The Maltese single transferable vote experience: a case study of gerrymandering?

Abstract

AbstractRe-drawing the electoral boundaries to provide benefit to one particular political party and thereby damaging the principle of representation in democracy has been a core issue in political science in the recent years. For years social scientists have been advocating the idea of measuring or preventing the potential for damage that may arise from the existence of the above-mentioned redistricting process. Following this discussion, we investigate the possible gerrymandering phenomenon that might have arisen, or whether there are any asymmetries or partisan biases due to boundary delimitation of the electoral constituencies in the case of the Maltese general elections. From the evidence of various statistical tests and simulations, our conclusion is that we find no evidence of gerrymandering in the 2013 and 2017 Maltese general elections.