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availability of data in the context in question. For example the voting eligible population has much to recommend it as a method of calculating voter turnout but the non-availability of data concerning the number of non-eligible citizens makes it unreliable to use.
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the winner of the election to have at least 50 percent plus one vote (Bormann and Golder, 2013: 361; Norris, 1997: 302). The plurality system can be used in the single-member district (SMD) and in the multi-member district (MMD) as well. The plurality system has some variants like the limited vote, cumulative vote, the party block vote, block vote and the single non-transferrable vote (SNTV) design to curb its bias towards major parties and to enhance minority representation (Blais and Massicotte, 1999: 43; IDEA, 2005:35). Variants such as the alternative vote (AV) and the two-round system (TRS) have been invented for the absolute majority system (Norris, 1997; Farrell, 1997).
The limited vote (LV) is candidate-centred and used usually in multi-member districts in which voters are able to cast more than one vote, but fewer votes than there are district seats.
Under the SNTV, voters are required to cast their vote for a single candidate in a multimember district (Bormann and Golder, 2013: 361). The block vote (BV) is also a candidate-centred system used in multi-member districts in which voters cast a number of votes equal to the number of district seats. In each of these systems, the candidates who get the highest number of votes win. The party block vote (PBV) is used in multi-member districts in which voters cast a single party-centred vote; the party with the most votes wins all of the district seats. Norris (1997: 299) classifies these variants of the plurality system under a semi-proportional system since they are designed to achieve proportionality in representation.
2.4.2 The Proportional Representation system
The PR system is one of most popular electoral systems in the world. PR can only be used multi-member districts where parties contest for several seats in an electoral district. There are two types of PR: the list system and the single transferable vote (STV) (Blais and Massicotte, 1999: 44). The party list can be open which case voters choose the candidate of their preference or they can be closed where voters are only able to endorse a party list without influencing the position of individual (Norris, 1997: 303). The closed list is used in South Africa’s national elections and local elections. Moreover, party lists can be national, where the entire nation is a single electoral district or regional, with different regions being divided into electoral districts. The party list system uses quotas or divisors with remainders to allocate seats in parliament. A quota sometimes known as the electoral threshold is the minimum number of votes which parties have to get in order to secure at least one seat in parliament (Bormann and Golder, 2013: 363). The system uses five different quotas which include Hare, Hagenbach-Bischoff, Imperiali, Reinforced imperiali and Droop quotas
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(Lipjhart, 1994; Farrell, 1997; Bormann and Golder, 2013; IDEA, 2005). Each of these quotas work in different ways that allow for the allocation of seats to the parties to be determined. Remainder seats17 are decided using the largest remainder, highest average or the modified highest average system.
Blais and Massicotte (1999:45) argue that five major factors: district magnitude, electoral threshold, formula preferences for candidates and tiers play an important role in the choice of the PR list system and explain the variations of the system in different countries. The STV system does not use a party-list. It is a single-candidate preferential voting system where voters rank order the candidates. The candidates are required to obtain a particular quota in order to win a seat (Bormann and Golders, 2013: 365). As such, the PR system is chiefly designed to match the proportionality of the votes a party gets and its share of seats in parliament. It is also earmarked to improve the chances of smaller parties getting a seat in parliament and thus promoting inclusiveness (Blais and Massicotte, 1999; Norris, 1997;
Weaver, 2002).
2.4.3 The Mixed system
Mixed systems or intermediate systems as Weaver (2002: 114) refers to them are generally hybrids of different electoral systems used in one election and have been used as alternatives to purely majoritarian and PR systems. Weaver (2002) points out that those systems like the Alternative Vote (AV) and STV can be classified as mixed systems. Blais and Massicotte (1999:54) define a mixed system as a system where different electoral formulas are used simultaneously in a single election. Lindberg (2005:45) and Bormann and Golder (2013: 363) define it as an electoral system in which both voting procedures and seat allocation are in part proportional and in part majoritarian. Mixed systems can be independent or dependent.18 The independent mixed systems are characterised by different methods of mixing PR and majoritarian systems which Blais and Massicotte (1999:54) identified as co-existence, superposition and fusion.
Coexistence is where some electoral districts use a PR system while others use a majoritarian formula. Superposition is one in which PR and majoritarian systems are applied in different
17 These are the seats that are left unallocated after the parties seats have been calculated from the number of votes they got. The parties are then ordered according to the size of the remainder of their votes and the party with the largest remainder gets the seat.
18 According to Bormann and Golder (2013) refer to an independent mixed system as a mixed parallel system in which the majoritarian and proportional components of the electoral system are implemented independent of one another. A dependent system on the other hand is one in which the application of the proportional formula is dependent on the distribution of seats or votes produced by the majoritarian formula.
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electoral tiers. It is used in countries like Russia, Japan, Ukraine, Guinea, Croatia and Mexico (Herron and Nishikawa, 2001: 66). A fusion occurs where majoritarian and proportional formulas are both used within a single electoral district (Bormann and Golder, 2013: 363).
Dependent systems are distinguished into correction and conditional systems. The former describes a situation in which seats distributed by PR are used to correct distortions that emerge in the vote-seat share as a result of the majoritarian system. The conditional mixed system is one in which a particular effect of one formula necessitates the use of the other.
That is, a particular result of the majoritarian formula makes it necessary to adopt the PR formula.