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Panachage (English: /ˌpænəˈʃɑːʒ/, from French meaning "blend, mixture")^[1] is an open-list proportional representation system. It gives voters more than one vote in the same ballot and allows them to distribute their votes between or among individual candidates from different party lists. Seats are allocated to parties based on party vote share, with the seats of a party going to the most-popular candidate(s) of that party.^[2] It is therefore a mixture of proportional representation at the party level with primary elections at the individual candidate level, which are held by plurality block voting.

The system is used in legislative elections for Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Switzerland; in national elections in Ecuador, El Salvador, and Honduras; and in local elections in a majority of German states, in Czechia, and in French communes with under 1,000 inhabitants.^{[citation needed]}

Fictitious example[edit]

The Central Strelsau constituency in the Ruritanian Assembly of the Republic elects six members. Three lists, containing twenty-two candidates in total, are vying for its seats. There are 6,750 voters, and the voters can each select a maximum of six candidates. Seats are distributed by the D'Hondt method.

Election results

Social Democratic Party (SDP)		National Consolidation		League of Concerned Citizens (LCC)
Candidate	Votes	Candidate	Votes	Candidate	Votes
Alice Brown	1,407	Bob Jones	4,662	Sylvia Ambrosetti	3,901
Matt Wright	3,901	David "D-Dog" Ng	4,195	Sam Miller	4,662
Pranav Kapoor	3,313	Allison Cook	3,901	Pat Malkiewicz	1,214
Judy Bogart	3,113	Tricia Chapman	5,873	Rick Vogelman	2,217
Thomas McLeish	3,213	Nikki Jefferson	1,254	David Higgins	749
Maurice Vuong	2,725	Gene MacDonald	536	Duncan Bradshaw	329
Sean Stephens	1,867	John Smith	2,087
Megan Vargas	5,455	Raymond Sullivan	905
SDP Total	24,994	NC Total	23,413	LCC Total	13,072

Proportional election results

Party	Vote averages			Seats
Social Democratic Party	24,994	12,497	8,331	3
National Consolidation	23,413	11,707	7,804	2
League of Concerned Citizens	13,072	6,536	6,536	1

The list totals mean that, on the basis of proportionality, the Social Democratic Party is entitled to three seats, National Consolidation two, and the League of Concerned Citizens one.

The SDP seats go to their top-3 candidates by number of votes: Megan Vargas, Matt Wright, and Pranav Kapoor. The National Consolidation seats go to the top 2 candidates, Bob Jones and Tricia Chapman. The LCC seat goes to Sam Miller.

By Country[edit]

Argentina[edit]

From 1912 to 1948, and from 1958 and 1962, Argentine voters had the possibility of crossing out or adding candidates to the electoral lists of the legislative elections.^[3]

Austria[edit]

Panachage was used in Austria until the 1970s.^[4]

Belgium[edit]

Until an 1899 reform in favour of an open-list electoral system and the parliamentary elections in 1900, panachage was possible in provincial and parliamentary elections in Belgium. Candidates were placed on lists in alphabetical order of surname.^[5]

Municipal elections were held under the panachage system until passage of the 5 July 1976 Law. This change was adopted before the first elections (October 1976) following the 1976 communes merger, which reduced the number of Belgian communes from 2,359 to 596. Bills were introduced in 1995 and 1999 by senators from the Volksunie to reinstitute panachage, but they were never put to votes.^[6][7]

Ecuador[edit]

In the Ecuadorian parliamentary elections, voters have as many votes as there are seats to be filled. They may use their votes to support candidates across party lines (and they may also give several votes to a single candidate).^[8]

El Salvador[edit]

El Salvador adopted an open list proportional system for the 2012 legislative elections. It introduced panachage for the 2015 elections:

"For the first time, voters will be able to select individual candidates from any party rather than being forced to vote for a single party with an established list of candidates. Voters can still opt to simply choose a party."^[9][10][11]

