落实新选举法,推进社会主义民主建设

一、选举法的修改意义重大 与往年不同,2010年全国人大会议的一大亮点是通过选举法第5次修改。新的选举法通篇贯彻了三个原则：人人平等,实行城乡按相同人口比例选举代表,保障公民都享有平等的选举权;地区平等,各行政区域不论人口多少，都应有相同的基本名额数，     

《选举法》修改中的代议政治

选举法修正案草案关于取消城乡代表权差异化配置的条款,反映了我国选举制度向实现公民的平等权迈出了一大步。它在公民投票权平等的基础上,实现了公民代表权的平等,也就是实现了同票同权。这一修改对应的是人大代表的代表性问题,按照代议理论委托论的要求,人大代表的构成应该尽量与社会吻合,从而提高自身的代表性;而按照独立论,过高的官员比例也同样是可能具有高代表性的。但实际上,最最重要的问题应该是代表是如何产生的,这与选举权中的自由向度紧密相连。如果不能保证公民在选举中充分的自由权利,那么平等也只能成为摆设。选举制度的进一步发展应该是在平等的基础上实现公民的自由选举权。     

选举法修改的重要意义

十一届全国人民代表大会第三次会议对选举法的修改是我国人民政治生活中的一件大事。这次选举法修改对社会主义民主政治建设、构建和谐社会和人权事业的发展都具有重要意义,同时为我国公民充分行使选举权和被选举权提供了更加切实的制度保障。     

同票同权时期公民选举权利行使的质效解析——基于安徽省城乡公民参加基层人大代表选举的调查

根据对安徽省最近两次县乡人大换届选举情况的调查,揭示"同票同权"后公民行使选举权利的整体质效水平有限,进步变化并不显著;农村地区选举基础仍较城镇薄弱,未有质的改善。在当前公民选举发展呈现"三转变"特征的形势下,提升公民选举权利的行使质效任重道远,亟需综合施策。应重点做好五个方面的工作:持续加强选举法制的宣传教育;充分保障公民选举知情权;解决好异地流动人员选举权落地问题;规范竞争性选举;建立公民选举质效的监控评价机制。     

“同票同权”实施存在的障碍及其完善

十一届全国人大三次会议表决通过了关于修改《中华人民共和国全国人民代表大会和地方各级人民代表大会选举法》的决定,首次将"城乡按相同人口比例选举人大代表"写入选举法。但是时隔三年,在其具体实施过程中仍存在很多障碍。笔者针对"同票同权"在具体实施过程中遇到的障碍提出了一些建议:第一,放宽城镇户籍限制,保障流动人口选举权;第二,提高农民的参政议政能力;第三,清除歧视性法规,制定实施细则。     

“半边天”的政治呐喊——女性选举权的嬗变过程

历史上西方女性长期以来都不享有选举权.晚近以来随着民主观念的扩展,受教育水平的提高以及经济独立性的获得,女性在西方各国先后获得了与男性一样的平等选举权.但获得选举权后的女性参与选举比例并不高.女性选举权的诉求开始从平等走向差异,要求承认女性独特性,进而要求女性选女性,乃至于保障女性代表权.然而此诉求却违背了选举权背后的民主平等理念.或许超越差异的“男女同体”理念更有利于女性平等选举权的真正落实.     

城乡公民选举平等是三十年改革开放实践的必然

中华人民共和国宪法明确规定公民拥有平等的选举与被选举的权利。然而在中国第一部选举法出台时候，当时中国的实际国情却使得城乡居民应该拥有的一人一票和一票一值的选举无法真正实现。经过三十年的改革开放，中国拥有了实现国家根本大法所赋予公民的根本权利的条件，同时中国的国情也发生了重大变化，因此也有了相应的实现城乡公民选举权利完全平等的必然。     

村委会选举中的行政侵权及其救济

在现行制度框架下,一方面,由于缺乏村委会选举权利的救济制度,进而导致村民选举权无法得到及时而有效的保障;同时,另一方面,对行政侵权行为处罚不力,又无法真正对其加以控制,这两者无疑是当下乡镇机关频繁侵犯村民选举权的制度性因素,从而阻滞了村民自治实践的发展。因此,健全村民选举权的宪法、诉讼和行政救济体系,就成为控制村委会选举中行政侵权和规范村委会选举行为的有效途径。     

"同票同权":缩小城乡差别的关键一步

2010年3月14日,第十一届全国人民代表大会第三次会议作出了<关于修改<中华人民共和国全国人民代表大会和地方各级人民代表大会选举法>的决定>.这次<选举法>修改最大的亮点莫过于实行了"同票同权".这次选举法的修改不仅仅是农民选举权的一大进步,从更宏观的层面来看,对于缩小城乡差别也具有非常重要的意义.     

