Some issues in the Brazilian public debate are intertwined with the country's political history. One example is tax reform. Another is the subject we will address here: electoral rules , which have been the subject of analysis and proposed changes since they were chosen in the 1988 Constitution.
This interest is not accidental. Political science explained, 70 years ago, the consequences of electoral rules on voters' choices. An example of these effects can be seen in the apparent similarity, but significant difference, between the presidential system in Brazil and the United States .
Differences in electoral rules
Although Brazil and the United States separate the Executive kuwait mobile database and Legislative branches, the electoral and political processes are considerably different.
A practical example of this influence of electoral rules is the number of political parties, which, in Brazil, is considerably greater than in the United States – two there and nine here, according to the Effective Number of Parties indicator.
This is because the magnitude of the districts is different. Magnitude is a variable that indicates how many parliamentarians are elected in each electoral district.
In Brazil, each state is an electoral district and elects a specific number of federal deputies , with the minimum being eight and the maximum being 70. In the US, states have several small districts that elect one representative each.
The logic is that the more representatives a state elects, the lower the barrier to entry for parties into the legislature and, therefore, the more electorally viable parties tend to exist. In this way, minority groups in society can also be represented institutionally.
Bringing the concept to reality, let us imagine the state of São Paulo. In 2022, 332 thousand votes were needed to elect a federal deputy. If the district magnitude were reduced from the current 70 to 30, 775 thousand votes would be required.
Raising the barrier to entry into Parliament would deprive all segments of the electorate that could not reach this number on their own of political representation. The consequence would be an increase in disproportionality in the Legislature , with some parties having more seats than their corresponding votes and vice versa.
An extreme case of this disproportionality is the United Kingdom. In 1987, the Conservative Party received 42% of the votes, but occupied 61% of the seats in Parliament. In Brazil, in 2022, the Liberal Party (PL) received 17.35% of the valid votes for the Chamber of Deputies and elected 19.2% of the composition of the House. While the Workers' Party (PT) had 12.5% of the votes and occupied 13.2% of the seats.