The electoral law of 2004 had a majority bonus, and differing electoral thresholds for electoral lists depending on the success of each list’s candidate for the presidency of the region. Ironically, the law was cited by the centre-right government when it embarked upon the reform of 2005 — citing a reform of a very centre-left region was good cover for the reform.

Now the major parties, plus some hangers-on — Pd, Fi-Pdl, An-Pdl, Alleanza Federalista and Partito Socialista — have decided that they’ll capitalize upon the reduction of party system fragmentation at national level, and increase the thresholds further. The threshold for those who run alone (or without a successful candidate for regional president) increases from 1,5% to 5%, and there’s a 4% threshold for all other parties.

Somewhere there’s a really nice paper to be written on the cross-level diffusion of electoral systems. It would require collecting a mountain of data however…

Working out the result of the 2001 Italian general election ‘as if’ the  2005 electoral system had been used is tricky for two reasons.

First, had the 2005 electoral system actually been in place, parties would have changed their strategies, and voters might have (re)acted differently. This holds for any exercise of this kind, in Italy or elsewhere.

Second, there were a number of changes of coalition and changes of party identity over this period. This is a particularly Italian problem.

Nevertheless, let’s assume that we can take the coalitions as they were in 2001, and the parties’ share of the proportional vote in 2001, and calculate a distribution of seats on the basis of the electoral law adopted in 2005.

Let’s start with the Chamber of Deputies. The coalition of the centre-right would have won the election, taking 49.5% of the vote and thus winning the majority bonus of 340 seats.

All five parties in this coalition — Forza Italia, Alleanza Nazionale, the Lega Nord, the UDC, and the Nuovo PSI — would have won seats, since the first four would have passed the 2% threshold for parties in a coalition, and the Nuovo PSI would have been admitted as the `largest loser’ in the coalition.

Within this coalition, the seats would have been divided proportionally (largest remainder, IIRC), and so Forza Italia would have had 202 seats (29.4 / 49.5 * 340), Alleanza Nazionale 82,  the Lega Nord 27, the UDC 22, and the Nuovo PSI 7.

Two other lists or coalitions would have won seats — the coalition of the centre-left (35%), and Rifondazione Comunista (5%). Rifondazione Comunista would have got a proportional share of the remaining 290 seats (in 2001 there were not the 12 seats for Italians living abroad), or 5 / 40 * 290, or around 36 seats. The centre-left would have taken the remaining seats.

The Radicals and Italia dei Valori would have (narrowly in the case of the latter) failed to reach the 4% threshold for lists not belonging to a coalition. They would not have won any seats.

For the Senate, it’s more difficult to say, since the parties in the two coalitions ran under a single label. From eye-balling the figures for each coalition, the centre-right would still have a majority in the Senate, since it would be roughly thirty seats short of a majority just on the basis of the majority bonuses in each region alone. Rifondazione Comunista would not have surpassed the 8% threshold in any region, but Italia dei Valori would have met that target in Molise.

In December 2005, Italy’s mixed-member electoral system was replaced with a system of bonus-adjusted proportional representation. The reform conformed with rational-choice models in that it was imposed by the ruling coalition, which sought to bolster its own power interests. But the case illustrates the impossibility of reducing such power-based motivation to a single goal, such as seat maximization. Power is shaped by many factors, and electoral systems influence many of these. This article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the various power-oriented considerations that may operate in electoral reform. It then analyses the role these played in Italy. It argues, in particular, for the need to take account of coalition dynamics when studying such processes.

• 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

• 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.

Why is Veltroni doing this? Presumably he wants to preserve those other opposition parties – the radical left, the UDC – in order to prevent the centre-right from gobbling up more space along the political spectrum. It seems pretty cautious, and also (implicitly) to assume that the PD faces strong limits to growth which would prevent it from mopping up votes that might otherwise go to the UDC and the radical left.

The sheer multiplicity of responses given (Adinolfi opts for the Spanish system) is horrifying though, and definitely doesn’t augur well for quick reform.

• 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, is happy: the opposition has laid out its ground-rules. The UDC, the fifth column within the centre-right, seems also to be happy: “the agreement”, says Casini, “is extremely positive”.

Except the majority doesn’t have a plan. Lieutenant Chiti seems to have some way to go yet…

Grillo is collecting signatures for three related petitions (which have purely moral force): one to bar convicts from standing for parliament, one to introduce term limits for parliamentarians, and one to reintroduce preference votes for individual candidates.

The best part is, he mailed all parliamentarians asking them for their positions on these three petitions, shaming them into responding by taking a non-response as a negative response.

The responses on preference voting are the most interest. A full list of  responses is here. Break-down:

• more centre-left deputies replied than centre-right deputies;
• 121 votes in favour of preference voting (61%), 62 against, 14 ‘other’;
• Centre-right: FI 5/13 (38%); AN 8/16 (50%);   LN 2/4 (50%); UDC 7/9 (78%);
• Centre-left: PdCI 5/9 (55.6%); Ulivo 39/68 (57%);  Rif. Comm 10/17 (58.8%);  Sinistra Democratica 9/14 (64.3%);  Udeur 3/4 (75%); Verdi 6/8 (75%); RnP 4/5 (80%); IdV 15/16 (94%)

Conclusions? Two types of parties support preference voting: ex-democristiani (Udeur, UDC) and self-consciously reformist groups (IdV, RnP, Verdi).

Opposed quotes from former allies:

Gianfranco Fini 

The preference vote allows voters to chose. But it’s undeniable that, in the past, through the enormous financial resources necessary, campaigning for preference votes nourished corruption. To allow voters a better choice I would rather have single member districts.

Marco Follini
I completely agree with the third point [preference voting]. I tried on a thousand occasions to have preference votes alongside the proportional law.  I think that it is necessary to give parliament back to the voters, and that the best way of doing this lies precisely in reintroducing preference voting.

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 Germany the voter has to give two votes: one for a single member district and one for a party-list. This is what’s called the German model. If you take away the single member districts, then all that’s left is the list vote, or the proportional system that we Italians freed ourselves from in 1993.

When Mastella says that he wants Berlin’s system but without the single member districts, it’s a bit like saying that he’s ready to take a bath, but is not happy about touching the water. That’s he ready to buy a house, but without spending any money. In other words, that he’s ready to learn German, but using Italian words.