Strategic Ticket Splitting and the Personal Vote in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems

Abstract

This article examines ticket splitting in five different mixed‐member electoral systems—Germany, New Zealand, Japan, Lithuania, and RussiA—and indicates the shortcomings inherent in any analysis of such ticket splitting that does not take into account the presence of the personal vote. We find that the personal vote plays a central part in shaping ticket splitting in all of our cases except for Germany, a heavily party‐oriented system in which we find evidence of only a weak personal vote but evidence of substantial strategic voting.

Voter uncertainty and failure of Duverger’s law: an empirical analysis

“…However, the effect largely disappears once strategic voting is controlled for. Among the few studies dealing with incumbency advantage in Germany (Bawn 1999;Moser and Scheiner 2005;Hainmueller and Kern 2008) only Moser and Scheiner (2005) and Bawn (1999) control for the possibility of strategic voting. However, in contrast to the present study, those earlier contributions employ a much less sophisticated model of strategic voting that does not consider vote transfers and that accounts only for the closeness of the election instead of the full strategic incentive.…”

The Effects of Election Reform on Legislator Perceptions: The Case of Taiwan

“…Proponents see these systems as 'the best of both worlds' (Shugart and Wattenberg, 2001), combining the accountability and local constituency focus of SMDs with the diverse representation and national policy focus of PR (Carey and Hix, 2009). Others have been praised for allowing a form of natural experiment, holding all but seat type as constant (Stratman and Baur, 2002;Lancaster and Patterson, 1990;Moser and Scheiner, 2005;Reed, 1999) and assuming that both tiers will separately conform to Duvergerian expectations. Note: I used a definition of mixed systems that required systems at minimum to have (a) multiple single-member one-vote districts besides those instituted to represent minority groups and (b) proportional list seats consistently allocated at the national and/or regional level which overlap the nominal tier.…”

Candidates or Parties?

“…For example, Moser and Scheiner (2005) assess the extent of personal voting in several mixed-member systems by comparing list and candidate votes for the same party. 2 In single-member district electoral systems there is an extensive literature looking at how far incumbency seems to confer an advantage and seeing such effects as indicating a degree of personal voting (e.g.…”