Interesting suggestions for reform of the electoral system used for the European Parliament elections found here at RENA:
twenty-one electoral districts, with
at least one seat per district, with
remaining (57?) seats distributed in proportion to population, thus
increasing the effective threshold, if not the legal threshold;
and introducing a quota for female representation
Repubblica gives some excellent reportage/hearsay which shows three things:
generally, preference voting is supported by parties with better grassroots organisation;
generally, preference voting is supported by non-leadership groups within parties;
specifically, in the Italian case, preference voting is supported by the non-Veltroni factions in the PD, and the AN within the PdL.
More electoral reform in the air - this time not for national elections, but for next year’s European Parliament elections. Veltroni has come out in favour of a watered-down threshold of 3%, compared to the 5% originally proposed.
Why is Veltroni doing this? Presumably he wants to preserve those other opposition parties - the radical left, […]
Repubblica has an interesting series with Ilvo Diamanti asking candidates for the leadership of the Partito Democratico for their stance on a number of issues. Today’s is electoral reform. The three serious contenders - Bindi, Letta, Veltroni - each have a different stance. Bindi opts for the system before 2006, Letta for the German system, […]
Repubblica reports that the centre-right coalition has reached agreement on future electoral system reform based around three key principles:
protection of bipolarism (as long as it’s not “forced”)
indication of each pre-electoral coalition’s prime ministerial candidate
“reasonable” threshold for representation
Vannino Chiti, the man Prodi has charged with finding a solution to the parties’ competing preferences on this issues, […]
The campaign to repeal the electoral law passed in 2005 has been hugely successful. But it’s not the only popular initiative aimed at changing the electoral law. Beppe Grillo’s got in on the act.
Grillo is collecting signatures for three related petitions (which have purely moral force): one to bar convicts from standing for parliament, one […]
Politicians get elected through electoral systems. That ought to mean that they know something about the subject, no?
Not according to today’s wonderful Bonsai column in Repubblica:
“Mastella… has announced that the German [electoral] system would be acceptable to him. Just one condition: “as long as we never speak again of single member districts”. Now, in […]
The ‘Bonsai’ column in Repubblica has, over the past few months, been painting a wonderful picture of Vannino Chiti - Minister in charge of relationships with Parliament - as a type of electoral Lieutenant Columbo. From Wikipedia:
Columbo’s signature technique was to exit the scene of an interview, invariably stopping in the doorway or returning a […]
From repubblica.it comes information on the size of constituencies in the new electoral system proposed in the ‘bozza Chiti’. They will be ’sub-provinciale’, at most, ‘provinciale’.
Let’s assume conservatively that the constituencies will be equal to the number of provinces.
Let’s also assume, as a simplifying measure, that the constituencies will all be given the same number […]
Repubblica and the Corriere both report that the centre-left majority has reached agreement on electoral reform. The reform will replace the current law with a system similar to that used for regional elections. The text therefore is close to joint position of the centre-right, which augurs well for its chances of quick passage. By including […]
