@article{2015:schrder:fremdverwe,
title = {Fremdverwertung und Personenstimmenparadox: Negatives Stimmgewicht im Bremer und Hamburger Bürgerschaftswahlrecht},
year = {2015},
note = {The 2011 reforms of the laws guiding the elections to the state
parliaments in Bremen and Hamburg introduced systems of combined open
and closed list proportional representation: Each voter can now cast
five votes for party lists (list vote) and/or specific candidates
(candidate vote). Seats are assigned as “list” or “candidate”
mandates according to quotas derived from the list vote and candidate
vote totals. This system can result in a paradox situation in which
contenders can miss a seat due to having won too many candidate votes;
twice this has happened in the four post-reform elections. Ensuing
negative weights of their candidate votes implies a breach of the
principle of electoral equality. Moreover, since voters pondering
whether to cast candidate votes or not cannot gauge whether their
decision will lead to negative weights, the electoral system is not
transparent. The problem could be solved by introducing a mechanism
that corrects for negative voting weights candidatewise. But this
would make the electoral system more complicated. Alternatively, the
quota system could be replaced by assigning candidate mandates only to
contenders whose candidate vote totals surpass the natural hurdle,
i.e. the minimum number of votes needed to win a seat. This would
reduce both the number of candidate mandates allotted and the
electoral system’s complexity. [ZParl, vol. 46 (2015), no. 3, pp.
561 – 577]},
journal = {ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen},
pages = {561--577},
author = {Schröder, Valentin},
volume = {46},
number = {3}
}