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Staggered elections

{{Short description|Elections where only a part of the body is elected at a time}}

{{Distinguish|Rolling election}}

{{Elections}}

Staggered elections are elections where only some of the places in an elected body are up for election at the same time. For example, United States senators have a six-year term, but they are not all elected at the same time. Rather, elections are held every two years for one-third of Senate seats.

Staggered elections have the effect of limiting control of a representative body by the body being represented, but can also minimize the impact of cumulative voting.{{Cite web |url=http://www.stroock.com/SiteFiles/Pub341.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2016-08-24 |archive-date=2011-07-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717124912/http://www.stroock.com/SiteFiles/Pub341.pdf |url-status=dead }} Many companies use staggered elections as a tool to prevent takeover attempts. Some legislative bodies (most commonly upper houses) use staggered elections, as do some public bodies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Application in business

A staggered board of directors or classified board is a prominent practice in US corporate law governing the board of directors of a company, corporation, or other organization, in which only a fraction (often one third) of the members of the board of directors is elected each time instead of en masse (where all directors have one-year terms). Each group of directors falls within a specified "class"—e.g., Class I, Class II, etc.—hence the use of the term "classified" board.See Faleye,O., 2007, Classified Boards, Firm value, and Managerial Entrenchment, Journal of Financial Economics83, 501-529. The work of the Shareholder Rights Project has had a significant effect on the number of classified boards on the S&P 500.{{Cite journal|last1=Bebchuk|first1=Lucian A.|last2=Hirst|first2=Scott|last3=Rhee|first3=June|date=2014-02-01|title=Towards the Declassification of S&P 500 Boards|url=https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2400652|language=en|location=Rochester, NY| ssrn=2400652 }}{{rp|159}}

In publicly held companies, staggered boards have the effect of making hostile takeover attempts more difficult; however, they are also associated with lower firm value.{{Cite journal|last1=Hirst|first1=Scott|last2=Bebchuk|first2=Lucian|date=2010-01-01|title=Private Ordering and the Proxy Access Debate|url=https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/338|journal=The Harvard John M. Olin Discussion Paper Series|volume=653}}{{rp|10}} When a board is staggered, hostile bidders must win more than one proxy fight at successive shareholder meetings in order to exercise control of the target firm. Particularly in combination with a poison pill, a staggered board that cannot be dismantled or evaded is one of the most potent takeover defenses available to U.S. companies.See Lucian Bebchuk, John C. Coates IV, and Guhan Subramanian, The Powerful Antitakeover Force of Staggered Boards: Theory, Evidence, and Policy, 54 Stan. L. Rev. 887 (2002).

In corporate cumulative voting systems, staggering has two basic effects: it makes it more difficult for a minority group to get directors elected, as the fewer directorships up for election requires a larger percent of the equity to win; and it makes takeover attempts less likely to succeed as it is harder to vote in a majority of new directors.{{cite book|last1=Hillier|first1=David|last2=Ross|first2=Stephen|last3=Westerfield|first3=Randolph|last4=Jaffe|first4=Jeffrey|last5=Jordan|first5=Bradford|title=Corporate Finance|date=2013|publisher=McGraw-Hill Education|location=Berkshire|isbn=9780077139148|pages=34–35|edition=2nd European}} Staggering may also however serve a more beneficial purpose, that is provide "institutional memory" — continuity in the board of directors — which may be significant for corporations with long-range projects and plans.

Institutional shareholders are increasingly calling for an end to staggered boards of directors—also called "declassifying" the boards. The Wall Street Journal reported in January 2007 that 2006 marked a key switch in the trend toward declassification or annual votes on all directors: more than half (55%) of the S&P 500 companies have declassified boards, compared with 47% in 2005.Jared A. Favole, "Big Firms Increasingly Declassify Boards", The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 10, 2007.

Use in legislative bodies

=National=

class="wikitable"

|+

! rowspan="2" |Chamber

! rowspan="2" |Type

!Classes

! colspan="3" |% of seats up per election

! rowspan="2" |Method of staggering

Total

!1

!2

!3

Argentine Chamber of Deputies

|Lower house

|2

|{{Composition bar|130|257}}

|{{Composition bar|127|257}}

|

|Every constituency has seats in both classes, with roughly half of the seats contested in each class individually

