This question is posted on behalf of Maija Karjalainen, Ministry of Justice, Finland

As stated in the Democracy at the Local Level - International IDEA Handbook, "Many municipal electoral systems feature a ‘ward’ (small district), neighbourhood or sub-municipal system of electoral boundary delimitation. This can be beneficial in terms of ensuring representation, but it can also be problematic when minorities within these sub-municipal boundaries are not fully represented." (International IDEA 2001, 127.)

Finland is in the process of reforming the structure of local government which will most likely result in fewer but bigger municipalities within the next few years. The government is now trying to identify possible ways to strengthen representation and democracy as the decisions become ever more distant from an individual citizen. In order to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of the system of sub-municipal wards I would therefore like to ask the experts the following questions:

1. In addition to Sweden*, do you know any other countries where sub-municipal electoral wards are used?
2. What are the experiences of the system in these countries?
- Specifically, how does the division into sub-municipal boundaries affect the functioning and effectiveness of the decision-making process in the municipal council?
- Does it affect the legitimacy of the political unit (for example after a major merger of municipalities)?
- Does it enable the representation of minorities in the municipal council?

Thank you for your comments.

Maija Karjalainen
Planning Officer
Unit for Democracy, Language Affairs and Fundamental Rights
Ministry of Justice
Finland

*Sub-municipal electoral wards are used in the Swedish local elections. In Sweden, every municipality with more than 24 000 electors must be divided into two or more sub-municipal electoral districts. The experiences of the system are, however, contradictory. Sub-municipal boundaries tend to favour bigger parties and the threshold for a party to get its candidate elected can be as high as 6 percent. Another problem arises from the fact that it is the municipal council - and not for example national legislation - who has the right to decide the number of sub-municipal electoral districts which can serve the interests of the parties with the majority of the seats even more.

Summary of responses
The United Kingdom uses sub-municipal wards – in a majoritarian system. In this context, the
smaller unit of ward increases the likelihood that different parties will hold seats across the municipality. It also facilitates personal contact between the elected member and his or her constituents.

In Portugal, there exist sub-municipal parishes that have an effect on the larger municipalities. The parish committee presidents are also members of the municipal assembly and because the latter must have a majority of directly elected members, the number of parishes can determine the size of the assembly. Furthermore, the participation of these parish presidents can sometimes alter the balance of power in a municipal assembly and due to their strong community ties they can significantly influence municipal-level politics.

Examples of related ACE Articles and Resources
Encyclopaedia:
• Boundary delimitation 

External Resources
• Local Government Boundary Commission for England  

Names of contributors
1. Andrew Ellis
2. Joao Almeida

Division of a municipality into wards is indeed more widespread and I think related to the electoral system used at local level.  For example, the UK uses majoritarian systems at local level: specifically first past the post in single member wards, block vote in multimember wards, or a combination of these; alternatively, first past the post in multimember wards in which there is only a single vacancy at any given annual election time because the terms of office of the members are staggered.  In a majoritarian electoral context, the use of wards makes the existence of seats held by different parties in different parts of the municipality much more likely.  It also makes one on one communication between elected members (or candidates) and electors a more manageable proposition.

In a PR context as in Finland, the introduction of wards would indeed raise the implicit or hidden threshold of representation.  How far it would do this depends on the district magnitude - the number of members elected in each ward. 

Local government ward boundaries in the UK are the responsibility of independent commissions, which exist separately for England, Scotland and Wales.  You can find more about how these work at for example the Local Government Boundary Commission for England's website <www.lgbce.org.uk>.

Up to now (reform is running here) we have, in Portugal, electoral boundary delimitation at sub-municipal level, but there are no true 'wards' - they correspond to another level of local government.

However, elections at this level produce some effect on the municipal bodies’ composition and in the decision-making process.

In addition to the municipal level, we have parishes (secular, instead of its territorial origin lies on religious parishes and, formerly, on roman villas, many of them existing before the founding of the state).

They have an elected house on a proportional basis (that we call ‘assembly’) and a committee (‘junta’ for us) whose chairman (‘president’) is the head of the most voted list. Mostly, they accomplish their duties on a voluntary basis and they manage small works, neighborhood relationships and support to weaker sections of the population.

On the other hand, our municipalities (308 for c. 10 million inhabitants) have similar bodies: the municipal council (the ‘chamber’), with few members (5 in more than 1/3 of the municipalities and other 40% with 7), some of them working in a professional basis, and the house (the ‘assembly’) with the triple of members. At least, because the parishes’ presidents within the municipal area are natural member of the municipal house and it must have a majority of members directly elected by the citizens – if the number of parishes is half or more than the total number of members, the number of direct elected must increase so that they remain one more then the parishes’ presidents (the extreme case is a municipality with 125,000 inhabitants that would have 27 elected members in in its assembly and, as there are 89 parishes, the elected members are 90, so, 179 members as a whole!).

Representation of minorities in the municipal council, directly elected, is week because of the small number of members, but it rises in the house, where 7% (in the smaller municipalities) or less (as they grow) make possible to elect one member.

The participation of the parishes’ presidents sometimes changes the balance of power if there is voting concentration on minority lists in some parishes. If majority of direct elected members in the house is relative, it can be reversed by the parishes’ presidents.

With quite no money (the state funding to the c. 4,300 parishes is 0,01% of the national budget) and very few administrative powers, they have heavy influence on the municipal decision-making process because of their strong proximity to their electors.

Their influence is felt not only in the house, where business plans, budgets and regulations are approved, but also by the mayor itself and other members of the council through the cooperation and preferential contact that they maintain with.