In my research, professor, I noticed how proportional voting leads to a lesser impact by money.
Let me try formulate both systems, and how this is influenced by money. Yes, there is greater diversity in voting systems (Canada is an interesting example), but I'll focus just on the two main distinctions here.
First off, district voting leads to a large group of losers, which is something people naturally like to avoid. It is normal to try to optimize one's win when the loss is about everything there is, in this case the single seat. We want to pick the winner, not the loser. We want to be part of the outcome and not stand on the sideline.
Then, when a nation got setup to have just two parties, then the neck-and-neck races are bringing in the greatest amount of financial support. This means the six swing states we have at this moment will be the areas where a lot of the money that comes in will be spent. Yet these races have now become 'nationalized' because it is about the ultimate direction of the nation. Monies are coming in therefore from all who are engaged in the national race, from all 50 states.
Once an industry realizes it can profit the most from the tightest races, then the wording of the race will be pitched toward receiving greater donations. I hope you recognize how that has been going on for a long time, with perhaps more and more attention toward money in our American political system in the last twenty years.
In short, our political system has been industrialized. Where the true value is the vote itself, the monetization appears to increase, and hardly ever shows a decrease. Yes, a two-year campaign is very beneficial for this industry.
As last point with district elections, I need to point out the fact that money can buy influence. It is not a black&white reality, but I do recognize how money is a corrupting aspect that should not be part of the political system. Wishes, wishes, wishes....
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Then, the proportional voting system.
If I were a political investor, then placing my money with the Orange Party will only give me that much traction.
My money cannot influence the outcome by much, because there is no enormous benefit for me if the Orange Party wins with eleven percent of the votes instead of with ten percent of the votes.
Where is my leverage as political investor? It is not really there. They now get eleven percent of the seats instead of ten percent? Big deal (not).
There are no neck-and-neck races in proportional voting, because the voters do not compete with the voters.
Each and every voter gets their own representative in the Thomas Jefferson voting system (aka D'Hondt voting system).
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For this reason, Russia has a greater chance to influence the American (and British) election than the Swedish or Dutch elections.
In the USA and the UK, a single vote can make the difference between red and blue, between Tories and Labour. The chance to manipulate the outcome is fantastic.
In Sweden and the Netherlands, there is very little chance to manipulate the outcome.
First off, many parties are all competing with one another for your attention. At minimum five will get a lot of attention, not a number that a political financier will find attractive. The return is too low, the risk of getting nothing too high.
The one spot where Russia did try to meddle in these elections is through trying to increase the number of parties. When there are twenty parties, then the coalition government will likely be based on four political parties, which by itself is a political weakness.
Still, as Israel shows, when the enemy is recognized as dangerous, then the willingness by all parties to collaborate in a government is greatest.
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Lastly, the length of campaigning. In as far as I can tell, most democracies have a campaign period that is not allowed to start until two or three months before the actual elections.
This does not only help moderate the intensity with which the voters identify themselves with a specific party, but it limits the influence that money can have on a campaign.
Final word is that nations with a single winner, a president, can end up with the results provoking a civil war, particularly when the race was neck-and-neck. Yes, the USA is now part of that list, too, unfortunately.
Thank you, professor, for a very good point.
District voting stimulates financial influence, whereas proportional voting reduces the effects of money on politics.
