The Natal Provincial Council was the provincial council of Natal Province in South Africa. It was created by the South Africa Act 1909 , with effect from the formation of the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910.
90-500: The Provincial Council continued to exist until 1986, at which point its functions were transferred to a strengthened executive authority appointed by the State President. The province itself was disbanded in 1994, when the provinces were reconstructed. The Provincial Council was composed of members elected, by the first past the post electoral system, Originally provinces with fewer than 25 single member electoral divisions, used for
180-424: A single-winner voting rule. Voters typically mark one candidate as their favorite, and the candidate with the largest number of first-preference marks (a plurality ) is elected, regardless of whether they have over half of all votes (a majority ). It is sometimes called first-past-the-post (FPTP) in reference to gambling on horse races (where bettors would guess which horse they thought would be first past
270-625: A "Parliament full of second-choices who no one really wanted but didn't really object to either." However, FPP often results in strategic voting , which has prevented extreme left- and right-wing parties from gaining parliamentary seats , as opposed to proportional representation . This also implies that strategic voting is necessary to keep extremists from gaining seats, which often fails to materialize in practice for multiple reasons. In comparison, many other systems encourage voters to rank other candidates and thereby not (or at least less often to) have to strategically compromise on their first choice at
360-399: A Condorcet winner as two-thirds of voters prefer B over A . Similarly, B cannot be the winner as two-thirds prefer C over B , and C cannot win as two-thirds prefer A over C . This forms a rock-paper-scissors style cycle with no Condorcet winner. Voting systems can also be judged on their ability to deliver results that maximize the overall well-being of society , i.e. to choose
450-452: A branch of welfare economics that extends rational choice to include community decision-making processes. Plurality voting is the most common ranked voting system, and has been in widespread use since the earliest democracies . As plurality voting has exhibited weaknesses from its start, especially as soon as a third party joins the race, some individuals turned to transferable votes (facilitated by contingent ranked ballots) to reduce
540-413: A broad range of spatial models, including all one-dimensional models and all symmetric models across multiple dimensions, a Condorcet winner is guaranteed to exist. Moreover, this winner is the candidate closest to the median of the voter distribution. Empirical research has generally found that spatial voting models give a highly accurate explanation of most voting behavior. Arrow's impossibility theorem
630-427: A contributory factor in the country adopting the apartheid system after the 1948 general election in that country. Leblang and Chan found that a country's electoral system is the most important predictor of a country's involvement in war, according to three different measures: (1) when a country was the first to enter a war; (2) when it joined a multinational coalition in an ongoing war; and (3) how long it stayed in
720-467: A five-year term and could not be removed except by the Governor General for "cause assigned". The administrator was not responsible to the provincial council and it had no power to remove him from office. The administrator was the chairman of the provincial executive committee and had both an original and casting vote in its deliberations. The provincial council elected four persons (usually members of
810-518: A geographical base, parties that are small UK-wide can still do very well". On the other hand, minor parties that do not concentrate their vote usually end up getting a much lower proportion of seats than votes, as they lose most of the seats they contest and 'waste' most of their votes. The ERS also says that in FPP elections using many separate districts "small parties without a geographical base find it hard to win seats". Make Votes Matter said that in
900-542: A government without being the largest party. The use of proportional representation (PR) may enable smaller parties to become decisive in the country's legislature and gain leverage they would not otherwise enjoy, although this can be somewhat mitigated by a large enough electoral threshold . They argue that FPP generally reduces this possibility, except where parties have a strong regional basis. A journalist at Haaretz noted that Israel's highly proportional Knesset "affords great power to relatively small parties, forcing
990-431: A majority of seats just requires receiving more than half the vote in more than half the districts—even if the other party receives all the votes cast in the other districts—so just over a quarter of the vote is theoretically enough to win a majority in the legislature. With enough candidates splitting the vote in a district, the total number of votes needed to win can be made arbitrarily small . Under first-past-the-post,
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#17328519132011080-601: A majority of the votes cast in Canada only three times since 1921: in 1940 , 1958 and 1984 . In the United Kingdom, 19 of the 24 general elections since 1922 have produced a single-party majority government. In all but two of them ( 1931 and 1935 ), the leading party did not take a majority of the votes across the UK. In some cases, this can lead to a party receiving the plurality or even majority of total votes yet still failing to gain
