Double-Simultaneous Vote

While doing research for a comparative politics class, ive become aware of a somewhat unique system of voting with different institutions and voting rules than we went over in class (lies somewhat outside simple majority/plurality/maj+runoff/alternative vote/single transferable vote borda count). Throughout much of its history Uruguay used a system known by ley de lemas. This was a system of double or multiple simultaneous votes (doble voto simultaneo). A person would choose a lema (a party) and a sub lema (essentially a faction of the party) or in some instances specific interest groups w/in the sub lemas. A person would vote for their sub lema of choice which would have a representative for office, lets say president. The votes for each sub lemas would be tabulated up for the party, and the party with most votes won, then they would look at which sub-lema got the most votes within the party to see who is the president. Essentially it is a primary and an election at once. (At times, there would be a list of representatives for parliment as well...that are included in the same way, making it a triple-simultaneous vote). This sounds somewhat confusing, and there is a somewhat simplified explanation here: http://www.country-studies.com/uruguay/the-electoral-process.html . In 1996 this system was drastically reformed. There is a complex and long list of political reasons; there was a significant shift away from a 2 party system, it encouraged factionalism, they were making changes to prevent the democratic collapse in the 80s, and many others that you can read about in depth here: http://www.diba.es/icps/working_papers/docs/WP_I_191.pdf But perhaps we can just analyze it using some of the ideas for class. If it shows major problems here, we can see the ECON333 reasons it needed to be reformed. Ordering Information? not really...you only cast a vote for your sub lema (a bit of ordering, for the other candidates in your lemas of your lema are helped by your vote and sort of ranked over the other lemas) Condorsat Efficiency? Definitely not. say there are 2 lemas (1,2) , and 2 sub lemas per party(1a 1b, 2a, 2b). If lema 1 has 51 percent of the vote, and 1a has 51 percent of the lemas votes. so candidate 1a gets president. Its possible in a pairwise election he might lose to all other candidates. its concievable that 1a could lose to 1b (if those that voted for 2 prefer 1b), 2a (if 2b and 1b prefer 2a), 2b (if those who voted for 1b and 2a prefered them over 1a). Minimized incentive for strategic behavior? well this isnt quite as bleak. It encourages people to vote for the person closest to them, even if they would have a small chance in a simple majority/2 party/pair-wise election. At least if their candidate cant win votes will go to their lema of choice. And anyone has a chance to win, since all you need to worry about is winning your lema, and others can worry about your lema winning. This voting system means the external costs might be considerably higher than normal. It is quite possible that tehre will be fewer middle of the road candidates selected in the long run, so althoguh decision making costs might be reduced (primary, and election in 1), external will go through the roof w/it being possible that only a small portion of the electorate actually voted for the candidates sub-lema. I apoligize if some of this is confusing, it took me a little while and a couple of readings to fully understand their electoral system.