Electoral Systems that Promote Candidate Diversity: Parity, Quota, and Gender Pairing

Abstract

Proportional representation is an electoral system that promotes candidate diversity. As seats are allocated according to the number of votes received in this system, it is compatible with parity and quota systems. Although there are various ways of allocating seats in proportional representation systems, these systems are designed to reflect the percentage of votes received as accurately as possible in the percentage of seats. Traditionally, due to the quantitative dominance of men, plurality systems such as FPTP have not been considered to promote diversity, let alone be an obstacle to it. However, the introduction of a gender-pairing system for the 2015 French departmental elections showed that full gender parity can be achieved in a plurality system. In this study, we present a case study of the “binôme” gender-pairing system and contribute to the discussion on electoral systems that promote diversity.