1170-505: A minor party in protest at its policies, since to do so would likely only help the major party's main rival. Rather than curtailing extreme voices, FPP today empowers the (relatively) extreme voices of the Labour and Conservative party memberships." For example, the electoral system of Hungary , a mixed system dominated by FPP have seen Fidesz (right-wing, populist party) win 135 seats in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election and has remained
1260-470: A plurality of legislative seats. This results in a situation called a majority reversal or electoral inversion . Famous examples of the second-place party (in votes nationally) winning a majority of seats include the elections in Ghana in 2012 , New Zealand in 1978 and 1981 , and the United Kingdom in 1951 . Famous examples of the second placed party (in votes nationally) winning a plurality of seats include
1350-622: A powerful electoral incentive for large parties to target similar segments of voters with similar policies. The effect of this reduces political diversity in a country because the larger parties are incentivized to coalesce around similar policies. The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network describes India's use of FPTP as a "legacy of British colonialism". Duverger's law is an idea in political science which says that constituencies that use first-past-the-post methods will lead to two-party systems , given enough time. Economist Jeffrey Sachs explains: The main reason for America's majoritarian character
1440-492: A principle known in political science as Duverger's Law . Smaller parties are trampled in first-past-the-post elections. However, most countries with first-past-the-post elections have multiparty legislatures (albeit with two parties larger than the others), the United States being the major exception. There is a counter-argument to Duverger's Law, that while on the national level a plurality system may encourage two parties, in
1530-726: A public election in 1840 by his son Rowland for the Adelaide City Council in Australia. STV saw its first national use in Denmark in 1855, and was reinvented several times in the 19th century. Ranked voting Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results Ranked voting
1620-434: A result, they are not subject to many of the problems with weighted rank voting (including results like Arrow's theorem ). The earliest known proposals for a ranked voting system other than plurality can be traced to the works of Ramon Llull in the late 13th century, who developed what would later be known as Copeland's method . Copeland's method was devised by Ramon Llull in his 1299 treatise Ars Electionis, which
1710-518: A series of electoral pathologies in Alaska's 2022 congressional special election , a poll found 54% of Alaskans supported a repeal of the system; this included a third of the voters who had supported Peltola , the ultimate winner in the election. Some local elections in New Zealand and in the U.S. use the multi-winner single transferable vote . Nauru uses a rank-weighted positional method called
1800-483: A significant number of safe seats , where a representative is sheltered from any but the most dramatic change in voting behavior. In the UK, the Electoral Reform Society estimates that more than half the seats can be considered as safe. It has been claimed that members involved in the 2009 expenses scandal were significantly more likely to hold a safe seat. The House of Commons of England originated in
1890-539: A small party may draw votes and seats away from a larger party that it is more similar to, and therefore give an advantage to one it is less similar to. For example, in the 2000 United States presidential election , the left-leaning Ralph Nader drew more votes from the left-leaning Al Gore , resulting in Nader spoiling the election for the Democrats. According to the political pressure group Make Votes Matter , FPTP creates
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#17328519132011980-453: A system based on plurality voting spread over many separate districts is that the larger parties, and parties with more geographically concentrated support, gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties with more evenly distributed support gain a disproportionately small share. This is because in doing this they win many seats and do not 'waste' many votes in other areas. As voting patterns are similar in about two-thirds of
2070-563: A tendency for Independentista voters to support Populares candidates. This phenomenon is responsible for some Popular victories, even though the Estadistas have the most voters on the island, and is so widely recognised that Puerto Ricans sometimes call the Independentistas who vote for the Populares "melons", because that fruit is green on the outside but red on the inside (in reference to
2160-461: A vote could be considered as wasted . FPP wastes fewer votes when it is used in two-party contests. But waste of votes and minority governments are more likely when large groups of voters vote for three, four or more parties as in Canadian elections. Canada uses FPP and only two of the last seven federal Canadian elections ( 2011 and 2015 ) produced single-party majority governments. In none of them did
2250-547: A vote). Meanwhile, other election systems, the Borda count and the Condorcet method, can use different rules for handling equal-rank ballots. These rules produce different mathematical properties and behaviors, particularly under strategic voting . Many concepts formulated by the Marquis de Condorcet in the 18th century continue to significantly impact the field. One of these concepts is
