The districts are much more comparable in size if they are reduced to three. Even if a Northwest-Southeast principle is used, the grouping in Table 10 could be adjusted by swapping Armavir and Kotayk. Doing so would still keep two of the four regions that border Yerevan in each electoral district. However, the reason Kotayk was grouped with Aragatsotn and not Ararat is because it is separated from the region of Ararat by the Khosrov Forest State Reserve, with no highways connecting the two.

8.2. Why Closed List?

Although it could be possible to allow voters to select individual candidates (implement an open list) in their enlarged electoral district, doing so carries many disadvantages. The first is that such a process would still require the voter to mark the ballot, which has been associated with vote bribes and intimidation in Armenia’s recent past. The second disadvantage is that an open list cannot guarantee that a minimum number of women will be elected. The third disadvantage is that it greatly complicates the administration of the election. Allowing individual candidates to mount individual-centered campaigns makes oversight over campaign spending and donations much more difficult, as discussed previously. Restricting parties to only a closed list means less counting and fewer numbers to report from each polling station on election night; only the totals for each party would be needed, rather than those for each party’s several candidates. For political party representatives and independent observers that wish to verify official results, it would have been much easier to report only the totals for the 11 parties that ran in 2018. Instead, they had to record the individual tallies of each candidate at each polling station; Aragatsotn, with 69, had the least open list candidates, while Yerevan’s 2nd district, with 123, had the most.

A closed list would foster greater cooperation between candidates of the same party. As they aren’t competing against each other, individual candidates wouldn’t need to have their own personal scrutineer observing every polling station; one scrutineer from the party would effectively look after the interests of the whole group. This way, they could cover more ground together and raise trust in the final election results as more polls could be observed in-person by people they trust.

Lastly, in general, de-emphasizing individuals in favor of parties should refocus Armenian politics on larger policy approaches rather than personal and business contacts. A closed list should help to institutionalize a healthy, competitive multi-party democratic landscape in the country. Though not, in itself, sufficient for achieving such a goal, it is one tool in the toolkit that can contribute toward moving Armenian politics in that desired direction.

8.3. Aligning Incentives for Regional Representation

While it certainly doesn’t hurt, a representative does not necessarily need to be a woman to represent the interests of women, have a disability to represent the interests of people with disabilities, come from an ethnic minority to represent the interests of ethnic minorities, or live in a specific region to represent the interests of people from that region. It is important not to completely dismiss residents of Yerevan as incapable of addressing the concerns of citizens in smaller cities or rural areas.

Fortunately, the three-district closed list model contributes to legitimizing Yerevan-based candidates as representatives of citizens outside Yerevan. Table 9 showed that a quarter of open list seats for districts outside Yerevan were won by candidates whose address was registered in Yerevan at the time of the campaign. It is possible, though not necessary, that these candidates had roots or connections to the regions they were individually elected in. The important factor is that the citizens of that region were the ones who authorized them to act as their representative.

Under the three-district closed list model, it should not be a requirement for a candidate to necessarily be registered at an address in the electoral district they are running in. The system itself directly links the interests of the representatives with the people of their district; if they want to be re-elected, they should make sure their electorate is satisfied with their work and policy priorities. Otherwise, voters in the district they represent may opt for a different party in the next election and leave them without a seat. At the same time, it also incentivizes political parties to recruit and train cadres from those regions to include on their list of candidates.

It should be acknowledged that, even after moving to a three district model, MPs representing the non-Yerevan districts are still more likely to be anchored in regional capitals and larger cities than more rural areas.

8.4. Flattening the Party Hierarchy

The currently-used district-based open list component is applauded for decentralizing power within political parties, moving them away from institutions completely dominated by one individual. While the proposed three-district closed list model does take away the ability for voters to reward individuals they evaluate as more deserving, it still flattens party hierarchies.

The rank order of the currently-used national closed lists solidifies a very salient pecking order within the organization. If a candidate is ranked 120th, their inclusion on the list is more symbolic than actually offering an opportunity to be elected off the closed list. Although it would be possible for a party to establish internal procedures to give general members a greater say in the rank order of the closed list, in practice, the party leadership will very seldomly give up such an important responsibility with enthusiasm. Even among the top tier, candidates will be very conscious of who is ranked above them and who is below them.

By splitting the closed list into three, the actual ranking number of candidates is closer to the top in their respective district. For example, a candidate ranked 27th in a national list may be ranked 9th in one of the three districts. Psychologically, this dynamic should make them feel that they have a greater stake in the political party and that the effort they put in individually in their local area can contribute more directly to the possibility of them being elected.

Subject to a political party’s internal rules, separate closed lists can also facilitate greater grassroots involvement in the formation of the list. A party leader, who is already ranked 1st in their own district, may be more willing to delegate the responsibility of forming another district’s list to the party members from that area, if he or she feels it will result in a larger overall party caucus in parliament. Note that it is natural for a party’s leading figures to be interested and involved in the candidate nomination process but splitting the closed list into three creates one tool in a larger toolkit for broadening internal decision-making.

8.5. Natural Electoral Threshold and Gender Balance Considerations

One great advantage of districts with 32-36 members each is that they provide an acceptable natural electoral threshold. If a party receives about 3% of the votes in a given district, mathematically they should qualify for one seat there.[22] The approach is particularly friendly to upstart parties, who may not yet have built out a national-level network. Even if they have abysmal results in other districts, having a solid base in at least one could give them a foothold in parliament, establishing a foundation to build on. For example, the Bright Armenia Party eventually expanded nationally through coalition-building but started with a single seat in Vanadzor.

