Subject: Re: [EL] [Leg] Earmarks and districts
From: Tom Round
Date: 11/11/2010, 7:29 PM
To: David Jandura <djandura@ifes.org>, Election Law <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>

Thanks for that. However I omitted The Netherlands, because (like South Africa), it has sub-national "nomination districts" even though seat allocation is at large. Because parties still run different lists of candidates in different districts, even though seats are allocated among parties purely on the basis of votes nationwide, we can speak of a Dutch or South African lower house member "representing" (legally as well as politically - I've heard that Israeli lists will have a slot for an MP "representing" the Negev, etc) a particular sub-national region or area, which is relevant in the context of discussing earmarks/ "pork".

At 13:09 12/11/2010, David Jandura wrote:
The Ukraine did away with its nominal tier several years ago and is now PR with one, nationwide district. (Although there are efforts to go back to a mixed system).  Other countries with one district that I know of off the top of my head are Slovakia, Moldova, and the Netherlands.

David Jandura | Research Associate| IFES (International Foundation for Electoral Systems)
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________________________________________
From: election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu [election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Round [tom.round@scu.edu.au]
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2010 9:11 PM
To: Election Law
Subject: Re: [EL] [Leg] Earmarks

At 10:05 11/11/2010, Lowenstein, Daniel wrote:
unlike several European nations like France, we have geographic constituencies

Point of order: France uses, and since 1789 has always used, geographical constituencies for its National Assembly elections, whether single-member districts (1959-85, 1988- present) or multi-member constituencies corresponding to the departments (pre-1958, then 1986-88). Thus, eg, Valery Giscard d'Estaing won back his former seat in a by-election after losing president to Francois Mitterrand, as did former Socialist minister Jack Lang.

The only countries I know that make no division at all of lower house members among particular territorial sub-sections of the whole nation, are Israel and Cambodia. I don't know of any European countries that don't use geographic constituencies. (Russia may have moved into this category but the news reports aren't specific enough to tell.)

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