2340-417: A war after becoming a party to it. When the people are fairly represented in parliament, more of those groups who may object to any potential war have access to the political power necessary to prevent it. In a proportional democracy, war and other major decisions generally requires the consent of the majority. The British human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell , and others, have argued that Britain entered
2430-422: Is a contingent ranked-vote voting method that recursively eliminates the plurality loser of an election until one candidate has the majority of the remaining votes. In the given example, Candidate A is declared winner in the third round, having received a majority of votes through the accumulation of first-choice votes and redistributed votes from Candidate B . This system embodies the voters' preferences between
2520-464: Is a generalization of Condorcet's result on the impossibility of majority rule. It demonstrates that every ranked voting algorithm is susceptible to the spoiler effect . Gibbard's theorem provides a closely-related corollary, that no voting rule can have a single, always-best strategy that does not depend on other voters' ballots. The Borda count is a weighted-rank system that assigns scores to each candidate based on their position in each ballot. If m
2610-406: Is a prospect of a change in representation, leaving safer areas excluded from participation in an active campaign. Political parties operate by targeting districts, directing their activists and policy proposals toward those areas considered to be marginal, where each additional vote has more value. This feature of FPTP has often been used by its supporters in contrast to proportional systems. In
2700-502: Is an example of a one-dimensional spatial model. The accompanying diagram presents a simple one-dimensional spatial model, illustrating the voting methods discussed in subsequent sections of this article. It is assumed that supporters of candidate A cast their votes in the order of A > B > C , while candidate C' s supporters vote in the sequence of C > B > A . Supporters of candidate B are equally divided between listing A or C as their second preference. From
2790-472: Is any voting system that uses voters' rankings of candidates to choose a single winner or multiple winners. More formally, a ranked system is one that depends only on which of two candidates is preferred by a voter, and as such does not incorporate any information about intensity of preferences . Ranked voting systems vary dramatically in how preferences are tabulated and counted, which gives them very different properties . In instant-runoff voting (IRV) and
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2880-407: Is related to kingmakers in that the lesser-known candidates may encourage their supporters to rank the other candidates a certain way. Supporters of electoral reform generally see this as a positive development, and claim that alternatives certain to FPP will encourage less negative and more positive campaigning, as candidates will have to appeal to a wider group of people. Opinions are split on whether
2970-489: Is that a portion of the electorate (2.7%) voted for Ralph Nader of the Green Party , and exit polls indicated that more of them would have preferred Gore (45%) to Bush (27%). The election was ultimately determined by the results from Florida , where Bush prevailed over Gore by a margin of only 537 votes (0.009%), which was far exceeded by the 97488 (1.635%) votes cast for Nader in that state. In Puerto Rico , there has been
3060-408: Is the electoral system for Congress. Members of Congress are elected in single-member districts according to the "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) principle, meaning that the candidate with the plurality of votes is the winner of the congressional seat. The losing party or parties win no representation at all. The first-past-the-post election tends to produce a small number of major parties, perhaps just two,
3150-508: Is the total number of candidates, the candidate ranked first on a ballot receives m − 1 points, the second receives m − 2 , and so on, until the last-ranked candidate who receives zero. In the given example, candidate B emerges as the winner with 130 out of a total 300 points. While the Borda count is simple to administer, it does not meet the Condorcet criterion. Also, it is heavily affected by
3240-685: The 2017 general election , "the Green Party, Liberal Democrats and UKIP (minor, non-regional parties) received 11% of votes between them, yet they shared just 2% of seats", and in the 2015 general election , "[t]he same three parties received almost a quarter of all the votes cast, yet these parties shared just 1.5% of seats." According to Make Votes Matter, in the 2015 UK general election UKIP came in third in terms of number of votes (3.9 million/12.6%), but gained only one seat in Parliament, resulting in one seat per 3.9 million votes. The Conservatives on
3330-450: The Borda method , the 1st, 2nd, 3rd... candidates on each ballot receive 1, 2, 3... points, and the candidate with the fewest points is elected. Thus intensity of preference is assumed to be at ratios of 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc. Although not typically described as such, the well-known plurality rule can be seen as a ranked voting system where a voter gives a single point to the candidate marked as their choice and zero points to all others, and
3420-522: The Condorcet winner , a candidate who would win against any other candidate in a two-way race. A voting system that always elects this candidate is called a Condorcet method ; however, it is possible for an election to have no Condorcet winner, a situation called a Condorcet cycle . Suppose an election with 3 candidates A , B , and C has 3 voters. One votes A > C > B , one votes B > A > C , and one votes C > B > A . In this case, no Condorcet winner exists: A cannot be
