What problem did the plan to redraw electoral districts set out to solve?

Electoral districts can have very different voter numbers in Estonia. The largest electoral district (made up of Harju and Rapla counties) had 151,230 registered voters at the 2023 elections, while the smallest (Lääne-Viru County) had just 46,777.

Currently, we address this problem by giving regions extra mandates or taking them away, as many people have moved to larger centers. Adding or taking away mandates is a way of trying to balance people moving elsewhere to make sure votes have an equal weight. But it is 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 weight, which is a problem since every vote should ideally count for the same.

How big are the differences?

For example, five mandates are distributed in Lääne-Viru County. With a total of roughly 47,000 voters, this comes to 9,400 voters per mandate. Right next to it is Ida-Viru County, which has a little under 64,000 voters but distributes six mandates.

There, over 10,000 voters decide a single mandate. It is a considerable difference. What this means is that voters in Lääne-Viru County are better represented than those in Ida-Viru County.

Now, shifting the borders of electoral districts is being considered to try and end up with an equal number of voters.

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

In places, yes. But another nuance needs to be kept in mind. Tallinn is dominating one way or another, as it has the most people. We need to consider regional differences and that we perhaps need to over-represent smaller areas, even though this should be kept sensible. If we aimed for absolute equality, smaller regions would only have very modest representation in parliament.

Did you succeed in creating model districts of more or less equal size, which would adequately reflect where voters are?

It was a methodological task. We know the number of voters and local governments. One important criterion was that we could not cut up local governments when drawing district borders.

Voters and local governments had to be distributed between electoral districts as evenly as possible to have 101 Riigikogu mandates. Simulations looked at options ranging from six electoral districts to 15. I would point out that Estonia has 12 electoral districts today.

There are billions of combinations. Of those, we chose maximally compact ones, so as not to end up with districts running from North Estonia to South Estonia like long and thin sausages. A large number of electoral district models were generated based on the simulations, from which a manageable selection was provided to the State Electoral Service. This selection can now be discussed and used to decide on the best options moving forward.

The fewer nationwide districts we have, the closer they are to one another. For example, with six districts, we achieved a maximum difference in the number of voters between districts of 300, while this rose to close to 1,000 in the case of 15 districts.

In other words, it is possible to create equal electoral districts and cut up existing ones based on where people live in Estonia?

Yes, it even took us by surprise just how equal they can be. But we do not want to have very different local governments that are far away from one another in the same electoral district. There are examples elsewhere in the world where islands of one district can fall within another. Such options were ruled out. Still, we managed to distribute 79 local governments between different districts quite successfully. Perhaps we even ended up with too many choices.

The State Electoral Service also asked us to simulate 2023 election results based on model districts. The differences were minute, plus-minus a few mandates, which suggests [redrawing electoral districts] would not have a drastic effect on results.

Which political party would benefit from having more electoral districts and which would like fewer of them?

This needs thorough analysis. The argument of who stands to benefit needs to be weighed with all seriousness. But looking at our report here, the Center Party would have ended up with 15 mandates in either case. Some smaller parties would have gained or lost a mandate, while the differences were minute in the broad strokes.

What would be the long-term effects and consequences if we decided to have 15 or six electoral districts?

We know from thorough analyses of electoral systems, both in Estonia and globally, that larger districts usually give small parties a better change of being represented.

Leaving the electoral system unchanged while having just six districts would likely improve the representation of smaller parties, and we would eventually have more parliamentary parties. Whether that is good or bad is up for debate.

The effect would be the opposite in the case of 15 districts. There would be a measure of consolidation, and smaller parties would find it more difficult to make the parliament, as larger parties tend to have an advantage the smaller the district.

How to distribute Tallinn?

Tallinn was looked at separately because of its size. Thirty mandates get distributed there. One option is to go by city district, while they can also be merged or cut up. We did not run an election results simulation for Tallinn.

In the case of Tallinn, changing electoral districts would have a different effect on election results. While there are regional differences in voter preferences in the rest of Estonia, they are especially drastic in the capital. Especially in how the Center Party has the backing of Lasnamäe residents. Differences would be considerable were Lasnamäe merged with or separated from other city districts.

Every person's vote should count for the same in a democratic country. How far can we go factoring in various aspects?

I think the interesting thing will be to see what they'll do with the findings. One thing we didn't factor in were political criteria. For example, if we want to consider socioeconomic differences. Do we want to give South Estonia more prominence compared to wealthier parts of Tallinn? Our models do not consider the wealth, demographics or other such parameters of local governments.

We steered clear because it is a political choice whether regional differences should also be managed through the electoral system. Our calculations are decidedly neutral.

Therefore, how far to go when adding other political factors to these models is a question for the future?

Yes. These are political decisions in terms of whether some other criterion is more important in Estonia. For example, giving voters from South Estonia more say at elections to ensure regional development. We'd know that the region's interests are better represented on Toompea Hill and affect policy. It is an example of political decisions that override the principle that both Harju County and South Estonian voters are equal in the eyes of the law. We need to compromise, and these can only be political decisions.

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

Precisely. That's politics and as such overlooks the fact that all voters are Estonian citizens whose vote should carry more or less the same weight at elections.

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