Spain, the country where the electoral system most benefits the right wing
BarcelonaIt does not appear explicitly in the 1978 Spanish Constitution, but the electoral framework established by royal decree in 1977 and consolidated by the Organic Law of the General Electoral System (LOREG) has significantly shaped Spanish and Catalan politics. Unlike the hundreds of constitutions worldwide, the Spanish Constitution includes few details about the electoral system: that Congress must have between a minimum of 300 and a maximum of 400 seats (it has had 350 since 1977), that the electoral district must be the province, and that it will have an initial population and a "minimum representation"; the deputies will be elected using "proportional representation criteria." The LOREG consolidated in 1985 that each province is entitled to an initial minimum of two seats and that the D'Hondt method would be used to allocate them.
The choice of this system was anything but trivial. The decision, 47 years after the approval of the Spanish Constitution, continues to have a profound effect on the electoral life of the State. As is well known from existing research, the ruling elite chooses an electoral system and rules that allow them to remain in power. They try to do everything possible to avoid relinquishing control of the state, especially during transitions, such as the Spanish one, in which the establishment of the authoritarian regime is responsible for designing the transition to democracy.
A well-known anecdote illustrates this: a journalist asked Pío Cabanillas, then Undersecretary of the Ministry of Information and Tourism (headed by Manuel Fraga), which party he predicted would win the first elections. "I don't know who, but we're going to win," was the reply. The strategy of electoral engineering (we could also call it manipulation) was put into practice by designing an electoral system that favored the ruling elite. Thus, a system was designed to give the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) an absolute majority of seats with 30-33% of the vote, a figure most polls predicted. The initial proposal of 4 seats per province was even changed to 2 because it made small districts too equal to large ones. The guarantee of victory was, according to many key figures of the time, one of the reasons for the very creation of the UCD. The rules of the game were so important that almost none of the opposition's amendments were accepted.
Although the general elections are held on the same day, experts often speak of three subelectivesThese are the districts of small (1 to 5 seats), medium (6 to 9 seats), and large (10 or more seats). The dynamics in each are very different and have generated significant biases: first, the creation of an electoral system that benefits the major parties (more than half of the districts have fewer than 5 seats); second, the initial overrepresentation of rural and more conservative areas (where the UCD expected to obtain better results); and third, the fact that low voter turnout, driven in part by the electoral system, usually benefits conservative parties.
The value of a vote in Spain
These majority and conservative biases are not necessarily inevitable. For example, the less populated and overrepresented rural areas of Mexico and Peru were more left-leaning. And some urban and populated areas, and therefore underrepresented, are not always left-leaning, as is the case with Madrid. According to a recent study by political scientists Pablo Beramendi (Duke), Carles Boix (Princeton), Marc Guinjoan (UAB), and Melissa Rogers (Claremont), which compared 247 elections in 65 countries, the Spanish electoral system is one of those that generates the strongest conservative bias (PP and PP) and the weakest, Vox. Since the electoral system is the same in Catalan elections, these biases also occur in Spain, despite the differences in the party system and the use of provinces as electoral districts—boundaries that are somewhat inconsistent with the territorial (and historical) reality of Catalonia. But that's a whole other story.
The curious chart of the week
Poor election results... logo changes
In September, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya decided to update its graphic image. Twelve years after the last change, the party decided to renew the colors, typography, and other elements of its logo. According to the Political Parties Logo Database, tweaking party logos is quite common. Since 1980, across the 17 countries and 157 parties considered, it has happened more than 600 times. The most common practice is changing the image (more than 300 times) or the font (270), while changing the party's color is much less common. It also varies depending on the country. Thus, while in Spain only about a quarter of elections have featured new logos, in Iceland or Finland it is more common for voters to encounter a rebranding from most political parties.