Electoral systems and will of the people - 2

( Beginning in the TRV-HOW No. 205 dated May 31, 2016)

In the first part of this article, I tried to briefly discuss the problems of representative democracy, arising from the difficulties of determining the very concept of representation and the extent to which it can be used to express the “will of the people”; In this regard, he spoke about the model of the so -called fluid, or cloud, democracy (implemented so far only in low -scale experiments); He also mentioned his own project of direct deliberative democracy, designed to remove the contrast of a direct and representative model by spreading a strict parliamentary procedure (specificly changed and computerized) for discussion on a nationwide scale; And he completed all these reasoning in the spirit of the famous phrase, once uttered by Churchill: democracy is a bad control system, but have not yet come up with the best (it put it a little differently and had in mind the representative democracy of the British, the so-called Westminster type). Today we can correct: we came up with, but have not yet tested; Western democracies almost completely remain within the framework of the representative model. Therefore, the comparison of various electoral systems and various voting methods remains a completely relevant topic - to which we are now moving.

There are quite a lot of such systems, and not only in theory. What caused this variety? Let's start with a reminder of the radical difference, even contrast, legislative power and executive authorities: legislators are elected, performers are appointed. Actually, someone in the executive branch could also be elected, and not appointed-and so this is sometimes done; In particular, the popularly elected president in most countries is considered the head of the executive branch, and not a super -reservoir standing over both structures. But officials with “performing” functions in specific areas of activity should still be specialists in these areas; Even in ancient Athens, with complete and uncompromising democracy, all positions were engaged in lots, except for strategists (that is, military leaders) and city musicians for processions and celebrations that were assigned in accordance with their professional skills: it is impossible to become a good flutist only because the lots fell on you.

Legislators should be elected, and this, in particular, means that they do not need to (and indeed) to be specialists in something-except for the art of conducting discussion, formulating and upholding a certain position, the ability to understand the position of other people, and then find a compromise that is sufficiently appropriate to protected values. We can say that our deputy is advisable to be a lawyer. Well, so it was in the French convention: most representatives of the “third estate” were lawyers and notaries ... not only an eminent artist or an outstanding athlete, but also a “noble miner”, and even a “strong business executive”-none of them have any reason to represent anyone in the legislative body; And not because it has a different system of values ​​than its voters, but simply because it will not be able to qualify them to defend them. All this phraseology, praising the “strong businessaries”, “stability”, “the ability to work effectively” (the second, third, etc.) is nothing more than a conscious and focused deception with the aim of maintaining power, a deception stretching from the Soviet era and calculated on people completely uneducated and not prepared for democracy ...

So, our representatives elected by us must be able to protect our values ​​and interests when discussing legislative proposals with representatives of other interests and values. Two questions at once: who is this “we”, what kind of group of people are this? And how can “we” choose the best candidate among the several (parties, trade unions, other organizations or self -nominates)?

More recently, both of these questions had a simple answer: “we” are residents of some “constituency”, which is a certain territory or even a historical region, with the values, traditions, economic interests and cultural and social preferences; We know the candidates offered to us, at least from afar - they are not “lowered” to us from above by the central bureaus of different parties; Thus, “our choice” becomes clear and tangible. We get a purely majority Westminster electoral system with relatively small single -mandate voting districts. At the same time, if the elections are held on one tour (as, in particular, in the UK and in the USA), then the winner is enough to gain a simple majority of votes, which, for a large number of candidates, can be, for example, only 10% of the total number of voters, so that the deputy elected according to this system can hardly be called the representative of the majority. Meanwhile, another candidate who gained fewer votes than this one, with a second vote (that is, in the second round), would probably have received much greater support.

In this consideration, voting systems in two rounds are based; In the most common of them, applied, for example, in the parliamentary and presidential elections in France (as well as in the presidential election in Russia), exactly two candidates are allowed for the second round, who took first and second place in the first round. The general idea is this: in the first round you can vote for a candidate whom you consider the best (“sincere” voting); In the second round, if your candidate has not passed, you choose “smaller of two evils” (“strategic” or “tactical” vote). Since there are only two candidates in the second round, the winner is not gaining relative, but an absolute majority of votes.

