Draft:Decoy list

Not to be confused with Fake party.

A decoy or duplicate list is a separate party list used to avoid the compensation mechanism in some forms of mixed-member proportional representation. A runs all their local constituency candidates on a "fake" party-list, called the decoy list, while asking voters to strategically support the party with their second (i.e. party) vote. This keeps seats from the winner-take-all portion of the system from being taken into account when assigning the compensatory seats. If all parties use this strategy, a theoretically-proportional system will instead behave like a parallel voting system.

The decoy list strategy can be made less effective or practical (but not completely eliminated) by the mixed single vote rule, where parties' seats are apportioned based on vote totals for their candidates across all constituencies. The decoy list strategy can also be eliminated by either explicitly implementing parallel voting (severing compensatory linkage) or implementing certain types of vote linkage instead. Other countries have instead attempted to prohibit the strategy, using complex systems of regulations and party registries to prevent parties from exploiting the loophole, with mixed success.

How decoy lists work

The most common way to achieve mixed-member proportional representation is by seat linkage, which means taking into account seats won by parties in the constituency tier of the system when allocating list seats. This can be subverted by parties pretending not to have won or to have won less seats in constituencies either by running their candidates as independents or under a decoy list. In practice, depending on the legal environment, parties may not be able to utilize this strategy to a 100% as they might be required to field a minimum amount of candidates under their own name to establish their top-up list. Moreover, where they field more than one candidate, they need to educate their voters which one to vote for, otherwise the strategy might not work (if the wrong candidate wins) or even backfire because of the spoiler effect (an opposing candidate wins). Subverting the seat linkage mechanism is most straightforward, when the system gives voters two votes: one for a local candidate and one for a top-up list, and the voters can split their vote. In this case, the system can be essentially reverted to a parallel voting system (without any compensation to proportionality) if all parties winning constituency seats use this tactic and all voters follow instructions on how to vote tactically.

In the following example, there are 30 compensatory seats to 70 constituency seats. Party A and D overperform in the constituencies, winning more seats of the 100 than they would be entitled to (overhang seats). The additional member system used in Scotland would partially compensate for that, by not giving these parties any more seats. Compare this to parallel voting, where all parties receive their share proportionally from 30 seats regardless of some of them already being overrepresented. However, if Party A fields their candidates on a decoy list (e.g. Party AA) and they still get the same amount of votes, the system won't know that those seats were effectively "won" by Party A, so it won't take this into account when allocating list seats.

			Constituency seats only (FPTP)		Mixed-member majoritarian		Broadly mixed-member proportional type of system (MMP)
					Parallel voting (supplementary member system)		Additional member system (AMS) without decoy lists		Additional member system (AMS) with decoy lists (Party A)
Party		Popular vote (%)	Seats	Share (%)	Seats	Share (%)	Seats	Share (%)	Seats	Share (%)
	Party A	43%	54	77%	67 (54+13)	67%	54 (54+0)	54%	67 (54+13)	67%
	Party B	41%	11	16%	24 (11+13)	24%	34 (11+23)	34%	24 (11+13)	24%
	Party C	13%	0	0%	3 (0+3)	3%	7 (0+7)	7%	3 (0+3)	3%
	Party D	3%	5	7%	5 (5+0)	5%	5 (5+0)	5%	5 (5+0)	5%
	TOTAL	100%	70	100%	70+30	100%	70+30	100%	70+30	100%
Index of disproportionality (Gallagher)			31.55 (highly disproportional)		22.01 (disproportional)		10.25 (moderately disproportional)		22.01 (disproportional)
Method used			Only first-past-the-post		Independent PR tier		Fixed number of compensatory seats
This type of system used in			United Kingdom, among others		Russia, among others		Scotland, London

Countries where decoy lists have been used

Albania

This sort of strategy for a coalition of parties to capture a larger share of list seats may be adopted formally as a strategy. By way of example, in Albania's 2005 parliamentary election, the two main parties did not expect to win any list seats, so they encouraged voters to use their list votes for allied minor parties. This tactic distorted the working of the model to the point that the parties that won list seats were almost always different from the parties that won constituency seats. Only one constituency member was elected from parties that won list seats. The election was condemned by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe which said it failed to comply with international standards because of "serious irregularities", intimidation, vote-buying and "violence committed by extremists on both sides." Rather than increasing the number of list seats or "overhang" seats, Albania subsequently decided to change to a pure-list system.

In an abusive gambit similar to that used in Albania, major parties feeling that they are unlikely to win a large number of list seats because of their advantage at the constituency level might choose to split their party in two, with one subdivision of the party contesting the constituency seats, while the other contests the list seats—assuming this is allowed by electoral law. The two linked parties could then co-ordinate their campaign and work together within the legislature, while remaining legally separate entities. The result of this approach, if it is used by all parties, would be to transform MMP into a de facto parallel voting mechanism.

