D’Hondt method

Before I move on to the actual topic, a word of clarification. Last week I pledged to catch up on lousy time at work. Things have shaped up a bit, though some disasters loom ahead, but I believe a distanced look with hindsight would be preferable if what is happening these days is to be saved for posterity. Come hell or high water, the experience will leave me wiser.

Seat allocation in the parliament in the Polish system where d’Hondt method gets mixed with complicated quotas per constituencies is like teenage sex: everybody talks about it, nearly nobody knows how to do it, everyone things everybody else is capable of doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it. In fact very, very few people know secret of formula which translate voting results into seats. I have taken (much) trouble to get to grips with uncanny formulas (which is anything but easy, even though I consider myself rather bright) and then to convert them into an algorithm in a working Excel file which can come up with seat allocation within seconds.

The entire process has taken me some three hours on Thursday evening, but I can proudly boast of results. Please do not ask me to explicate the entire (much simplified) formula in simple words. I consider such challenge barely doable. Actually explaining it is doable, but it is far too complicated to put it into simple words… And to go over it again.

All online calculators I have found produce outcomes with straightforward d’Hondt method and they would prove wrong, since they fail to take into account intricacies arising from allocating seats per smaller and larger constituencies (41 in Poland) and underestimate allocations for groupings receiving larger percentages of votes.

My calculator, after running it on results of parliamentary elections from 2005, 2007, 2011 and 2015 produces deviations up to 2 seats per party which I consider to be a tolerable room for mistake. The guide to use it is more than simple. Into cells B2 – F2 you enter percentage of votes received by specific parties and in row C the sheet spews out the numbers of seats in the parliament (marked green).

The file (sadly, blogger does not allow to share files, but whoever knows my identity might turn to me via unofficial channels to get the file) can be helpful when it comes to decisions on strategic voting.

Among committees which stand a chance to bring their deputies into the lower house of the Polish parliament are:

Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, the odds-on favourite,

Koalicja Obywatelska, the most probable runner-up,

Lewica, committee not registered as a coalition, to lower the entry threshold from 8% to 5%

PSL-Kukiz ’15 committee, as far as I am concerned running as a party. Incidentally, I do not keep my fingers crossed for them, as I do for Lewica, since if they go in, they are bound to be a coalitional partner of PiS (in a scenario PiS somehow does not win simple majority).

The worst possible scenario is constitutional majority of PiS – two-third of seats giving power to amend constitution. In order for this to materialise, PSL and Lewica would have to get below 5% of votes (I do not believe Lewica would not go in, they have too strong electorate to be defeated that badly) and assuming KO would receive 30% support, PiS would need to get 57% of votes. Mark my words, I do not believe this is possible in 2019.

Another threshold is three-fifth of seats, giving power to overthrow president’s veto (if today’s opposition’s candidate won the election). With Lewica and PSL outside the parliament, this could be doable with ca. 44-45% of votes, with Lewica in the parliament, around 47-48%. Such support for PiS is imaginable….

PiS would definitely strive to keep up simple majority. In a scenario Lewica gets ahead and PSL falls off, around 39-43% (depending on allocation of votes between KO and Lewica) would be sufficient to reap 231 seats. In a scenario PSL gets in with bare minimum of 5% of votes, the threshold increases by 1 or 2 percentage points but sensitivity remains small.

PiS, despite several scandals and slip-ups, keeps holding strong which does not bear positive testimony on Poles’ wisdom. Given the reckless economic policies it has pursued over its term, I believe if it is to be ousted from power for long, we have to wait out a while and let them pay the price (though we as citizens will do it) for their short-sighted spending spree.

I still hope for an outcome of support for PiS low enough not to get 231 seats. Needless to say, they would buy off deputies from PSL or Kukiz’15 and thus solve the problem, but the majority would be fragile.

Hope they measure up against effects of economic slowdown in the face of lack of one-off cash injections to the budget. The sad side effect would a misery for ordinary Poles, but maybe this is the price for stupidity we have to pay as a nation.