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The Matrix Vote: Electing an All-Party Coalition Cabinet

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The Matrix Vote: Electing an All-Party Coalition Cabinet The Matrix Vote: Electing an all-party coalition cabinet Peter Emerson 1. A government of national unity (GNU), by a [email protected] parliament, when cabinet appointments are restricted to members of the parliament; Abstract 2. The members of a constitutionally imposed One method of electing the cabi- power-sharing executive by elected legisla- net of a coalition government is the tors, as in Northern Ireland or any other post- conflict zone, assuming again that only the matrix vote, the outcome of which is legislators may serve in the executive; (almost) bound to be proportional to party support, with, potentially, each 3. A majority-coalition cabinet by the parlia- minister serving in that position for mentary parties concerned; which those voting think he/she is 4. A shadow cabinet by a party in opposition; most suited. This article discusses the concept of the matrix vote, 5. The chairs of various committees and sub- describes an experiment that was committees in parliament or local councils, again by all concerned; conducted to see how it might work, and assesses its practical implica- 6. A company board and/or a trades union tions. executive by its members; 7. An executive committee by an association at Keywords: Borda, consensus, matrix its annual general meeting; or vote, power-sharing 8. An executive committee by a political party at its annual conference. 1 Introduction Those elected by the matrix vote would have a common rank as member of the cabinet, The matrix vote is a form of proportional rep- executive or committee, but each would resentation that uses voters’ ranked preferences undertake a different function—the minister of not only to determine a set of winning finance or of foreign affairs in government, for candidates but also to assign them to specified example, or the chair-person or treasurer on an positions. Unlike other forms of proportional executive committee. representation, therefore, the matrix vote ballot If a matrix vote were to be used in the Irish requires that voters report their choices in two Parliament, Dáil Éireann, for the election of a dimensions. In the first dimension, every voter cabinet of 15 ministers (the number in may rank as many candidates as there are government in Oct. 2009), the ballot paper positions; in the second dimension the voter would be as shown in Table 1. Because the matrix vote is a form of proportional specifies his/her choice of a position for each representation, the outcome of such an election ranked candidate. The votes are then used in would probably if not inevitably be a two election counts: the first to determine who proportional, all-party, power-sharing coalition has been elected, the second to assign each cabinet, that is, a government of national unity. successful candidate to a position. The matrix The methodology is particularly appropriate for vote could be used for the election of: post-conflict societies, not least because it 20 I.D. Hill: Party Lists and Preference Voting Table 1. The ballot paper. A valid full ballot would contain the names of 15 different TDs (Members of Parliament), one name in each column and one in each row. Preferences Department of: 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th Taoiseach, or Prime Minister Enterprise, Trade and Employment Finance Health and Children Transport Justice, Equality and Law Reform Foreign Affairs Arts, Sport and Tourism Community, Rural & Gaeltacht Aff. Social and Family Affairs Defence Environment, Heritage, Local Gov, Communications, Energy, Nat. Res. Education and Science Agriculture, Fisheries and Food works without party labels let alone ethno- persons, held in Belfast in 1986 under the religious designations.1 auspices of the New Ireland Group (NIG).2 A description of this voting mechanism was published [5, pp. 59–63] to coincide with The 2 The Matrix Vote—A Short History Other Talks, another NIG cross-party confer- ence on consensus decision-making held in The matrix vote was invented by the author. As October 1991. The de Borda Institute ran a noted above, it consists of two election counts seminar on electing a power-sharing executive of one set of ballots. The first election count by this methodology in Belfast in 1998, to could be based on any of a number of voting coincide with the Peace Process. And most systems for proportional representation, but I recently, an experiment using the matrix vote, a consider the most appropriate to be a version of role-playing experiment for electing a GNU, the ‘quota Borda system’ (QBS) devised by was conducted in Dublin in 2009. Michael Dummett [3, pp. 283–94; 4, pp. 151– The matrix vote