France[edit]

Since 2014, voters in municipal elections in communes having fewer than 1,000 inhabitants (at the time: 26,879 communes, representing 73.5% of the total) have been able to cast ballot papers indicating their preference for candidates either listed or named individually, and, in addition, cross out if they so wish the names of one or more candidates. (Before that time, the upper population limit for communes qualified for this system of voting had been 3,500.) The number of candidates selected by a voter must not, however, exceed the total number of available seats.^[12]

Until a reform effective 17 May 2013, voters had been able to write in the names of other, unlisted eligible citizens. But now all nominations must be filed in advance with the prefecture or sub-prefecture, and voters may no longer add names on election day.^[13]

Germany[edit]

Of sixteen federal states, two (Bremen and Hamburg, both of which are city-states) have adopted electoral systems including panachage (Panaschieren) for state and municipal elections. Eleven others use the system only for municipal elections. In the states allowing panachage, except for Schleswig-Holstein, the voter may give more than one vote for one or several candidate(s) (Kumulieren). Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland are three states that do not use panachage at all.^[14][15]

Honduras[edit]

Panachage within an open list proportional system has been used since 2005 for legislative elections in Honduras.^[16]

Italy[edit]

The Italian concept of voto disgiunto is not equivalent to the panachage concept as understood in other countries. It means the possibility at regional and municipal elections (in communes over 15,000 inhabitants) to vote for a list or a specific candidate on it (whose name has to be written on the ballot paper by the voter), and for a candidate to the presidency or the mayorship who may be on another list. This system is not used for provincial elections.

Liechtenstein[edit]

For legislative elections in Liechtenstein, there are two constituencies, Oberland and Unterland. The first has 15 seats, the second ten. The voter must use only one ballot paper from one party, and has the right to vote for as many candidates as there are seats to be filled: this may mean either all the candidates on the party list, or some of them and other candidates, added in handwriting under "deleted" candidates. Using highlighters, writing comments on the ballot paper, or putting more than one ballot paper in the ballot envelope voids the vote.^[17]

Luxembourg[edit]

In all proportional elections,^[18] such as those for the Chamber of Deputies, a voter in Luxembourg has as many votes as there are seats to be filled in that constituency. The individual may vote either for candidates on the same list or for candidates on different lists and may allocate up to two votes to a single candidate.^[19]

Switzerland[edit]

In Switzerland, in addition to being able to distribute their votes between different lists, voters may add names to lists, and/or delete one or more of the names appearing on others.^[4]

Criticism[edit]

Because panachage uses block plurality to elect candidates, most criticisms of plurality voting apply to panachage as well:

• It nominates extremists from both wings of a party by the center-squeeze effect, instead of those with broad support across the party.
• It is a winner-take-all system, assigning all seats to the largest faction of a party. While different parties are represented proportionally, a single faction can easily sweep control of all of a party's seats despite winning less than half the vote.
• Because factions are not represented proportionally within the party, but instead tend to have the largest faction sweeping all seats, small factions are incentivized to leave and create their own party. This can lead to substantial fragmentation and many small parties (as in the Dutch parliament).

Panachage is often confusing for voters, who are faced with long lists containing hundreds of obscure candidates. Because of this, the order in which candidates appear on the ballot can have a major effect on which candidates are most likely to win—candidates near the top or bottom of the list (called the lijsttrekker and lijstduwer in Dutch politics) are almost guaranteed a seat, while candidates near the middle receive few (if any) votes. Open list methods with semi-proportional representation remedy many, but not all, of these problems.

More modern open list voting systems, such as proportional approval voting or STAR-PR, do not share these issues. These systems allow voters to support all of a party's candidates equally (straight-ticket voting), and also allocate seats proportionally to different factions within the same party, not just across parties. Biproportional representation selects candidates proportionally while keeping local districts; this allows voters to focus on a small pool of candidates they are more familiar with.

References[edit]