A majority bonus system (MBS, also called a minority-friendly majoritarian system) is a mixed-member, partly-proportional

electoral system An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...

that gives extra seats in a

legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...

to the party with a plurality or

majority A majority is more than half of a total; however, the term is commonly used with other meanings, as explained in the "#Related terms, Related terms" section below. It is a subset of a Set (mathematics), set consisting of more than half of the se ...

of seats. Typically, this is done with the aim of providing government stability, particularly in parliamentary systems. The size of the majority bonus can vary substantially, is usually a fixed number of seats, and may be conditional on the number of votes for each party. However, a relatively small majority bonus (such as in the reinforced proportionality system of Greece) may not always guarantee that a single party can form a government. At the same time, as the majority bonus is allocated in a non- compensatory manner, if the majority bonus is as high as 50%, and the largest party which has 50% of the popular vote receives it, this party may win as many as 75% of all seats available. This differentiates it from the similar majority jackpot system. It is currently used in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

and on a local level in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. In

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, it is used in the Chamber of Deputies of Santa Fe, Chubut, and Entre Ríos.

Mechanism

The bonus system adds a certain fixed number of additional seats to the winning party or alliance. In the

Greek Parliament The Parliament of the Hellenes (), commonly known as the Hellenic Parliament (), is the unicameral legislature of Greece, located in the Old Royal Palace, overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens. The parliament is the supreme democratic instit ...

up to a sixth of the assembly seats are reserved as extra seats for the winning party. In the Sicilian Regional Assembly, a tenth of the assembly seats are granted to the winning coalition on top of those allocated proportionally. The size of majority bonuses may vary greatly, from as low as a few seats to up to 50%. In case of a bonus of 50%, the party also received their proportional share of the other 50% seats, which make a

supermajority A supermajority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fun ...

almost certain. The following table shows how small (10%), medium (25%) and large (50%) majority bonuses would work without any additional distortions of proportional systems. Using an

electoral threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of votes that a candidate or political party requires before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can operate in various ...

or an apportionment method favoring large parties would give an even larger bonus to the largest party. The reason why the difference of the seats share and vote share (the effective bonus) is lower than the bonus is that the number of non-bonus seats to be allocated proportionally is less than the total number of seats. If all parties would get their full proportional number of seats, and one party would get the (nominal) bonus on top of that, the total number of seats would increase. While this means the size of the effective bonus (without other factors giving an effective bonus) if always smaller than the nominal one in terms of percentages, this naturally means all the parties who don't receive a bonus have a naturally less seats than they would proportionally. The bonus system is ''unconditional'' and ''non-compensatory,'' while its goal in a political science sense is to provide for stable majorities (a bonus lower than 50%) does not ensure it and applies also when a stable majority can already be formed. This is the main difference between a majority bonus and a majority jackpot.

Bonus and jackpot

The difference between the majority bonus and a majority jackpot is shown in the following table, where the largest party receives a majority bonus/jackpot. The jackpot system essentially gives the size of the jackpot or the vote share (whichever is higher, making it a conditional system and an effectively flexible "bonus"), while the bonus system gives the bonus and a proportional share of the rest of the seats. The jackpot only modifies the seat share when the largest party's proportional seats count based on its vote share is below the size of the jackpot. As the table shows, especially with a high bonus/jackpot, the two methods lead to different result, with the bonus always providing a higher seat share. For this reason the two are not usually directly compared in this, majority bonuses tend to be smaller than jackpots. The effect of a 55% jackpot for example is better compared to a bonus of around 10% to 30%.

Effective majority bonuses

Many winner-take-all electoral system have been described as providing a bonus to certain parties. Systems using single-member districts, particularly

first-preference plurality First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first- ...

(FPP) usually favor candidates of larger parties. A Common argument for mixed-member majoritarian implementations of

parallel voting In political science, parallel voting or superposition refers to the use of two or more Electoral system, electoral systems to elect different members of a legislature. More precisely, an electoral system is a superposition if it is a mixture o ...

is an effective bonus for certain parties. Some properties of other mixed systems such as so called the "winner compensation" element of Hungarian electoral system have been criticized for being effectively just a majority bonus disguised as compensation.https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.15129.34407 Electoral incentives and the equal value of ballots in vote transfer systems with positive winner compensation Overhang seats in systems using the mixed-member proportional principle are also effectively bonus seats for certain parties.

Use

The majority bonus system was adopted by other European countries, especially

in 2004, and

and

for regional and municipal elections.

History

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

was the first politician to enact a law to give automatic seats to the winning party and ensured his victory in the 1924 Italian general election. This was a majority jackpot system, a precursor to the majority bonus system.

Notes

References

{{Cite book , last1=Caciagli , first1=Mario , title=Italian Politics: Emerging Themes and Institutional Responses , last2=Alan S. Zuckerman , last3=Istituto Carlo Cattaneo , publisher=Berghahn Books , year=2001 , pages=87–89 Semi-proportional electoral systems Electoral systems Fascism Mixed electoral systems