mandated that elections would be based on closed lists, and that voters would
not have the option of casting preference votes for individual candidates. Second,
high magnitude made it possible to award legislative seats to lists that won relatively
small vote shares overall, thus allowing for a high degree of proportionality.
Third, the nationwide list system is technically agnostic among many competing
conceptions of representation—for example geographical, ethnic, religious—
and simply rewards lists that can mobilize the most voters. However, because
the composition of the assembly is determined as much by the selection of
candidates as by the popular vote, closed lists also open up the possibility of
tipping legislative representation toward categories of candidates who might not
survive in a more individualistic electoral marketplace. SpeciWcally, in the Iraqi
case, gender quotas for candidates mandated that every third candidate must be
a woman.
The January 2005 election in Iraq produced an assembly in which twelve
separate lists won representation, with an eVective number of seat-winning
parties of 3. 14 (Laakso and Taagepera 1979 ), a close correspondence between
votes cast and seats awarded to each list, with a Gallagher Index of less than 3
percent (Gallagher 1991 ) and substantial representation of ethnic groups previ-
ously marginalized in Iraqi politics (Burns and Ives 2005 ). The guaranteed
placement of women at regular intervals on closed lists translated into an
assembly with 29 percent women overall—about twice the worldwide average
(Inter-Parliamentary Union 2005 ). In sum, the Iraqi system made it feasible
to realize many of the normative goals associated with the representation of
diversity at the collective level.
The Afghan experience with establishing a national assembly has been substan-
tially diVerent. An indirectly elected assembly drafted a new Afghan Constitution
that was ratiWed in early 2004 and stipulated the popular election of both a
presidency and a bicameral legislature later that year. The presidential election
was carried oV, on close to the original schedule, in October 2004 , but legislative
elections have been twice postponed in part due to the logistical challenges
of conducting elections that simultaneously honor the determination of the
Afghan government to:
. guarantee an element of regional representation via geographical districts;
. avoid a winner-take-all system of elections in which only the top party or
candidate in a district wins representation;. ensure voter choice over individual legislative candidates; and
. guarantee the representation of women.
The electoral system that has remained at the center of debate in Afghanistanis the single non-transferable vote (SNTV), currently used only in Taiwan,
Jordan, and Vanuatu, and most familiar mainly for its long use in Japanese
elections, from 1958 – 94. SNTV is plurality rule in multimember districts. Each
legislative organization 435