The winning candidate requires an absolute majority of the total vote. If no candidate secures this majority in the first-round ballot, then a second-round run off election must be held three weeks later in which the only contestants are the two front-running candidates in the first round. In 1996 Boris Yeltsin won barely a third of the vote in the first round; in 2000 and 2004 Vladimir Putin won an absolute majority in the first round, and Dmitry Medvedev has done the same in 2008. The ballot option of voting "against all" has been abolished; in 2004 this protest vote was 3.4 percent of the total.

The previous minimum turnout of 50 percent of the registered electorate has also been abolished. In the three previous presidential elections, the turnout has ranged between 69.7 percent in the 1996 first round and 64.3 percent in 2004. In 2008, it was about 68%.

The inauguration day of the new president is 7 May 2008.

Duma election laws provide for both a party list vote and single-seat districts. In both cases, a minimum of 25 percent of the registered voters must participate to make the election valid.

Half of the 450 Duma deputies will be selected through a party list, in which voters will cast their ballots in favor of a party. To get on this portion of the ballot, a political group must have not only registered its complete slate of candidates with the Central Electoral Commission, but also collected 200,000 signatures by October 22. Parties that receive at least five percent of the party list vote in the election will be allocated a portion of the 225 seats. For instance, a party receiving twenty percent of the party list vote will be allocated 45 seats plus twenty percent of those seats remaining from those parties that failed to break the five percent cutoff. It is possible that many parties will fail to break the five-percent cutoff, with those parties that do falling heir to a large number of unallocated seats.

The other half of the State Duma, 225 deputies will be elected in single-seat districts. To get on the ballot, candidates must have collected signatures equal to one percent of the total number of voters in the district by October 22. There will be no run-off elections; the candidate with the most votes is declared the winner. As in the 1993 elections, many candidates for single-seat districts positions are likely to run as independents, although they can elect to formally join a faction after the new legislature convenes.

This means that the political correlation of forces in the lower house will not be immediately clear from the formal announcement of the election results. However, the indicator that matters most, in terms of public perceptions of who won and who lost, is the percentage the party wins in the party list race. Parties that do well here will be seen as the winners of the legislative elections, even though other groups may have done much better in the single-seat districts and can later claim the allegiance of a larger Duma faction.

The Federal President is elected by a majority of the Federal Convention, an assembly of all Bundestag members and an equal number of delegates chosen by the state legislatures according to the principle of proportional representation. Prominent private citizens also participate. The Federal Convention is convened by the president of the Bundestag exclusively for the purpose of electing the Federal President. If no candidate receives a majority in either of the first two ballots, a candidate is chosen on a third ballot by simple majority. Any citizen over the age of 40 eligible to vote may be considered for the office of President. The president is elected for a term of five years and may be re-elected once.

Where there are multi-member districts, each party can put forward as many candidates as there are members to be elected in each constituency. Electors express their preferences between the candidates by numbering 1 to x, with x equaling the total number of candidates. An electoral quota is worked out which represents the lowest number of votes that a candidate needs in order to be elected. This is calculated by dividing the number of votes cast by the number of seats plus one. First preferences are then counted, and candidates who meet the quota are elected. If insufficient candidates meet the quota, the candidate

with the least vote’s drops out and his/her votes are re-allocated according to the voters’ second preferences. If an elected candidate receives votes in excess of quota, these are deemed to be unused and are also redistributed in proportion to voters’ second preferences. If enough members have still not been elected, the process is repeated

until all the seats are filled. The advantages are it ensures that every vote counts to the full, retains a direct link between the elected representatives and their voters and gives them a geographical base, it ensures whoever is elected has majority support, it’s more likely that supporters of a party will have at least one representative in their district to represent their views, the voter can also choose between candidates for the same party, it makes it very difficult to gerrymander electoral districts. The disadvantages are it’s more complicated to understand and to vote and can be very complicated to count, it dilutes the direct link as there will be a large number of voters and maybe a very large area for an elected person to represent, generally it is likely to weight the result more in favor of the largest party and disadvantage small and geographically scattered parties.

Posted by electoralcollegedebate at 8:15 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, 29 June 2008 8:18 PM EDT
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