has been adopted by both 57]. For the second election count, to appoint the NIG and the Northern Ireland Green Party each of the newly elected to a particular post, I and has often been used for the election of recommend the ‘modified Borda count’ incoming executives at their respective AGMs. (MBC—see Section 3.1 below). The matrix vote was first demonstrated at a 2 cross-community public meeting of over 200 Despite being some eight years before the ceasefire, this ‘experiment in consensus’ attracted over 200 persons, including senior figures from both 11 In Northern Ireland, members of the Assembly Sinn Féin and the UUP, then known as the Official must ‘designate’ themselves as ‘unionist’, ‘nation- (now Ulster) Unionist Party. It was successful and a alist’ or ‘other’, and these designations are used in consensus was found. They concluded: ‘Northern any consociational votes. In Lebanon, certain Ireland to have devolution and power-sharing under governmental appointments are allocated by a Belfast-Dublin-London tripartite agreement’. It confessional beliefs, and in Bosnia, some posts are was, as it were, a mini-Belfast Agreement, twelve shared according to ethno-religious demarcations. years ahead of its time. Voting Matters, Issue 29 21 Peter Emerson: The Matrix Vote In addition, it has been used by Mediation the highest ‘modified Borda counts’, (MBCs). Northern Ireland to help solve an industrial In a Borda Count (BC), where n is the number dispute, and it has also been demonstrated of candidates, points are awarded to (first, abroad, for example in seminars in Bulgaria second … last) preferences according to the and Germany. rule of either (n, n – 1, …, 1) or (n – 1, n – 2, …, 0). In an MBC with the same number n of candidates, points awarded are (m, m – 1, …, 3 The Two Election Counts 1), where m is the number of candidates that the voter has ranked. In those instances where the The matrix vote is used to elect a fixed number voter has cast a full ballot, there is no of individuals, n, each of whom is to undertake difference between the two; where the voter has one of n different functions. In choosing such cast a partial ballot, however, the difference can an executive of n members, each voter in the be considerable.4 The reason I recommend electorate is permitted to nominate, in his/her MBC rather than BC is that MBC generates a order of preference, up to n different very strong incentive for voters to rank as many individuals, and to propose one of n different candidates as there are positions to be filled. posts for each of these nominees. In effect, the st In addition to this difference between BC voter gives a 1 to his/her 1 preference and MBC, there is one other important candidate to be in one particular post, and may nd difference between current rules for the first give a 2 to his/her 2 preference candidate to count of the matrix vote and the QBS rules be in another particular post, and so on. As in proposed by Dummett: Instead of providing st STV, a vote need contain only a 1 preference representation for coalitions that are solidly in order to be valid. committed to candidate sets of all sizes, as Dummett proposes, representation based on 3.1 The First Election Count solid coalitions is provided, in the case of elected bodies of three or four members, only for single candidates and pairs of candidates Dummett’s QBS (quota Borda system), a st st nd gaining one or more quotas of 1 and 1 /2 variation of which is used for the first election preferences respectively, while for elected count, is built on two ideas: bodies of five or more members, representation 1. Representation is given to any sufficiently based on solid coalitions is provided for single large set of voters who are ‘solidly committed’ candidates and pairs and triplets of candidates to a particular set of candidates. The set of with sufficient top preferences (more details voters S is solidly committed to the set of below). candidates C if every voter in S ranks every QBS, which is used for the first election candidate in C ahead of every candidate that is count, proceeds by stages, with each stage after not in C [3, p. 282]. The quota, q, that specifies the first undertaken only if seats are still the size that a coalition must be, in order to unfilled. The limit on consideration of top deserve one representative under QBS is preference in the Dublin experiment was the V/(n + 1), rounded up to an integer, where V is simpler one (as if the executive were of only the number of voters and n is the number of three or four members). Such a count is candidates to be elected [3, p. 284]. The conducted as follows. In stage i) any candidates number of representatives that any solid st coalition deserves is the smaller of a) the receiving a quota of 1 preferences are elected.
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