The principle seems to be reasonable enough, although it has significant disadvantages. On the one hand, the second round requires additional financing and additional efforts from both candidates and voters, many of whom either do not come to vote in the second round, or, counting on it, do not come to the first; In both cases, the results can be very different from those that would be with active and sincere voting.

In addition, the results of the second round can quite distort the real preferences of the majority. Let us consider for example a certain electoral district, in which 55% of voters adhere, relatively speaking, left -wing views, and only 45% of the right in this district. Suppose two right -wing candidates (A and B) were gained, respectively, 24% and 21% of the vote, and three left (B, G and D) - 20, 18 and 17%, respectively. Both right will be held in the second round, and one of them will win - which does not correspond to the real layout of preferences.

This real alignment is best expressed by the so -called rating vote, when each voter is proposed, instead of choosing exactly one candidate, to numbness them in accordance with his preferences. In our schematic example, the right, most likely, will be put on the first two places of two right -wing candidates (one in one, others in another order), and the left will be put on the first three places, in one or another order, three left candidates. The preferences are sincere and accurately, now the matter is the algorithm for aggregation of votes; There are several such algorithms that give fairly reasonable results. The rating vote is used in the parliamentary elections in Australia, and in India - both in parliamentary and on presidential. Returning to the principle of a territorial single-mandate representation, it should be noted that today there are fewer grounds for its systematic application: the territorially determined interests are weakening, replaced by the interests of professional, cultural, social, ethno-confessional groups that do not have a clearly defined territorial binding. There are grounds for a proportional representation, when the whole country chooses between several lists, and places in parliament are divided between these lists in the proportions of the votes they had. These lists of candidates are usually compiled by political parties, and in the first places party functionaries, a kind of officials are placed in the first places, but not state, but party, as an incentive for faithful service to their party structure. Often, these are people completely unknown to the “wide voter” and did not prove their oratorical-advocat abilities, nor their commitment to the values ​​proclaimed in the party program (loyalty to the system is not the same as loyalty to values). In addition, this, as a rule, is capital's people, and the province, thus, is deprived of its “personal” representation. In its pure form, such a party-proportional system is reasonable to use only in small countries; It is used, for example, in Israel.

In large countries, in particular, having a federal device, a proportional system is used at the level of multi -mandate districts corresponding to the federal division of the country. One of the most worked out such systems is implemented in Germany, where (unlike Russia) in the electoral lists of parties there is no “general federal part” at all, that is, these are simply separate lists for various federal lands. In general, the German Bundestag is formed according to a mixed system: about half of the deputies are elected in single -mandate districts, the other half - in multi -member. Such a mixed system of representative office smooths out the contradictions between the territorial-majority and party-proportional representation, since each voter has two votes: for the candidate from his territorial district preferred by him and for the party list he preferred from his land.

According to the German proportional system (unlike the Russian) place in the Bundestag, they are distributed in the most accurate accordance with the percentage of the votes filed for their party lists, with the unconditional passage of all “single -mandate”, the number of which is deducted from among the deputies, which the party would receive according to the party list if no one -mandate has passed; In other words, if some party gained, for example, 10% of the votes, which corresponds to about 60 deputy places, and 40 mandates have passed from this party, then only 60-40 = 20. (according to the current Russian system, this party would have in the Duma-let's say, 600 deputies expanded to a total of 60 + 40 = 100 places. It is precisely the well-known one that is well-known. The Party of Power received a super -high majority in the last Duma).

But what if this German party, which scored 10% of the vote in its list, will gain more than 60 seats in single -mandate districts, for example 65? In this case, all 65 will pass, not a single one will pass from the party list, and other parties will receive additional places in the Bundestag in order to observe the ratio of votes filed for their party lists. The Bundestag, thus, can get more deputies in one convocation than it was in the previous one. But the proportionality of the representative office is preserved to the maximum extent.

The system of French regional elections with which we started the first part of this article is a rather interesting recently developed version of a proportional system of two rounds. In the second round, each list is held, which gained at least 10%of the vote, and lists that have scored less than 10%, but more than 5%, can unite with passing ones. Thus, in the second round there may be three lists, and more. It was this circumstance that made it possible for the left -shentricial and right -centric lists in most regions to cooperate in order to defeat the extreme right to the “strategic” vote. Another feature of this new French regional system is a kind of bonus of 25% of places that receives a party list that has gained the majority. This is done to facilitate the winning list to form the absolute majority, gaining only relative. It seems to be a very undemocratic principle; But at the level of regional meetings, where not bills, but practical decisions are discussed (for example, on the formation and execution of the regional budget), central French lawmakers preferred the effectiveness of fair representative office. The near future will show if this was a mistake.

