voting systems

Examples of voting systems in the following topics:

• Winning an Election: Majority, Plurality, and Proportional Representation

  • Common voting systems are majority rule, proportional representation, or plurality voting with a number of criteria for the winner.
  • A voting system contains rules for valid voting, and how votes are counted and aggregated to yield a final result.
  • Common voting systems are majority rule, proportional representation, or plurality voting with a number of variations and methods such as first-past-the-post or preferential voting.
  • The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly that is based on single-member constituencies .
  • Compare and contrast the voting systems of majority rule, proportional representation and plurality voting

• Public Choice: Median Voters and Inefficient Voting Outcomes

  • Public choice may not lead to an economically efficient outcomes due to who votes, why they vote, and in what system they vote.
  • The system enforces rules to ensure valid voting, accurate tabulation, and a final result.
  • Common voting systems include majority rule, proportional representation, or plurality voting.
  • The study of voting systems is called voting theory.
  • The Condorcet paradox is used to evaluate voting systems.

• When Consensus Cannot Be Reached, Vote

  • Remember to specify the voting system, as there are many different kinds, and people might make wrong assumptions about which procedure is being used.
  • Approval voting is simple to explain and to count, and unlike some other methods, it only involves one round of voting.
  • See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system for more details about approval voting and other voting systems, but try to avoid getting into a long debate about which voting system to use (because, of course, you will then find yourself in a debate about which voting system to use to decide the voting system!).
  • One reason approval voting is a good choice is that it's very hard for anyone to object to—it's about as fair as a voting system can be.
  • Finally, conduct votes in public.

• Who Votes?

  • Having a voting system raises the question of electorate: who gets to vote?
  • The voting system itself should be used to choose new committers, both full and partial.
  • Often there will be no disagreement, and therefore no vote necessary.
  • If there is disagreement, discussion ensues as for any other question, possibly resulting in a vote.
  • For example, they may require that the proposal receive at least n positive votes and no negative votes, or that a supermajority vote in favor.

• Electing Candidates

  • Electoral systems are the detailed constitutional arrangements and voting laws that convert the vote into a political decision.
  • The first step in determining the results of an election is to tally the votes, for which various vote counting systems and ballot types are used.
  • In a proportional electoral system, a political party receives a percentage of seats in a governmental body in proportion to the number of votes it receives.
  • In a majoritarian system, one party receives all of the seats in question if it receives the majority of votes.
  • This electoral system is neither strictly majoritarian nor proportional; state delegates are not allocated to candidates in proportion to the votes they receive, but neither is winning the popular vote sufficient to ensure a candidate's election.

• Attempts to Improve Voter Turnout

  • Compulsory voting is a system by which electors are obliged to vote in elections or attend a polling place on voting day.
  • Compulsory voting ensures a large voter turnout.
  • Victorious political leaders of compulsory systems may claim a higher degree of political legitimacy than those of non-compulsory systems with lower voter turnout.
  • Red: Compulsory voting, enforced.
  • Pink: Compulsory voting, not enforced.

• Socioeconomic Factors

  • Independently, income has some effect on whether or not people vote.
  • The more educated a person is, the more likely he or she is to vote.
  • Education has the strongest impact on participation, as it provides people with background knowledge as to how the political system works and how the action of voting is connected with the realities of their lives.
  • This is a figure illustrating the different rates of voting in the 2008 U.S.
  • The higher income, the more likely a person is to vote.

• The Election of 1824

  • With tens of thousands of new voters, the older system of having members of Congress form congressional caucuses to determine who would run no longer worked.
  • Electors were chosen by popular vote in eighteen states, while the six remaining states used the older system in which state legislatures chose electors.
  • Results from the eighteen states where the popular vote determined the electoral vote gave Jackson the election, with 152,901 votes to Adams’s 114,023, Clay’s 47,217, and Crawford’s 46,979.
  • This map of the Electoral College votes of 1824 illustrates the number of electoral votes allotted to each candidate in each state.
  • Adams, despite not winning the popular vote, won 54 percent of the House votes and was elected president in 1825.

• Latinos

  • On average, Latino citizens continue to vote at significantly lower rates than non-Latino white voters.
  • There are many potential approaches that can be taken to explain variations in voting rates.
  • Others examine the question of the rationality of voting: does voting serve the self-interest of any given individual, and what are the interests or issues that might change someone's voting patterns?
  • As such, people may live for many years in the US without being able to vote.
  • Additionally, the weaker electoral institutions in the US, including more decentralized election processes and a weaker party system, mean that there are few institutions working to actively incorporate newly naturalized citizens or second generation citizens into the voting process.

• The Civil Rights Acts

  • Attorney General to join in lawsuits against state governments which operated segregated school systems.
  • The Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African-Americans.
  • The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that prohibits discrimination in voting.
  • These enforcement provisions applied to states and political subdivisions (mostly in the South) that had used a "device" to limit voting and in which less than 50 percent of the population was registered to vote in 1964.
  • Compare and contrast the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act