The inconspicuous charm of local democracy. How the electoral rules are changing in the hands of the citizens of small municipalities and what it is good for?

Most of the elections are held according to proportional electoral system in the Czech Republic (the exceptions are the Senate elections and the direct presidential election). At the local level, municipal elections are held according to the same rules, despite the extreme fragmentation of local government here. Regardless the rules favouring political parties, independent local lists win in most municipalities. In many cases it is a victory without losers because only a single list competes in the election. Low competitiveness of elections in municipalities negatively affects electoral participation in Czechia. Municipal size presents a paradoxical trade-off in the relationship between maximizing two dimensions of local democracy: participation and competition. Moreover, the confusing electoral system often produces unexpected results at the local level. Individual single candidates have the most demanding conditions for election. However, if only individual single candidates run for office the list proportional electoral system is effectively informally transformed into a majoritarian system. Every four years, voters in hundreds of Czech municipalities, usually very small ones, elect their representatives in this non-standard way. The election results in these cases directly express voter preferences, as they are not distorted when converting votes into seats. A paper looks at both the possible factors leading to elections without lists of candidates, as well as the effects on voter turnout, etc. The analysis of various statistical data is used, as well as interviews with representatives of selected municipalities to understand the contexts where such paradoxical transformations of formal rules happens and how it affects competition, voter turnout, etc.