3510-487: The Dowdall system . In voting with ranked ballots, a tied or equal-rank ballot is one where multiple candidates receive the same rank or rating. In instant runoff and first-preference plurality , such ballots are generally rejected; however, in social choice theory some election systems assume equal-ranked ballots are "split" evenly between all equal-ranked candidates (e.g. in a two-way tie, each candidate receives half
3600-636: The House of Assembly elections (like Natal), were divided into 25 provincial seats. However under the Constitution and Elections Amendment Act 1973, provinces with at least 20 House of Assembly seats (like Natal at the time) used the same electoral divisions for both bodies. Originally the term of the Provincial Council was five years, from the first meeting of the Council after it was elected. The Administrator of
3690-593: The instant-runoff system, but immediately rejected it as pathological . The contingent ranked transferable vote, as used in Single transferable voting , later found common use in cities in North America, Ireland and other parts of the English-speaking world. Theoretical exploration of electoral processes was revived by a 1948 paper from Duncan Black and Kenneth Arrow 's investigations into social choice theory ,
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3780-406: The single transferable vote system (STV), lower preferences are used as contingencies (back-up preferences) and are only applied when all higher-ranked preferences on a ballot have been eliminated or when one of the higher ranked preferences has been elected and surplus votes need to be transferred. Some ranked vote systems use ranks as weights; this type of system is called positional voting . In
3870-434: The 1970s , where the first round selects two major contenders who go on to receive the overwhelming majority of votes. [REDACTED] Suppose that Tennessee is holding an election on the location of its capital . The population is concentrated around four major cities. All voters want the capital to be as close to them as possible. The options are: The preferences of each region's voters are: In FPTP, only
3960-414: The 20th century, many countries that previously used FPP have abandoned it in favor of other electoral systems, including the former British colonies of Australia and New Zealand . Most U.S. states still officially retain FPP for most elections. However, the combination of partisan primaries with the two-party system mean the country has effectively used a variation on the two-round system since
4050-453: The Condorcet and Borda count methods, which were respectively reinvented in the 18th century by the Marquis de Condorcet and Jean-Charles de Borda . More serious investigation into electoral systems came in the late 18th century, when several thinkers independently proposed systems of proportional representation to elect legislatures. The single transferable vote in particular was invented in 1819 by Thomas Wright Hill , and first used in
4140-478: The Iraq War primarily because of the political effects of FPP and that proportional representation would have prevented Britain's involvement in the war. To a greater extent than many others, the first-past-the-post method encourages "tactical voting". Voters have an incentive to vote for a candidate who they predict is more likely to win, as opposed to their preferred candidate who may be unlikely to win and for whom
4230-634: The Middle Ages as an assembly representing the gentry of the counties and cities of the Kingdom, each of which elected either one or two members of parliament (MPs) by block plurality voting . Starting in the 19th century, electoral reform advocates pushed to replace these multi-member constituencies with single-member districts. Elections to the Canadian House of Commons have always been conducted with FPP. The United States broke away from British rule in
4320-517: The State President was given the power to dissolve the Provincial Councils at the same time as the House of Assembly, so that the subsequent provincial election could take place on the same day as a Parliamentary general election. Executive powers were shared by the administrator and an executive committee. This arrangement was neither the traditional 'Westminster' model (such as that which existed at
4410-532: The Union level of government) or a United States style separation of powers between the executive and legislative parts of the government. The administrator of the province was described, in section 68 (1) of the South Africa Act 1909, as "a chief executive officer … in whose name all executive acts relating to provincial affairs therein shall be done". The administrator was appointed, by the national government, for
4500-458: The United States and Canada . [1] The single transferable vote system has also been used to elect legislators in Canada, South Africa and India. In more recent years, the use of contingent ranked votes has seen a comeback in the United States. In the United States , single-winner ranked voting (specifically, instant-runoff voting) is used to elect politicians in Maine and Alaska. In November 2016,
4590-434: The absence of) of party primaries maybe strengthen or weaken this effect. In general, FPP has no mechanism that would benefit more moderate candidates and many supporters of FPP defend it electing the largest and most unified (even if more polarizing) minority over a more consensual majority supported candidate. Allowing people into parliament who did not finish first in their district was described by David Cameron as creating
