SEAT BONUSES UNDER THE SINGLE NONTRANSFERABLE VOTE SYSTEM - EVIDENCE FROM JAPAN AND TAIWAN

The single nontransferable vote (SNTV) system poses well-recognized problems for large Parties, which have led some scholars to argue that big parties will fare relatively less well under SNTV than under other voting rules. Nonetheless, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan and the Kuomintang of Taiwan have done quite well under SNTV. We investigate this conflict between theoretical reasoning and empirical fact by measuring the parties' frequency of error in handling the electoral problems posed by SNTV from 1958 to 1990 in Japan and 1980 to 1990 in Taiwan and by assessing the factors that counterbalance errors and result in higher seat percentages. We argue that these counterbalancing factors are not peculiar to Japan and Taiwan but are likely to occur wherever the SNTV system is employed for a long enough time.