Democracy Down Under: A Comparative Look at Australian and American Electoral Systems

Abstract

One of the challenges that every democracy faces is determining how to structure its electoral system. It is an intense subject of debate, with political theorists grappling with what electoral system is ideal from a normative context. Electoral design is an important issue because scholars have described elections as “the key hallmark to democracy.” The social science literature at both the aggregate and micro levels has indicated that “[d]ifferent electoral systems produce different outcomes.” In describing his ideal electoral system, the British political theorist John Stuart Mill once said that adopting the single-transferable vote (STV) would be “among the very greatest improvements yet made in the theory and practice of government.” While originally designed by Thomas Hare of England in 1857, the goal of this system is for legislatures to be composed politically to precisely reflect each political group’s strength in the electorate. For instance, if the United States’ electorate was 40 percent Democratic, 40 percent Republican, and 20 percent independent, the objective of an STV system would be for Congress to have 40 percent of its representatives be Democrats, 40 percent of its representatives be Republicans, with nearly 20 percent of its representatives elected as independents. While the United States is a nation divided politically, the current Congress is by no means reflective of the electorate’s political views. For instance, even though President Obama was comfortably re-elected and the House Democrats