Lone fighters: Intraparty competition, interparty competition, and candidates' vote seeking efforts in open-ballot PR elections

Abstract

Low electoral turnout has become common in many countries. Whether this is a problem for a democracy depends ondamong other thingsdwhether higher turnout would have made other parties more relevant. This introductory article discusses the findings and approaches of previous work on this question and summarizes the findings of the work published in this issue. The various articles, despite using different approaches, looking at different countries and different types of election, all show that any bias in election outcomes is typically rather small and is not in a specific direction: sometimes the left would benefit from higher turnout, sometimes other parties. Therefore the concerns about potential bias consequent on low turnout are generally misplaced.

Does Vote Buying Affect Voting Behaviour? Chasing Winning Margins and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

“…Under these circumstances, what matters most in the open-list campaigns is intraparty competition rather than interparty competition. As I have argued, it is the competition between candidates within a party list that makes them engage in more intense personal campaigning (Selb and Lutz, 2015). Given that seats are taken by candidates who obtain the most votes from each list, intraparty competition under the open-list system increases candidates' electoral uncertainty.…”

Interest Group Support and Electoral Success in the Swiss Elections of 2015. A Candidate Survey Analysis

“…We measure electoral success according to the number of preference votes the candidates received. In Switzerland, voters can cast different types of preference votes for candidates (Lutz ; Selb and Lutz ). On the pre‐printed ballots, candidates are listed in an order determined by the parties.…”

“…In addition, electoral success is not simply defined as being elected, but refers to the number of preference votes candidates receive. This allows the intra‐party competition on the same electoral list to be better conveyed (see Selb and Lutz and the Data and Methods section below).…”

“…; Lachat and Sciarini ). This is especially relevant in the Swiss context because campaigns are relatively expensive and competitive (Selb and Lutz ). Parties also do not receive public funding or funds from their party for their personal campaigns.…”

“…A candidate is elected if the party wins one or more seats and, at the same time, if the candidate wins more preference votes than the other candidates on the same list. As a consequence, candidate competition is sometimes more intense within the same party than between parties (Selb and Lutz ). The vote differences between candidates of the same party list are sometimes very small.…”