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In response to alleged citizen distrust of politics and parties, recent reforms have made electoral systems more candidate-centred. Rational choice theory claims that candidate-centred voting should make voting more rewarding while incentivising candidates to increase their campaigning. Behaviouralists point to the higher number of options, which would lead to abstention. This study investigates the reforms in Bremen and Hamburg, where the simple, single-vote, closed-list PR system was replaced with a multiple-vote preferential-list PR system in 2011. Employing a difference-in-differences design, the study reveals a significant decrease in voter turnout of at least ten percentage points in Bremen, Bremerhaven, and Hamburg, compared to the trend in comparable German districts. A cross-level analysis of 79 election surveys fielded since 2000 in all of Germany, comprising 97,849 respondents, highlights that the reforms have widened the participation gap between the lower- and higher-educated Bremen and Hamburg citizens compared to elsewhere in Germany. These findings contribute to research on electoral systems, choice, and voter turnout, emphasising the potential adverse consequences that can emerge from complex electoral system redesigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As scholars explore opportunities for democratic renewal, the potential of ballot structures to improve the quality of representation has been largely neglected. We argue that expressive ballots can improve the congruence of political preferences between voters and their vote choice and, subsequently, decrease parliamentary polarization. Recognizing that voters' political preferences are more complex than a dichotomous party-vote allows, we propose the 'assembly ballot', which allows voters to choose their 'ideal parliament' by distributing 150 parliamentary seats across all participating parties. To assess the consequences of the assembly ballot for ideological congruence and parliamentary composition, we conducted a survey experiment with over 16,000 respondents around the 2017 Dutch parliamentary elections in which respondents cast a vote in a mock-election using the assembly ballot or a closed-list PR ballot. Results show that ideological congruence is, on average, significantly higher for voters voting with the assembly ballot for both the left–right dimension and the cultural dimension, while also producing a more centripetal, less polarized parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]