1931: 1931, 1933, 1935, 1937, Universal MS 1939, 1941, 1943, 1945, 1947, 1949

1910: 1913, 1917, 1921, 1925, 1929

1886:

Colombia 1857:


Summary Table 2A

41–42

160–210

148–204

132 88 44

118–132

Seats

7

26–33

26

88

33

No.

Districts

≥3 ≤2

2–10

*7

1

3–9

>3

1

>1

Magn.

Multiple Single

Public

Closed list

Closed list

Single

Closed list

Limited 2/3

Single

Bloc

Ballot

Threshold

Indirect Coexistence Proportional – Hare Majority/2nd round runoff


Two-party proportional – Hare

Two tiers: Plurality Proportional – Hare


Plurality

Plurality

Plurality

Rule/Formula

98

2

2–4

1978: Universal MS 1979, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996

2

4

4

4

4

4

1946: 1950, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962 //

Ecuador 1895: 1904, 1906, 1912, 1914, 1916, 1924 // 1928 //

Dominican Republic 1966: Universal MS, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002

1940: 1940, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1948, 1950 //

Cuba 1901: 1908, 1910, 1912, 1914, 1916, 1918, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926 //

1953: 1953, 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002

1913: Universal MS 1919, 1921, 1923, 1925, 1928, 1930, 1932, 1934, 1936,1938, 1940, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1948 //

72–121

91–150

127–136

84

45–57

43 32 11

21–23

21

30–33

6

6

7

7

1–20

2–31

2–11

2–11

4–21

≥3 ≤2

Two closed lists

Closed list

Public Open

Closed list

Closed list

Closed list

Closed list

Closed list Bloc

Secret

1- quota -2

1 quota

1 --- quota 2

1 quota

Prop. (2 tiers) – Hare


Plurality

1 --- quota 2

1 --- quota 2

Proportional (2 tiers) – d’Hondt

Direct Proportional – Hare

Indirect Proportional – Hare


Proportional – Hare Plurality

Direct Coexistence

99

5

4

1984: 1985, 1990, 1995, 1999

Honduras 1879: 1930 // 1954

4

6

Guatemala 1944: Universal MS 1944, 1950, 1953

1966: Universal MS 1981, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001

3

2

1984: 1985, 1988, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2000

1963: 1964, 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978 //

El Salvador 1886: Universal MS 1886 //

4

2000: 2002

82–134

59

80–116

76

60–84

52

42

121

121

4

1998: 1998

Term Seats

(Continued)


Summary Table 2A

18

18

22

22

14

14

14

23

No.

Districts

1–16

*3

2–20

1–10

3–20

*4

3

1–20

Magn.

Closed list

Public Multiple

Two closed lists

Open list

Closed list

Secret Closed list

Public Open

Open list

Open ballot

Ballot

Threshold


Majority

Proportional (2 tiers) – d’Hondt


Proportional (2 tiers) – Hare


Plurality


Plurality

Rule/Formula

100

3

3

3

6

1977: 1979, 1982, 1985

1986: 1988, 1991, 1994.1997, 2000, 2003

Nicaragua 1987: Universal MS 1987, 1990, 1995, 2001

3

2

2

2

5

1963: 1964, 1967, 1970, 1973, 1976

1917: 1918, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1932 1934, 1937, 1940, 1943, 1946, 1949, 1952, 1955, 1958, 1961

1857: Universal MS 1857, 1861 // 1867, 1871, 1872, 1876 //

Mexico 1824: 1824, 1827, 1829, 1831, 1833 // 1843, 1845, 1850 //

Jamaica 1962: 1962, 1967, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1983, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2002

90 (+2–3)

500 300 200

372–400 272–300 100

210–237 178 32–43

136–263

180

150

60

9–18

300 1(5 lists)

272–300 1(3–5 lists)

178 1 nat.

136–263

180

150

60

1–25

1 200

1 100

1 32–35

1

1

1

1

Closed list

Single

Double: Single Closed list

Single

Single

Secret Single

Public Single

Single

2% nat.

1.5% nat.

1.5–2.5% nat.

Proportional (2 tiers) – Hare


Parallel: Plurality Proportional – Hare


Direct Plurality

Plurality

Indirect Plurality

Plurality

101

(Continued)

6

5

1933: 1939, 1945 // 1950, 1956, 1962 // 1963 //

1979: Universal MS 1980, 1985, 1990 // 1995 // 2000, 2001

4

Peru 1828: 1828 //

4

5

Paraguay 1993: Universal MS 1993, 1998

1861: 1866 // 1868, 1870, 1872, 1874 // 1896–1919

5

6

6

Term

1983: 1984 // 1989 // 1994, 1999

1946: 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968 //

Panama 1916: 1918, 1924 //


Summary Table 2A

120–180 120

139–145

130–161

87

80

67–71 39–43 28

42–53

Seats

24 1 nat.