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#17328519132014680-450: The alternative vote (better known as instant runoff voting outside the UK) achieves this better than other systems. Supporters and opponents of FPP often argue whether FPP advantages or disadvantages extremist parties. Among single-winner systems, FPP suffers from the center squeeze phenomenon , where more moderate candidates are squeezed out by more extreme ones. However, the different types (or
4770-484: The best candidate for society as a whole. Spatial voting models, initially proposed by Duncan Black and further developed by Anthony Downs , provide a theoretical framework for understanding electoral behavior. In these models, each voter and candidate is positioned within an ideological space that can span multiple dimensions. It is assumed that voters tend to favor candidates who closely align with their ideological position over those more distant. A political spectrum
4860-424: The candidate with the most points is elected. Taking the ranked ballots of instant-runoff voting and the single transferable vote system as indicating one choice at a time (that is, giving one point to the preference in use and zero points to all others), instant-runoff voting and the single transferable vote system can be seen as the most common non- degenerate ranked voting systems. They operate as staged variants of
4950-416: The country in question in circumstances where the government's legislative agenda has broad public support, albeit potentially divided across party lines, or at least benefits society as a whole. However handing a legislative voting majority to a government which lacks popular support can be problematic where said government's policies favor only that fraction of the electorate that supported it, particularly if
5040-426: The data in the accompanying table, if there are 100 voters, the distribution of ballots will reflect the positioning of voters and candidates along the ideological spectrum. Spatial models offer significant insights because they provide an intuitive visualization of voter preferences. These models give rise to an influential theorem—the median voter theorem—attributed to Duncan Black. This theorem stipulates that within
5130-436: The districts, it is more likely that a single party will hold a majority of legislative seats under FPP than happens in a proportional system, and under FPP it is rare to elect a majority government that actually has the support of a majority of voters. Because FPP permits many wasted votes , an election under FPP is more easily gerrymandered. Through gerrymandering , electoral areas are designed deliberately to unfairly increase
5220-399: The election a center squeeze . By contrast, both Condorcet methods and score voting would return Nashville (the capital of Tennessee). Perhaps the most striking effect of FPP is the fact that the number of a party's seats in a legislature has nothing to do with its vote count in an election, only in how those votes were geographically distributed. This has been a target of criticism for
5310-608: The elections in Canada in 2019 and 2021 as well as in Japan in 2003 . Even when a party wins more than half the votes in an almost purely two-party-competition, it is possible for the runner-up to win a majority of seats. This happened in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in 1966 , 1998 , and 2020 and in Belize in 1993 . Even with only two parties and equally-sized constituencies, winning
5400-407: The electorate divides on tribal, religious, or urban–rural lines. There is also the perceived issue of unfair coalitions where a smaller party can form a coalition with other smaller parties and form a government, without a clear mandate as was the case in the 2009 Israeli legislative election where the leading party Kadima , was unable to form a coalition so Likud , a smaller party, managed to form
5490-448: The entry of candidates who have no real chance of winning. Systems that award points in a similar way but possibly with a different formula are called positional systems . The score vector ( m − 1, m − 2, ..., 0) is associated with the Borda count, (1, 1/2, 1/3, ..., 1/ m ) defines the Dowdall system and (1, 0, ..., 0) equates to first-past-the-post . Instant-runoff voting, often conflated with ranked-choice voting in general,
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#17328519132015580-415: The final candidates, stopping when a candidate garners the preference of a majority of voters. Instant-runoff voting does not fulfill the Condorcet winner criterion . The defeat-dropping Condorcet methods all look for a Condorcet winner, i.e. a candidate who is not defeated by any other candidate in a one-on-one majority vote. If there is no Condorcet winner, they repeatedly drop (set the margin to zero) for
5670-529: The finishing post). In social choice , FPP is generally treated as a degenerate variant of ranked voting , where voters rank the candidates, but only the first preference matters. As a result, FPP is usually implemented with a choose-one ballot , where voters place a single bubble next to their favorite candidate. FPP has been used to elect the British House of Commons since the Middle Ages . Throughout
5760-407: The first preferences matter. As such, the votes would be counted as 42% for Memphis, 26% for Nashville, 17% for Knoxville, and 15% for Chattanooga. Since Memphis has the most votes, it would win a FPTP election, even though it is far from the center of the state and a majority of voters would prefer Nashville . Similarly, instant-runoff voting would elect Knoxville , the easternmost city. This makes
