Analysis: Redrawing constituency boundaries would not give any party an advantage | News

What problem was the plan to redraw the constituencies intended to solve?

Constituencies in Estonia can have very different numbers of voters. The largest constituency (consisting of Harju and Rapla counties) had 151,230 registered voters in the 2023 election, while the smallest (Lääne-Viru county) had only 46,777.

Currently, we address this problem by giving regions additional mandates or taking them away, because many people have moved to larger centers. Adding or taking away mandates is a way to try to balance out the people who move somewhere else to make sure that votes are equally weighted. But it’s not enough to end up with equal districts.

The result is a situation where the votes of voters from different districts can have very different weights. This is a problem, because ideally every vote should have the same weight.

How big are the differences?

For example, in Lääne-Viru County, five seats are being distributed. With a total of approximately 47,000 voters, this amounts to 9,400 voters per seat. Right next door is Ida-Viru County, which has just under 64,000 voters, but distributes six seats.

There, more than 10,000 voters decide on one mandate. That is a significant difference. This means that voters in Lääne-Viru County are better represented than those in Ida-Viru County.

Consideration is currently being given to shifting the constituency boundaries to ensure an equal number of voters.

Does this mean that voters in Harju and Rapla districts are the worst represented in parliament?

In some places, yes. But there is another nuance to keep in mind. Tallinn somehow dominates, because it has the most inhabitants. We have to take into account regional differences and that we may have to overrepresent smaller areas, although this must remain sensible. If we were to strive for absolute equality, smaller regions would have only a very modest representation in parliament.

Have you been able to create model districts that are approximately the same size and that accurately reflect where voters live?

It was a methodological task. We know the number of voters and local governments. An important criterion was that we could not split local governments when drawing district boundaries.

Voters and local governments had to be distributed as evenly as possible across constituencies to have 101 Riigikogu mandates. Simulations looked at options ranging from six constituencies to 15. I would like to emphasize that Estonia today has 12 constituencies.

There are billions of combinations. From these, we have chosen the most compact ones, so as not to end up with districts that run from Northern Estonia to Southern Estonia like long, thin sausages. Based on the simulations, a large number of constituency models have been generated, from which a manageable selection has been provided to the State Election Service. This selection can now be discussed and used to decide on the best options for the future.

The fewer rural districts we have, the closer they are to each other. For example, with six districts we reached a maximum difference in the number of voters between districts of 300, while in the case of 15 districts this rose to almost 1,000.

In other words, is it possible to create equal constituencies and split existing constituencies based on where people live in Estonia?

Yes, we were even surprised at how similar they can be. But we don’t want very different local governments that are far apart in the same constituency. There are examples elsewhere in the world where islands of one district can fall into another. Such options were ruled out. Yet we managed to divide 79 local governments quite successfully across different districts. Perhaps we even ended up with too many choices.

The State Electoral Service also asked us to simulate the 2023 election results based on model districts. The differences were minimal, plus-minus a few mandates, which suggests that (redrawing districts) would not have a drastic effect on the results.

Which political party would benefit from more constituencies and which would prefer fewer?

This requires a thorough analysis. The argument of who benefits must be weighed with all seriousness. But if we look at our report here, the Centre Party would have ended up with 15 mandates in both cases. Some smaller parties would have won or lost a mandate, while the differences were small in general.

What would be the long-term consequences if we opted for 15 or 6 constituencies?

We know from in-depth analyses of electoral systems, both in Estonia and worldwide, that larger districts generally offer smaller parties a greater chance of representation.

Leaving the electoral system unchanged with only six districts would probably improve the representation of smaller parties and ultimately we would have more parliamentary parties. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of debate.

The effect would be the opposite in the case of 15 districts. There would be a degree of consolidation, and smaller parties would find it harder to get into parliament, since larger parties tend to have an advantage the smaller the district.

How is Tallinn distributed?

Tallinn was considered separately because of its size. Thirty mandates are distributed there. One option is to go by city district, while they can also be merged or split. We did not run a simulation of the election results for Tallinn.

In the case of Tallinn, changing constituencies would have a different effect on the election results. While there are regional differences in voter preferences in the rest of Estonia, they are particularly drastic in the capital. Especially in the way the Centre Party has the support of residents of Lasnamäe. The differences would be significant if Lasnamäe were to merge with or be separated from other city districts.

Everyone’s vote should count equally in a democratic country. How far can we go in taking into account different aspects?

I think it will be interesting to see what they do with the findings. One thing we didn’t include is political criteria. For example, if we want to consider socio-economic differences, do we want to give more prominence to Southern Estonia compared to wealthier parts of Tallinn? Our models don’t take into account wealth, demography or other parameters of local governments.

We have avoided it because it is a political choice whether regional differences should also be managed through the electoral system. Our calculations are definitely neutral.

So how far we should go in adding other political factors to these models is a question for the future?

Yes. These are political decisions in terms of whether another criterion is more important in Estonia. For example, giving voters from South Estonia more say in elections to ensure regional development. We would know that the interests of the region are better represented on Toompea Hill and that this influences policy. It is an example of political decisions that go beyond the principle that both voters from Harju County and voters from South Estonia are equal in the eyes of the law. We have to make compromises and these can only be political decisions.

This also applies to Ida-Viru County and Russian-speaking districts in Tallinn. Most parties in Estonia want to have as little say as possible.

Exactly. That is politics and ignores the fact that all voters are Estonian citizens, whose vote should carry more or less equal weight in elections.

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