Electoral Systems: A Political Tool for Shaping Results
An electoral system is not a neutral mechanism, but a complex institutional architecture that imposes specific behavioral patterns on political actors. In *Illusions of Choice*, Jarosław Flis argues that the mechanics of vote counting do more than just translate preferences into seats; they actually sculpt our civic decisions. Instead of the classic division between majoritarian and proportional systems, the author proposes a new conceptual framework based on three tensions: between order and share, proportionality and majority, and expression and strategy. Understanding these relationships reveals how deeply the technical aspects of electoral law influence the public's sense of agency.
Flis’s Typology: Three Dimensions of Party Competition
The logic of order resembles a sporting race where only relative rank matters, while the principle of share assumes that representation should proportionally reflect the percentage of support. In practice, nominally proportional systems often generate majoritarian effects. This occurs through hidden modifiers, such as the d’Hondt method or a small number of seats per district, which reward the strongest players and foster a duopoly.
The voter's greatest dilemma is the conflict between expressive voting (a manifestation of identity) and strategic voting. The latter is a calculated maneuver: the voter abandons their authentic preferences in favor of a candidate who "has a chance to win." Such calculation displaces authentic expression, leading to alienation and political cynicism when a vote serves only to avoid the worst-case scenario.
The Natural Threshold and the Demographic Weight of a Vote
Beyond official statutory thresholds, there is a natural threshold (of exclusion) resulting from the mathematical inevitability of seat distribution in small districts. It can reach as high as 12%, meaning smaller groups are eliminated despite crossing the national threshold. The system also differentiates the real weight of a vote. Since seats are allocated based on the number of residents rather than eligible voters, demographics (e.g., a high number of children in a district) mean an adult's vote carries more weight.
Paradoxically, high turnout in large cities weakens the power of an individual vote. A voter from a metropolis becomes a political extra compared to a resident of a smaller county, where fewer votes are needed to win a seat. This systemic differentiation of citizen power undermines the foundations of democratic equality.
Seven Circles of the Labyrinth: The Mechanism of Entrenching Elites
The system favors the reproduction of elites (incumbents), making sitting members of parliament a nearly untouchable group. Competition shifts inward to the party, where the fight for the "number one" spot on the list replaces dialogue with the citizen. "Vote-getters" also appear on the lists—placeholder candidates in lower positions who collect votes for the leaders without having a real chance of success themselves. Flis describes this as a labyrinth of seven circles, where pathologies such as internal aggression or moral ambiguity are rewarded by the structure.
In this process, the media distort the public perception of elections, reducing them to a simple clash between two blocs. Ignoring the complexity of electoral law allows the system's beneficiaries to become its guardians, remaining silent about the mechanisms that grant them a strategic advantage at the expense of transparency and fairness.
Personalized Proportional Representation: A New Model
The solution to the labyrinth of illusions may be personalized proportional representation. This model separates the vote for a specific person (locality) from the vote for a party (ideology). Such a reform changes the psychology of voting behavior: it eliminates the pressure for strategic voting, weakens the dictate of party leaders, and extinguishes the destructive competition within lists. Will such an electoral system heal our entire "political hell"? Certainly not. However, it could open the door to fairer competition, where politics once again becomes the art of representation rather than just the art of survival. This is precisely what would make it more understandable—and crucially, less illusory—for voters.
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