24

80–130

87

18

40 12 28

10

10

No.

Districts

1–11 120

*6

1–2

1

1–14

1–6 2–5 1

*5

>1

Magn.

Open list

Secret Closed list

Cumulative

Public Single

Closed list

Closed list Single

Secret Closed list

Public Closed list

Ballot



Direct Plurality

Indirect Plurality


Coexistence Proportional – Hare Plurality

Direct Proportional – Hare

Indirect Proportional – Hare

Rule

Threshold

102

Uruguay 1918: Universal MS 1919, 1922, 1925, 1928, 1930, 1931 // 1934, 1938, 1942, 1946, 1950, 1954, 1958, 1962, 1966, 1971 // 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999

1842, 1844, 1846, 1848, 1850, 1852, 1854, 1856, 1858, 1860, 1862, 1864, 1866, 1868, 1870, 1872, 1874, 1876, 1878, 1880, 1882, 1884, 1886, 1888, 1890, 1892, 1894 1896, 1898, 1900, 1902, 1904, 1906, 1908, 1910, 1912, 1914, 1916, 1918, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1930, 1932, 1934, 1936, 1938, 1940, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1966, Universal MS 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002

United States 1789: 1790, 1792, 1794, 1796, 1798, 1800, 1802, 1804, 1806, 1808, 1810, 1812, 1814, 1816, 1818, 1820, 1822, 1824, 1826, 1828, 1830, 1832, 1834, 1836, 1838, 1840

Trinidad-Tobago 1962: 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002

99

4

5

123 1 nat. (19 lists)

19

99

4–30

1

Open list

Single

435

Single Bloc

Public Bloc Single

Single

435

1 >1

>1 1

1

Secret

Most Some

Most Some

36

391–435

106–391

36

3

2

2

5


Plurality

Plurality

103

(Continued)

5

1999: 2000 165

204–207 102–119 88–102

110–201

Seats

24

23–24 23–24 88–102

23

No.

Districts

Source: See Appendix: Notes and Sources for Summary Tables at the end of the book.

5

5

Term

1989: 1993, 1998

Venezuela 1946: Universal MS 1947 // 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988


Summary Table 2A

3–14

3–25 3–25 1

1–37

Magn.

Closed list

Double: Closed list Single

Closed list

Ballot

Threshold


P-Proportional (2 tiers) – d’Hondt/Hare


Rule/Formula

104

1989:

Chile 1925:

1945: 1986: 1993: 1997:

Brazil 1834: 1892:

1956: 1967:

Bolivia 1899:

1949: 1955: 1972: 1983: 1994:

1925, 1927, 1931, 1932, 1938, 1942, 1946, 1952, 1958, 1964, 1970 // 1989, 1994, 1999

1835, 1838 (Regent) 1894, 1898, 1902, 1903, 1906, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1919, 1922, 1926, 1930 // 1945, 1950, 1955, 1960 // 1989 1994 1998, 2002

1904, 1909, 1913, 1917 // 1921, 1926, 1931 // 1940 // 1947 // 1951 1956, 1960, 1964 // 1980, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2002

1862, 1868, 1874, 1880, 1886, 1892, 1898, 1904, 1910, 1916, 1922, 1928 // 1931, 1937 // 1946 1951 // 1958, 1963 // 1973a, 1973b // 1983, 1989 1995, 1999

Election years

Country Law year

Argentina 1853:

The Americas: Presidency

Summary Table 2B

5

6

5 5 4 4+4

Majority/2nd round runoff

Majority/2nd round runoff by Congress

Plurality Majority/2nd round runoff

College majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Majority/2nd round runoff by Congress

Plurality Majority/2nd round runoff by Congress

4+4 4

3 4

Majority/2nd round runoff by Congress

Plurality College majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Majority/2nd round runoff College majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Qualified plurality (either 45% or 40% + 10)/2nd round runoff

6+6 6 6 6 4+4

5

College majority/2nd round runoff by Congress

Rule

6

Term

105

1995:

Dominican Republic 1962:

Cuba 1901: 1940:

Costa Rica 1889: 1913: 1926: 1936:

1991:

1886: 1910:

1832: 1853: 1863:

1962 // 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994 1996, 2000

1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1924 // 1940, 1944, 1948 //

1890, 1894, 1898, 1902 // 1909 1913, 1917, // 1919, 1923 1928, 1932 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948 // 1953, 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002

