Proposed Constitutional Election Amendment

[Keith E. Whittington]

Mark Tushnet wrote:

> Some of the comments on Bryan Wildenthal's proposal speculate about the
> implications of a run-off system for third parties and for the major
> parties.  Couldn't the political scientists on the list inform us about
> what's known about the impact of run-off systems on party systems?

I think the difficulty here is that this is a very small piece of the
overall electoral and political system, and it is hard to distinguish the
effects of this particular aspect of the electoral system from the various
other elements that often accompany it.  I'm also uncertain how well we can
extrapolate from the experience of U.S. states with run-offs to presidential
elections, which are likely to have a different evolutionary dynamic.  I
suspect there's also an endogeneity problem -- run-off systems are more
likely to be adopted when multiple parties are already seen as a likely
"problem" -- e.g., France, U.S. Southern primaries (when factionalization
and race were problems during a period of Democratic dominance).

But I think it is safe to say that run-off mechanisms provide encouragement
to third parties (relative to our current system).  "Instant" run-offs
probably provide even more encouragement.  I don't know how strong that
effect is likely to be over the course of a few decades in the United
States.  Moreover, run-off systems are likely to have an effect on the
nature of parties as well as their number (parties can be more narrow and
look for a win on the second ballot), the types of candidates likely to win
(increased chance of non-median candidate winning), and voter turnout
(turnout drops in second, run-off election).

Keith Whittington

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