5850-439: The government to give in to political blackmail and to reach compromises"; Tony Blair , defending FPP, argued that other systems give small parties the balance of power, and influence disproportionate to their votes. The concept of kingmakers is adjacent to how Winston Churchill criticized the alternative vote system as "determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates." meaning that votes for
5940-501: The incidence of wasted votes and unrepresentative election results. A form of the single transferable vote system was invented by Carl Andræ in Denmark , where it was used briefly before being abandoned for direct elections in favor of the simpler open list rules. The single transferable vote system was still used in indirect elections in the Danish government until 1953. At approximately
6030-481: The individual constituencies supermajorities will lead to the vote fracturing. It has been suggested that the distortions in geographical representation provide incentives for parties to ignore the interests of areas in which they are too weak to stand much chance of gaining representation, leading to governments that do not govern in the national interest. Further, during election campaigns the campaigning activity of parties tends to focus on marginal seats where there
6120-568: The largest party in Hungary since 2010 by changing the electoral system to mostly use FPP instead of the previous mixed system using mostly the two-round system . Since 2010, Fidesz has implemented other anti-democratic reforms that now mean the European Parliament no longer qualifies Hungary as a full democracy. Electoral reform campaigners have argued that the use of FPP in South Africa was
6210-514: The late 18th century, and its constitution provides for an electoral college to elect its president. Despite original intentions to the contrary, by the mid-19th century this college had transformed into a de facto use of FPP for each state's presidential election. This further morphed through the introduction of the party primary , which made American elections into a two-round system in practice. Non-plurality voting systems have been devised since at least 1299, when Ramon Llull came up with both
6300-526: The latter, smaller parties act as 'kingmakers' in coalitions as they have greater bargaining power and therefore, arguably, their influence on policy is disproportional to their parliamentary size- this is largely avoided in FPP systems where majorities are generally achieved. FPP often produces governments which have legislative voting majorities, thus providing such governments the legislative power necessary to implement their electoral manifesto commitments during their term in office. This may be beneficial for
6390-501: The leading party receive a majority of the votes. The position is sometimes summarized, in an extreme form, as "all votes for anyone other than the runner-up are votes for the winner." This is because votes for these other candidates deny potential support from the second-placed candidate, who might otherwise have won. Following the extremely close 2000 U.S. presidential election , some supporters of Democratic candidate Al Gore believed one reason he lost to Republican George W. Bush
6480-403: The least supported candidates may change the outcome of the election between the most supported candidates. In this case however, this is a feature of the alternative vote, since those votes would have otherwise been wasted (and in some sense this makes every vote count, as opposed to FPP), and this effect is only possible when no candidate receives an outright majority of first preference votes. it
6570-428: The method, many arguing that a fundamental requirement of an election system is to accurately represent the views of voters. FPP often creates "false majorities" by over-representing larger parties (giving a majority of the parliamentary/legislative seats to a party that did not receive a majority of the votes) while under-representing smaller ones. In Canada, majority governments have been formed due to one party winning
6660-411: The north of England. This pattern hides the large number of votes for the non-dominant party. Parties can find themselves without elected politicians in significant parts of the country, heightening feelings of regionalism. Party supporters (who may nevertheless be a significant minority) in those sections of the country are unrepresented. In the 2019 Canadian federal election Conservatives won 98% of
6750-411: The number of seats won by one party by redrawing the map such that one party has a small number of districts in which it has an overwhelming majority of votes (whether due to policy, demographics which tend to favor one party, or other reasons), and many districts where it is at a smaller disadvantage. The British Electoral Reform Society (ERS) says that regional parties benefit from this system. "With
6840-468: The number required for victory. For example, in the UK general election of 2005 , 52% of votes were cast for losing candidates and 18% were excess votes—a total of 70% "wasted" votes. On this basis a large majority of votes may play no part in determining the outcome. This winner-takes-all system may be one of the reasons why "voter participation tends to be lower in countries with FPP than elsewhere." The effect of
6930-411: The one-on-one matchups that are closest to being tied, until there is a Condorcet winner. How "closest to being tied" is defined depends on the specific rule. For minimax , the elections with the smallest margin of victory are dropped, whereas in ranked pairs only elections that create a cycle are eligible to be dropped (with defeats being dropped based on the margin of victory). Dr. Arrow: Well, I’m
