Evening star., 1955-11-13
Present System

IHe present. system goes SOme-
thing like this:
The electoral district is the de-
partment. There are about 100 Of
them in France. Departments have
several seats in the Assembly. Each
party (there are six major ones)
puts up slate of candidates, or
"hst." in each department. The
voter votes for an entire list. He
votes. in effect, for a party. not for
individuals.
The parties may make formal al
liances with .one another in an
attempt to gang up on another
party. This must be done before
the election. The allies do not
campaign together-may not even
approve particularly of each other
but when the ballots are counted
their votes are Jumped together.
To understand the system, let
us take two examples: First, of a de-
partment where there are no alli-
ances; second. of a department
where an alliance is formed.
Vote Without Alliance
Supposing, In the first example,
that in Department x there are
four seats to be won and four
parties putting UP lists Of candi-
dates. If on election day usually a
Sunday--one party wins an absolute
majority Of votes. it wins all four
seats. Its entire list goes to Parlia-
ment. This almost never occurs in
the splintered French electorate.
II there is no majority party, then
the four seats are divided up among
the parties on a system of propor-
tionai representation (prescrihed by
lawl called highest average" 1t
tends to favor the strongest party,
even though its margin of strength
might be small.
Highest average" works like
this: The four parties in the exam
pie poll these votes:
Party A, $1,000.
Party B, 10000.
Party c. 26.00O.
Party d, $4,000.
The first seat goes to Party A
which has the highest average on
the first. round. Its vote Is then
divided by two to determine its
average for the second seat: it then
has 26.50O. The second seat goes
to Party B which has the highest
average t30, ,0O0l for that round. Its
vote, in turn. is divided by two for
the third round; it then has $4,000.
The third seat again goes to Party
A, since its revised average, 26,500,
is highest. Then Party AS vote is
divided by three, that is 1888.
The fourth and last seat goes to
Party C, as its $4,000 votes are now
highest.
The net result--Party A gets two
seats. B and c one each and D gets
none.
There are other systems of pro-
portional representation which
would give different results. One
that has been used in France would
give all parties in this sample one
seat, Naturally the small parties
would favor this: the large parties
like the highest-average system.
Vote With Alliance
In the second example, let us
suppose there were alliances.
Parties B, G and d tthe weaker
ones above) ally. In the balloting
their combined list would have
10000 votes, or an absolute major
ity. They would get all four seats:
the strong party A would be frozen
out. Then the combined parties
would divide up the four seats
within the alliance. again using q
system of proportional representa-
ton to give, for instance. Party B
two seats and Parties c and d one
seat each.
An alliance won an absolute ma
jority in about one-third Of the
departments In 1851.
But supposing in this example
that only B and G banded together.
OHlklk bIlC LIZ ufCo hpVNC, tAAC dAAnAASc
would be the strongest group. but
not an absolute majority. Their
pooled votes would earn them two
seats. as an alliance, and Parties
A and d would get one each. Again
the A's--wIao polled a plurality
would get less than their share
The B and c alliance would then
divide their two seats Each would
get one.
The Results
The actual result Of the system
In 1851 was this: The Communists
we're the strongest party, but they
were distrusted and could make no