Party Constituency % Party-Vote % Alliance for Freedom, Justice and Welfare PD 602,066 44.06 104,796 7.67 PR — 272,746 19.96 PDR 101,373 7.42 PDK 44,576 3.26 BLD 14,418 1.06 LDLNJ 9,027 0.66 PBKD 7,632 0.56 PBDSH 7,371 0.54 PBK 1,277 0.09 22,896 1.68 Total 603,343 44.15 584,835 42.81

Party Constituency % Party-Vote % Governing coalition PS 538,906 39.44 121,412 8.89 PSD 18,365 1.34 174,103 12.74 PBDNJ 12,171 0.89 56,403 4.13 AD 10,649 0.78 65,093 4.76 PAA 9,988 0.73 89,635 6.56 PDSSH 8,514 0.62 57,998 4.25 Total 603,343 43.80 564,644 41.33

Italy

See also: Scorporo

Symbols of the two liste civette

After the downfall of the First Republic, a new system called scorporo (similar to the additional member system in the UK) was adopted. One of the two main coalitions (the House of Freedoms coalition, which opposed the scorporo system) linked many of their constituency candidates to a decoy list (liste civetta) in the proportional parts, under the name Abolizione Scorporo. This intentionally undermined the compensatory nature of the electoral system. As a defensive move, the other coalition, Olive Tree, felt obliged to do the same, under the name Paese Nuovo. The constituency seats won by each coalition would not reduce the number of proportional seats they received. Between them, the two decoy lists won 360 of the 475 constituency seats, more than half of the total of 630 seats available, despite winning a combined total of less than 0.2% of the national proportional part of the vote. In the case of Forza Italia (part of the House of Freedoms), the tactic was so successful that it did not have enough candidates in the proportional part to receive as many seats as it in fact won, missing out on 12 seats.

Both decoy lists were reused in the 2004 European Parliament election. Greens Greens and Federalist Greens ran with Abolizione Scorporo and the Christian Democracy used Paese Nuovo with both lists having adjusted versions of their 2001 symbols to reflect the actual parties behind them.

Lesotho

Decoy lists have been used in the 2007 Lesotho general election. In this case the two leading parties, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and the All Basotho Convention (ABC) used decoy lists, respectively named the National Independent Party and the Lesotho Workers' Party to avoid the compensatory mechanisms of the otherwise mixed-member proportional system. As a result, the LCD and its decoy were able to take 69.1% of the seats with only 51.8% of the vote. ABC leader Tom Thabane called the vote "free, but not fair." In the 2012 election, the voting system was adjusted to link the local and list seats to limit the decoy lists' effectiveness, reestablishing proportional representation.

South Korea

Ahead of the 2020 South Korean legislative election, the electoral system was changed from parallel voting to a hybrid mixed-member proportional system (AMS), with 30 seats allocated in a compensatory manner. The AMS is more disadvantageous for larger parties like the UFP and Democratic Party (DP) than the prior system, which did not compensate parties for differences between their popular vote percentage and seat percentage, as the two major parties have generally won a larger percentage of seats than their popular vote percentage. The opposition Liberty Korea Party subsequently set up a decoy list, the Future Korea Party, to win extra proportional seats. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) condemned them for exploiting the electoral law, but nonetheless set up its own decoy list, the Platform Party, in response. The small evangelical Christian Liberty Unification Party also attempted to create a decoy list with the Liberty Unification Party. The decoy lists were successful on election day, with Future Korea winning 12 compensatory seats and Platform winning 11. After the election, both "satellite parties" merged into their mother parties.

In the 2024 legislative election, the same electoral system was in use thus two new decoy lists were formed, the Democratic Alliance of Korea for the DPK and the People Future Party for the People Power Party.

• 
  Logo of the UFP
• 
  Logo of the FKP
• 
  Logo of the PPP
• 
  Logo of the PFP
• 
  Logo of the DPK (2020)
• 
  Logo of the PP
• 
  Logo of the DPK (2024)
• 
  Logo of the DAK

United Kingdom

Although a theoretical possibility, decoy lists are not used in Scotland, Wales, or most other places using AMS, where most voters vote for candidates from parties with long-standing names. In the run up to the 2007 Scottish election, the Labour party had considered not fielding list candidates in the Glasgow, West of Scotland, and Central Scotland regions, as their constituency strength in the previous two elections had resulted in no list MSPs; instead they proposed to support a list composed of Co-operative Party candidates. Before this the Co-operative party had chosen not to field candidates of its own but merely to endorse particular Labour candidates. However the Electoral Commission ruled that as membership of the Co-operative party is dependent on membership of the Labour party they could not be considered distinct legal entities.

In contrast, in the 2007 Welsh Assembly election, Forward Wales had its candidates (including sitting leader John Marek) stand as independents, to attempt to gain list seats they would not be entitled to if Forward Wales candidates were elected to constituencies in the given region. However the ruse failed: Marek lost his seat in Wrexham and Forward Wales failed to qualify for any top-up seats.

In the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, former SNP leader, Alex Salmond announced his leadership of the newly formed Alba Party, with the stated aim of winning list seats for pro-independence candidates. At the party's public launch, Salmond quoted polling suggesting the SNP would receive a million votes in the forthcoming election but win no regional seats. He said that having Alba candidates on the regional lists would end the "wasted votes", and the number of independence supporting MSPs could reach 90 or more.

Venezuela

Another interesting case is that of Venezuela, which also ended up changing its system, in this case by formally adopting a parallel voting system and legitimizing party efforts to game the MMP approach. Venezuela introduced an MMP electoral system in 1993, but the tactic of creating a decoy party was introduced only in 2000, by the opposition governor of Yaracuy. The tactic was later adopted by pro-Chavez parties at the national level in 2005. After the decoy list tactic withstood a constitutional challenge, Venezuela eventually formally reverted to a parallel voting system, which yields a lesser degree of proportionality compared to MMP. On September 26, 2010, Chavez' party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, took 57.4% of parliamentary seats with only 48.2% of the vote under the new system (ignoring the role of small allied parties). One can see to what extent parallel voting had nonetheless helped to redress the balance toward proportionality somewhat by noting that Chavez' party would have taken an even larger share of assembly seats under a strict single-winner approach (71 constituency seats out of 109, or 65%).

See also

• Bloc party
• Interventions of political parties in Venezuela

References

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Categories:

• Mixed electoral systems
• Political terminology
• Political science terminology
• Political parties
• Political party alliances
• Types of political parties
• Semi-proportional electoral systems