有关《选举法》修改的若干细节问题的商榷

建设中国特色的社会主义选举制度是发展社会主义民主政治、建设社会主义政治文明、全面建设小康社会的重要政治目标.重点评述了2010年<选举法>修正案的7个亮点,并从设立独立的选举机构、适当引入竞争机制、明确法律责任等六个方面,提出了进一步完善我国选举制度的意见和建议.     

An Opposing View of Scotland's Ballot Paper Problem: Arbuthnott and the Government had the Right Idea

The May 2007 Scottish Parliament election used a different ballot format from the one used in the previous elections, one that combined the regional and constituency votes onto one ballot paper (two separate papers were used before). Because there were many more invalid votes in 2007, the problem was blamed on the two‐vote ballot paper, which was recommended by the Arbuthnott Commission to prevent misunderstandings about what the two votes were for. Other places that use the mixed‐member proportional (MMP) electoral system tend to use a two‐vote ballot paper, with Germany and New Zealand seeing low levels of invalid votes. While the decision to revert to two separate papers in future Scottish Parliament elections might reduce the number of invalid votes, the price could be more confusion about the proportional nature of the electoral system unless public education improves significantly.     

Electoral registration and the control of votes: The case of Chile

We investigate how the employment relationship may lead employers to control the voting behavior and to induce the electoral registration of their workers. Forced registration and the control of votes become feasible when voting behavior is observable, as in open ballot elections. Workers whose vote is controlled are more likely to be registered as compared to other eligible voters, increasing their impact on electoral outcomes. Increasing the secrecy of the vote (for instance with the adoption of a secret ballot) significantly reduces the control of votes. Electoral registration, however, remains biased as long as the probability of voting behavior disclosure induces less ideologically motivated voters to comply with the political preference of the employer. We provide empirical support for the predictions of the model examining the effects of the introduction of the secret ballot in Chile in 1958.     

Are Voters Equal under Proportional Representation?

We develop and apply a new conceptual framework and measure for evaluating electoral systems, focusing on (in)equality in parliamentary representation. Our main arena of interest is proportional representation with districts, an electoral system employed by more than half of democratic states, and we draw on an almost entirely overlooked fact: Electoral regimes vary substantially within countries, with some voters casting their ballot in semi‐majoritarian districts of few representatives and others in large and proportional ones. This within‐country institutional variation, we contend, affects representational (in)equality. Evaluating equality in parliamentary representation, we demonstrate that districted proportional representation often leads to overrepresentation of voters supporting right‐leaning parties. Utilizing district‐level data from 20 Western parliamentary democracies and complementing our within‐country approach with a cross‐country analysis, we further show that where parliaments are elected by large and small districts, representational inequality among voters is greater compared with countries in which parliament is elected by even‐magnitude districts.     

The 2015 National Elections in Switzerland: Renewed Polarization and Shift to the Right

The 2015 election to the Swiss Parliament marks a return to an already observed trend that was only interrupted in 2011: a shift to the right and an increase in polarization. The vote share of the nationalist-conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP) has now reached a historical height of 29.4% (+2.8). This note discusses why cantons matter in the Swiss national elections, and to what degree elections have become nationalized. Institutionally, the 26 cantons serve as electoral districts. This leads to a highly disproportional electoral system and has magnified the minor vote shifts to a slightly more pronounced shift in seats, with the right now holding a tiny majority of 101 of 200 seats in the first chamber. The two winners, the SVP and the Liberals, also had most campaign funds at their disposal. They were able to guide an extensive nationwide campaign in which they advocated their core issues instead of candidates. Other parties only advertised at the cantonal level.     

Misleading ballot position cue: Party voting in Korea's nonpartisan local elections

In this study, I present evidence that ballot order can provide a misleading cue to voters. In South Korea, nonpartisan municipal legislative elections were held concurrently with other partisan local elections until 2002. The ballot order of the candidates running in nonpartisan elections was randomly determined, whereas it was determined according to a party's number of seats in the national legislature for candidates running in partisan elections. Therefore, if voters are fully informed, the vote share for the candidate listed first in the nonpartisan ballot should not be correlated with the vote share for the party listed first on the partisan ballot. However, I find that the vote share for a first-listed candidate increases when the first-listed party's vote share increases. I also find that the presence of an incumbent does not significantly reduce the degree to which voters mistakenly use ballot position as a party cue.     

