Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote: a Rank Ordering of Electoral Formulas

Abstract

Seat allocation formulas affect candidates’ incentives to campaign on a personal rather than party reputation. Variables that enhance personal voteseeking include: (1) lack of party leadership control over access to and rank on ballots, (2) degree to which candidates are elected on individual votes independent of co-partisans, and (3) whether voters cast a single intra-party vote instead of multiple votes or a party-level vote. District magnitude has the unusual feature that, as it increases, the value of a personal reputation rises if the electoral formula itself fosters personal vote-seeking, but falls if the electoral formula fosters party reputation-seeking.