Hungarian electoral calculus
As if the EU hasn't got enough problems to worry about at the moment, the Fidesz government in Hungary is busy removing checks on its rule . It can do this because it achieved a two-thirds majority in parliament in the last election , which allows it to modify the constitution. Hungary's electoral system is, to put it mildly, complex.There is a mixture of first-past-the-post seats and two types of PR, one of region list seats and another of "compensation seats" for runners-up in the first-past-the-post seats. Not to mention the two rounds of voting with three-candidate runoffs in the second round. But have you ever wondered how such a bonkers system came in to being? Of course you have! Who hasn't? Certainly not Kenneth Benoit and John W. Schiemann, who wrote a paper about it: Bargaining Over Hungary's 1989 Electoral Law (PDF). In summary, the major opposition parties sat round a table and hammered out a compromise between their favoured systems, whic