This analysis will not explore in detail what threshold is optimal. A nationwide electoral threshold could still be imposed if policymakers felt it was required. Districts with 32-36 members, however, at least open up the possibility that hard thresholds could be lifted while maintaining a natural threshold in the same general range that Armenian political parties are used to.

One important consideration is the effect of splitting a party’s closed list into three has on gender balance. Current legislation already foresees increasing the gender quota on the closed list to one in three after 2021. Note that gender quotas are inhibited by the remainder at the tail end of a party’s seat allocation. For example, if women are always ranked at the bottom of the triplet (3rd, 6th, 9th, etc.), a party that receives four or five seats (or seven or eight) will have a lower share of women MPs. By splitting the closed list into three, the chances for these remainder amounts increases, depressing women representation if the gender quota is kept the same. To compensate, the gender quota of each list would need to be increased, just to maintain the previously foreseen gender balance.

For the case of three districts, a gender quota of one in two (where each name on the list alternates between a male and a female) would not mean that 50% of a party’s MPs would be women, though that does become a possibility. If a party receives three seats each in the three districts, for a total of nine, a one in two gender quota could yield a caucus of three women and six men, a 33/67 split.

Currently, 31 of Armenia’s 132 MPs (23.5%) are women. A one in two gender quota on each of a party’s three district lists would not necessarily result in parity in the legislature. It would, however, provide the best opportunity to meet the commitment set by the United Nations in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, for women to make up 30% of national legislatures.[23]

Though a parity quota is optimal for proportional gender representation, if a one in three gender quota is kept while transitioning to a three-district model, at the very least, an additional provision should be added so that a female candidate should be placed in the #1 or #2 positions in each district list (rather than consistently being relegated to #3) so that small parties will still have a reasonable ratio of elected MPs.

9. Other Possible Models

There are still other approaches to balancing regional representation that Armenia could consider. Each, however, includes drawbacks that do not make them ideal for the Armenian context.

9.1. FPTP: First-Past-The-Post (Single Member Plurality)

First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) is the common system used to elect members to parliament in the United Kingdom, Canada and much of the United States. The nation is divided into districts, each of which returns one representative to the lower house of the legislature. To be elected, a candidate just needs to get more votes than the others (a plurality) and not necessarily more than 50% of the votes cast (a majority). In some districts in the United States, a second runoff round may be held between the top two candidates if none receive at least 50% in the initial election.

This system severely distorts the proportionality of each party’s final seat count. Implementing it in Armenia would first require a constitutional amendment to remove the clause that requires elections to the National Assembly to be proportional.

It is also vulnerable to gerrymandering, where district borders are drawn so as to almost guarantee that a given party will win the district, based on the voting history of each neighborhood.

It took over 20 years for Armenia to move away from majoritarian single member districts. There would not be a political appetite to reintroduce them, despite their strength in ensuring direct regional representation.

9.2. STV: Single Transferable Vote

Another approach is called Single Transferable Vote (STV), which uses multi-member districts. Whereas the SNTV model Armenia currently uses for its open list component allows each member to choose only one individual candidate, STV allows each voter to indicate their first preference for an individual candidate, but also their second preference, third preference and so on. That way, if their first choice does not have enough votes to be competitive, their vote can be “transferred” to their next preference. It is used in Ireland, Malta, and for elections to Australia’s Senate.

Although the system does do a great job of rewarding the most popular candidates and can be implemented so as to ensure direct regional representation, it greatly compounds the complexity of the vote counting process. The sheer quantity of numbers that each polling station must report and the coordination required between them could delay results for several days. The counting process would take several rounds as the least popular candidates are eliminated in order until the final winners are decided.

Although Armenia could potentially consider moving to STV in the future, at the current time, the administrative burden would simply be too great.

9.3. MMP: Mixed Member Proportional

Another approach to balance proportionality with regional representation is called Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), which is used in Germany and New Zealand. It combines single member districts with a nationwide closed list similar to how Armenia held elections from 1995 to 2012. However, instead of the two components being independent of each other, the closed list is used to compensate for the disproportionality of the district-based results so that the final seat share of each party is in line with their nationwide results.

One major weakness of MMP is that it can be “hacked” by splitting a party into two, with each part focusing on winning either the district seats or the closed list total. Such a strategy could effectively collapse this electoral system into the same Mixed Member Majoritarian (MMM) system that Armenia used prior to 2015. To discourage parties from pursuing such a strategy, both Germany and New Zealand add additional “overhang” seats, increasing the size of the legislature, to offset the disproportionality the party-splitting strategy can cause.

Additionally, MMP systems, by reducing the number of MPs elected off the closed list, are not able to guarantee that a minimum number of women MPs will be elected.

10. Conclusions and Next Steps

The Parliamentary Working Group on Electoral Reform brings together elected MPs from all three parliamentary parties, along with representatives of state agencies and civil society organizations. The Armenian Government (executive branch) has set the end of 2020 as its target date for the preparation of a new draft of the Electoral Code to be introduced.

As shown by Table 12, a three-district closed list electoral system has a number of advantages over the status quo and it introduces them while strengthening regional representation rather than further diluting it, as a national closed list would do.