1833, 1837, 1841, 1841, 1845, 1849, 1853 1857, 1860 // 1864, 1866, 1868, 1870, 1872, 1874, 1876, 1878, 1880, 1882, 1884 // 1892, 1898, // 1904 1914, 1918, 1922, 1926, 1930, 1934, 1938, 1942, 1946, 1950, // 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990 1994, 1998, 2002

1826 //

Election years

Country Law year

Colombia 1821:

(Continued)

Summary Table 2B

4

4

4+4 4

4 4 4 4

4


Plurality

College majority/2nd round runoff by Congress College plurality

5

College majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Majority/2nd round runoff 2 --- (40%)/2nd round runoff


College majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Plurality

6+6 4

2

4

Rule

College 2--- /2nd round 2--- Congress/3rd round runoff by 3 3 Congress College majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Plurality College states-majority/2nd round runoff by Congress

Term

106

1924, 1928, 1932 // 1954, 1956, 1957 // 1981, 1985, 1989, 1994, 1999

Honduras 1879: 1966:

Nicaragua 1911: 1984:

1928, 1932 // 1984, 1990

1825, 1829, 1833 // 1847, 1851 // 1857, 1861, 1867, 1871, 1872 1876a, 1876b, 1880, 1884, 1888 1892, 1898, 1904, 1910, 1911 // 1917, 1920, 1924 1928, 1929 1934, 1940, 1946, 1952 1958, 1964, 1970, 1976, 1982, 1988, 1994, 2000

1944, 1950 // 1985, 1990 1995, 1999

Guatemala 1944: 1984: 1994:

Mexico 1824: 1857: 1874: 1890: 1917: 1927: 1933:

1803, 1907, 1911, 1915, 1919, 1923, 1927, 1931 // 1967, 1972, 1977 // 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999

1901, 1905, 1911, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1924 // 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960 // 1978 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996 1998, 2002

El Salvador 1886: 1963: 1983:

1978: 1983: 1998:

Ecuador 1895:

4 6+6

4 4+... 4+... 6+... 4 6+6 6

4 4

6 5 4

4 5 5

5 4 4

4

Majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Plurality

Plurality

College majority/2nd round runoff by Chamber Deputies

College states majority/2nd round runoff by Congress

Majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Plurality

Majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Majority/2nd round runoff

Majority/2nd round runoff 1--3- by Congress Majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Majority/2nd round runoff

40% + 10/2nd round runoff


Majority/2nd round plurality

107

1996 2002

1995: 1999:

1788–9, 1792, 1796, 1800, 1804, 1808, 1812, 1816, 1820, 1824, 1828, 1832, 1836, 1840, 1844, 1848, 1852, 1856, 1860, 1864, 1868, 1872, 1876, 1880, 1884, 1888, 1892, 1896, 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948

1830 // 1862, // 1866 // 1868, 1872, 1876 // 1899, 1903, 1904, 1908, 1912 // 1915 // 1931 1939, 1945, // 1956 // 1962, // 1963 // 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995 1995, 2000 2001

Peru 1828: 1861: 1896: 1931: 1933: 1978: 1993: 2001:

United States 1789:

1989, 1993, 1998

Paraguay 1989:

1983:

1916, 1920, 1924, 1928 // 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968 // 1984 // 1989 // 1994, 1999

Election years

Country Law year

Panama 1916:

(Continued)

Summary Table 2B

4+4+...

4+4 4 4 5 6 5 5+5 5

5

5

4

6 6

Term

5

College majority/2nd round runoff by Congress

College majority/2nd round 1--3- by Congress College majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Plurality Qualified plurality --14Qualified plurality --13- /2nd round --13- by Congress Majority/2nd round runoff

Plurality

Plurality

Qualified plurality 45%/2nd round runoff Qualified plurality 2--- (40%)/2nd round runoff

Rule

108

1877 // 1947 // 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998 2000

1831, 1835 // 1847, 1851, 1855 //

1899, 1903, 1907, 1911, 1915 1920, 1925, 1926, 1928, 1930, 1932, 1938 // 1942, 1946, 1950 1966, 1971 // 1984, 1989, 1994 1999

1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000

Source: See Appendix: Notes and Sources for Summary Tables at the end of the book.

1999:

1874: 1946:

Venezuela 1830:

1966: 1996:

Uruguay 1899: 1918:

1951:

6+6

2 5

4

5 5

4 4

4+4

College states 2--3- /2nd round --32- /3rd round runoff by Congress College states majority/2nd round runoff by Congress Plurality


Plurality

109