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Our Russian system of the formation of the Federal Duma is mainly follows the German model, with many reservations, some of which are indicated above. Formally, it is defined as a mixed system with a half places from single -mandate districts and half from multi -mandate; However, at some point, the gentlemen at the very top seemed more convenient and safer to abandon the territorial single-mandate representation; And then they decided that now it could be returned ...

I have already formulated the main “reservation” at the end of the first part of this article: our Russian pseudo -democracy is, in fact, by imitation, this is the kind of Potemkin village. The current Russian management system can only be called “representative” with a big stretch. The electoral system is actually determined, formed and controlled by the administrative apparatus of the state; The nomination of candidates, the process of voting and counting the votes, and the further activities of the “elected” deputies in this way - all this is under the full control of the so -called presidential administration. I will not give specific evidence examples here, neither well-known, nor anyone privately reported to me, because it is enough to pay attention to one simple fact: the colossal financial capabilities of managing the President (UDP) in comparison with the very modest capabilities of similar managers at the Duma or under the Council of the Federation (or at regional legislative assemblies). The first is a whole financial empire with huge volumes of land, real estate and other assets, including foreign ones, bringing unnecessary and not controlled income taken into account (the Accounts Chamber is not able to put their restless nose there); The second is a very limited budget to carry out the current activities of the corresponding supposedly representative body. With these no one inquired income, the UDP has the opportunity to directly influence the results of the Duma discussions, selectively distributing various benefits between deputies, depending on their “obedience”. I have no specific evidence, but this principle itself is unlikely to challenge anyone: the black box office is always a source of corruption; In this case, corruption of the selected representative body with the current administrative system. Who pays - he orders music ...

Due to the foregoing advantage of a particular electoral system, in relation to Russia, one can still discuss only in a purely academic aspect and in a subjunctive mood: which electoral system could be better approached in the Russian context, which differs in a certain social composition, the presence or absence of certain social traditions, which are inherited and not yet obsolete qualities, the “Soviet man”, or the “Soviet man”, or the “Soviet man”. The “fortress slave”, or in general, the “Ordynsky vassal” crawling to the khan on the belly for the coveted label to reign, if ... as a preliminary condition both among the people and among those who “control” them, there will be a belief that the legitimacy of decisions is more important than their effectiveness (even if this effectiveness is real, and not just proclaimed without sufficient grounds). It was not by chance that I started with a brief presentation of the vicissitudes of the last French elections, because these very Frenchmen, at least, may not quite, but suffered sufficiently towards the fulfillment of the specified preliminary condition.

And finally, about the Soviet, serfdom and Ordynsky “heritage” supposedly crushing us. A whole watga of historians, sociologists and political scientists, serious and not very who is vying, is dancing and dancing on this field that the Russian person is like that, he loves a strong hand that would often beat him and only sometimes stroked, etc. I personally are deeply disgusting to me. The source of my optimism is in those periods or moments of our history of the last one and a half centuries, when it seems that it seems to be hopelessly clogged and dulled by the “suddenly” showed unprecedented civil activity, the ability to agree, and to jointly and peacefully demand something, and to solve issues of local scale ... I mean, first of all, the zemstvo and jury courts in the period after the great reforms of Alexander Second, but also electoral active activity во время подготовки Учредительного собрания, и политическую активность конца перестроечного времени… Возражение — так ведь ничего же не удалось! — не относится собственно к народу; это упрек, который я бы адресовал скорее к интеллигенции, легковерно и, по сути, нечестно склоняющейся к поддержке «большевиков» разных мастей, когда коммунистической («Вот уничтожим богатых и тогда заживем хорошо»), когда либеральной («Вот создадим поскорее богатых и тогда заживем хорошо»). Когда власть обманывает (а она всегда готова обманывать, пока не схватили за руку), а интеллигенция готова обмануться, поверить, подождать, дать начальству время, — пока это так, народ безмолвствует. А что ему еще остается делать? Не за топоры же браться…