Party-related primacy effects in proportional representation systems: evidence from a natural experiment in Polish local elections

We study the primacy effects that occur when voters cast their votes because a candidate or party is listed first on a ballot. In the elections that we analyzed, there are three potential types of such effects that might occur when voters vote for (1) the first candidate listed on the ballot in single-member district (SMD) elections (candidate primacy); (2) the first party listed on the ballot in open-list proportional representation (OLPR) elections (party primacy); or (3) the first candidate on a party list in OLPR elections (list primacy). We estimated the party primacy effect (2) and established that there was no interaction between (2) and (3). A party primacy effect is especially difficult to estimate because parties’ positions on ballots are typically fixed in all multi-member districts (MMDs) and it is impossible to separate the first-position “bonus” from a party’s normal electoral performance. A rare natural experiment allowed us to estimate the primacy party bonus between 6.02 and 8.52% of all votes cast for the 2014 Polish local elections. We attribute the large size of such bonus to the great complexity of voting in the OLPR elections, especially the much longer ballots, voting in many simultaneous elections, and ballot design as a booklet rather than a sheet.

     

A Low Information Theory of Ballot Position Effect

This article suggests a theory of ballot position effect based on the amount of information present in the electorate while accounting for several alternative hypotheses. The more information that voters have, all other factors held constant, the less a role ballot position will play. Additionally, the role of electoral institutions in mitigating or magnifying the effect is considered. The theories are tested with precinct-level data from city council elections held in Peoria, Illinois, from 1983 through 1999. Position effect is found to account for a bonus of 0.7% to 5.2% of the precinct-level vote share per position on the ballot. The level of aggregate information and the institutional setting explain a significant share of ballot position effect, even while examined in the presence of alternative explanations such as incumbency, endorsement, campaign expenditure, gender, and race.     

If Immigrants Could Vote in the UK: A Thought Experiment with Data from the 2015 General Election

The distribution of voting rights in the UK is an artefact of history rather than a product of clear legal or philosophical principles. Consequently, some resident aliens (i.e. immigrants) have the right to vote in all UK elections; others can vote in local elections but are excluded from national elections; still others are excluded from all elections. In England and Wales alone, roughly 2.3 million immigrants are excluded from voting in national elections. This exclusion is inconsistent with the founding principle of democracy and distorts political discourse. What if all immigrants could vote in national elections? We estimate that up to ninety‐five parliamentary seats could have been won by a different party in the 2015 general election. More substantially, enfranchising all immigrants would require re‐drawing UK constituency boundaries. The new electoral map would increase the relative power of urban constituencies and would incentivise some political entrepreneurs and parties to temper anti‐immigration rhetoric.     

International Constraints and Electoral Decisions: Does the Room to Maneuver Attenuate Economic Voting?

Prominent studies of electoral accountability and economic voting suggest that government constraints and international financial structures decrease the economic vote. The proposed mechanism is often labeled as the “room to maneuver,” and it posits that because elected officials have limited space to propose and implement economic policy, politicians can shirk responsibility, and thus voters are less likely to place voting weights on the economy. However, results from elections that took place in Europe during the Great Recession and scholarly research on economic voting in these elections cast serious doubts on the causal mechanism. This article directly tests this mechanism with a survey experiment using data from Greece (the country most affected by the debt crisis). The results suggest that although the economic vote is strong and substantive, its size does not vary across the room to maneuver treatments. This finding informs the literature on economic voting and carries out important implications for party strategies with respect to exogenous policy impositions and their electoral effects.     

Managing Orderly Decline? Nationalism in Northern Ireland Since the Good Friday Agreement (1998)

The 2016 Northern Ireland Assembly election highlighted substantive issues within nationalism. Both the main nationalist parties, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Sinn Féin, recorded the worst combined vote for over 20 years. This article suggests that the downturn in nationalist support was years in the making and examines why nationalist voters might be turning away from the ballot box. It considers the various factors that underlined both parties' approach to consecutive electoral tests from 1998 until 2016, showing how Sinn Féin replaced the SDLP as the leading force within nationalism, and concluding that new leadership may yet halt the process of orderly decline.