Electoral systems provide the rules of translating votes into seats and
thus decide who wins and loses in elections. Few would doubt the critical
roles that electoral systems play in politics. Yet current literature is
curiously silent about how ordinary citizens perceive and understand
the electoral system, especially during the transition period when the
system is undergoing fundamental changes. The experiences of electoral
reform in Taiwan provide an opportune case to fill up this gap.
Taiwan transformed its legislative electoral system from a half-century
long SNTV (single non-transferable vote) system to a MMM
(mixed-member majoritarian) electoral system in 2008. The new MMM
system is a sharp departure from the original SNTV system in the total
number of legislative seats, the district magnitude, electoral formula,
and ballot structure. This essay intends to introduce the new MMM system
and explore citizens’ awareness of the new MMM system in general.
Also, it explores the changes of citizens’ knowledge of the new electoral
system before and after the 2008 legislative election. Given the significant
differences between the SNTV system and the MMM system, it
firstly tests of citizens’ overall knowledge of the new MMM system.
Then, with the help of survey data, it examines the changes of citizens’
knowledge in election periods and non-election periods. The findings
show a majority of citizens are not fully aware of the institutional components
of the new MMM system. In particular, the threshold regulation
receives the least attention by citizens. Furthermore, it finds that citizens’
knowledge of the new MMM system is a function of electoral momentum,
i.e., citizens’ knowledge rises as the election date approaches
and declines after the election date. Then we proceed with a more detailed
cohort analyses to examine which groups of citizens are more
likely to pick up information related to the electoral system changes.
Our findings partially support our electoral cycle hypothesis of electoral
system knowledge.