Argentine Senate

|Upper house

|3

|{{Composition bar|24|72}}

|{{Composition bar|24|72}}

|{{Composition bar|24|72}}

|Each constituency has all its seats in one class only

Australian Senate

|Upper house

|2

|{{Composition bar|40|76}}

|{{Composition bar|40|76}}

|

|The six states ordinarily elect half of their 12 senators at each election, while the 4 senators representing the territories are elected at each election

Brazilian Senate

|Upper house

|2

|{{Composition bar|54|81}}

|{{Composition bar|27|81}}

|

|Every constituency has seats in both classes, with two-thirds of the seats contested in class 1 and the remaining one-third in class 2

Senate of Chile

|Upper house

|2

|{{Composition bar|23|43}}

|{{Composition bar|20|43}}

|

|Each constituency has all its seats in one class only

Senate of the Czech Republic

|Upper house

|3

|{{Composition bar|27|81}}

|{{Composition bar|27|81}}

|{{Composition bar|27|81}}

|Each constituency has all its seats in one class only

Senate (France)

|Upper house

|2

|{{Composition bar|174|348}}

|{{Composition bar|174|348}}

|

|Each constituency has all its seats in one class only

Rajya Sabha (India)

|Upper house

|3

|{{Composition bar|77|245}}

|{{Composition bar|78|245}}

|{{Composition bar|78|245}}

|

House of Councillors (Japan)

|Upper house

|2

|{{Composition bar|124|248}}

|{{Composition bar|124|248}}

|

|Every constituency has seats in both classes, with half of the seats contested in each class individually

Senate of Liberia

|Upper house

|2

|{{Composition bar|15|30}}

|{{Composition bar|15|30}}

|

|Every constituency has seats in both classes, with half of the seats contested in each class individually

National Assembly (Nepal)

|Upper house

|3

|{{Composition bar|19|59}}

|{{Composition bar|20|59}}

|{{Composition bar|20|59}}

|Every constituency has seats in all three classes, with roughly a third of the seats contested in each class individually

Senate of Pakistan

|Upper house

|2

|{{Composition bar|52|104}}

|{{Composition bar|52|104}}

|

|Every constituency has seats in both classes, with half of the seats contested in each class individually

Senate of the Philippines

|Upper house

|2

|{{Composition bar|12|24}}

|{{Composition bar|12|24}}

|

|The Senate is elected nationwide at-large, with half of the seats contested in each class individually

United States Senate

|Upper house

|3

|{{Composition bar|33|100}}

|{{Composition bar|33|100}}

|{{Composition bar|34|100}}

|Every constituency has seats in two out of the three classes, with half of the seats contested in each of those classes individually

  • In the Australian Senate, a double dissolution election can happen, where all seats are contested. The 4 Territory seats are contested at each election.
  • Some chambers do not have all of its seats elected, such as in the Rajya Sabha where 12 seats are appointed by the president.
  • By-elections (special elections) can be held concurrently with general elections, increasing the number of seats up in an election.

=State=

==Argentina==

12 of the 24 provincial legislatures have staggered elections:

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}

{{div col end}}

==Australia==

In the federal Senate, half of the Senate's 76 members are eligible for re-election every 3 years. All members elected from states have a six-year term staggered over two election cycles; senators elected from the ACT and the NT have 3 year terms only. These half-Senate elections are usually held in conjunction with an election of all members for the Federal House of Representatives. There are rare instances in which a Federal election is held for the all members of the House of Representatives and all the members of the Senate at once, this is called a double dissolution election.

Three of Australia's five State Legislative Councils use staggered elections:

Local councils in Western Australia also have staggered elections.[https://www.elections.wa.gov.au/elections/local "Local Government Elections"], Western Australian Electoral Commission.

==India==

All six Legislative councils of states have staggered elections:

==United States==

27 of the State Senates in the United States have staggered elections:[https://ballotpedia.org/Length_of_terms_of_state_senators "Length of terms of state senators"], Ballotpedia, Accessed 24 August 2016.

{{div col|colwidth=20em}}

{{div col end}}

=Local=

  • Some local councils in the United Kingdom, although the Electoral Commission in England has recommended that councils standardise on a 4-yearly whole council election cycle.Electoral Commission https://democracy.peterborough.gov.uk/documents/s47107/13a.%20Appendix%20A%20Electoral%20Commission%20The%20cycle%20of%20local%20government%20elections%20in%20England.pdf

Historical usage

=National=

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}

{{div col end}}

=Local=

See also

Notes

{{Reflist|2}}

{{voting systems}}

{{corporate finance and investment banking}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Staggered Elections}}

Category:Corporate law

Category:Elections

Category:Takeover defense