7020-629: The other hand received one seat per 34,000 votes. The winner-takes-all nature of FPP leads to distorted patterns of representation, since it exaggerates the correlation between party support and geography. For example, in the UK the Conservative Party represents most of the rural seats in England, and most of the south of England, while the Labour Party represents most of the English cities and most of
7110-585: The party colors). Because voters have to predict who the top two candidates will be, results can be significantly distorted: Proponents of other voting methods in single-member districts argue that these would reduce the need for tactical voting and reduce the spoiler effect . Examples include preferential voting systems, such as instant runoff voting , as well as the two-round system of runoffs and less tested methods such as approval voting and Condorcet methods . Wasted votes are seen as those cast for losing candidates, and for winning candidates in excess of
7200-415: The plurality system that repeatedly eliminate last-place plurality winners if necessary to determine a majority or quota winner. In the United States and Australia, the terms ranked-choice voting and preferential voting , respectively, almost always refer to instant-runoff voting ; however, because these terms have also been used to mean ranked systems in general, many social choice theorists recommend
7290-470: The post Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results First-preference plurality ( FPP ) also known as single-member district plurality ( SMDP )—often shortened simply to plurality —is
7380-409: The province fixed the date for the meeting, but the Provincial Council had to meet at least once a year. The South African Parliament could alter the term by legislation (as it did when the provincial elections due in 1941 were postponed until 1943), but there was no general power to dissolve a Provincial Council before its statutory term expired. Under the Constitution and Elections Amendment Act 1973,
7470-441: The provincial council), who together with the administrator formed the provincial executive committee. The four members were elected by single transferable vote , so were not necessarily all from the same party. It was provided, by Section 80 of the South Africa Act 1909, that "the executive committee shall on behalf of the provincial council carry on the administration of provincial affairs'’. Key to parties:- First past
7560-643: The same time, the single transferable vote system was independently devised by British lawyer Thomas Hare , whose writings soon spread the method throughout the British Empire . Tasmania adopted the Hare method in government elections the 1890s, with broader adoption throughout Australia beginning in the 1910s and 1920s. The single transferable vote system, using contingent ranked votes, has been adopted in Ireland , South Africa , Malta , and approximately 20 cities each in
7650-540: The same time. On the other hand, the Constitution Society published a report in April 2019 stating that, "[in certain circumstances] FPP can ... abet extreme politics , since should a radical faction gain control of one of the major political parties, FPP works to preserve that party's position. ...This is because the psychological effect of the plurality system disincentivises a major party's supporters from voting for
7740-639: The seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan with only 68% of the vote. The lack of non-Conservative representation gives the appearance of greater Conservative support than actually exists. Similarly, in Canada's 2021 elections, the Conservative Party won 88% of the seats in Alberta with only 55% of the vote, and won 100% of the seats in Saskatchewan with only 59% of the vote. First-past-the-post within geographical areas tends to deliver (particularly to larger parties)
7830-463: The use of instant-runoff voting in contexts where it could cause confusion. Ranked voting systems, such as Borda count, are usually contrasted with rated voting methods, which allow voters to indicate how strongly they support different candidates (e.g. on a scale from 0 to 10). Ranked vote systems produce more information than X voting systems such as first-past-the-post voting . Rated voting systems produce more information than ordinal ballots; as
7920-443: The voters of Maine narrowly passed Question 5, approving ranked-choice voting (instant-runoff voting) for all elections. This was first put to use in 2018, marking the inaugural use of ranked votes in a statewide election in the United States. In November 2020, Alaska voters passed Measure 2, bringing ranked choice voting (instant-runoff voting) into effect from 2022. However, as before, the system has faced strong opposition. After
8010-410: Was discussed by Nicholas of Cusa in the fifteenth century. A second wave of analysis began when Jean-Charles de Borda published a paper in 1781, advocating for the Borda count , which he called the "order of merit". This methodology drew criticism from the Marquis de Condorcet , who developed his own methods after arguing Borda's approach did not accurately reflect group preferences, because it
8100-407: Was vulnerable to spoiler effects and did not always elect the majority-preferred candidate . Interest in ranked voting continued throughout the 19th century. Danish pioneer Carl Andræ formulated the single transferable vote system, which was adopted by his native Denmark in 1855. This used the contingent ranked vote system. Condorcet had previously considered the single-winner version of it,
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