Problem med proportionella val i kommuner

Abstract

Problems with Proportional Elections in Local Councils

We discuss two problems that can occur when selecting a committee using proportional elections in a Swedish city council. The main issue is that members of one party could write another party’s name on the ballots but with their own candidates. By current law, the ballots are subsequently counted together (as a coalition) and the party may get more seats in the committee. In fact, this was attempted in elections in Uppsala in 2018, and has since been discussed by the Government commission SOU 2021:16.

The first problem is the possibility of forming such unwanted coalitions and what might be the consequences.

The second problem is that in such an unwanted coalition, one party can strategically split their candidates on different lists in different orders. By current law, this could be used to steal seats from other parties.

For the second problem there is a mathematical solution: the law should instead use Phragmén’s method to distribute the seats; this has also been proposed by the commission SOU 2021:16. For the first problem there is no obvious solution. SOU 2021:16 recommends to keep the present law, but we disagree and suggest one possible way to resolve the problem.