Plurality Voting System - Voting

Voting

Plurality voting is used for local and/or national elections in 43 of the 193 countries of the United Nations, as well as in the Republic of China (Taiwan). Plurality voting is particularly prevalent in the United Kingdom and former British colonies, including the United States, Canada and India.

In single winner plurality voting, each voter is allowed to vote for only one candidate, and the winner of the election is whichever candidate represents a plurality of voters, that is, whoever received the largest number of votes. This makes the plurality voting system among the simplest of all voting systems for voters and vote counting officials (it is however very contentious to draw district boundary lines in this system).

In an election for a legislative body, each voter in a given geographically-defined electoral district votes for one candidate from a list of candidates competing to represent that district. Under the plurality system, the winner of the election acts as representative of the entire electoral district, and serves with representatives of other electoral districts.

In an election for a single seat, such as president in a presidential system, the same style of ballot is used and the candidate who receives the largest number of votes represents the entire population.

The two-round voting system uses first-past-the-post voting method in the first round of voting. In this case the two highest polling candidates that cross the line progress to the second round Run-off ballot.

In a multiple member Plurality election the counting of the ballot uses an exhaustive iteration process using the same ballot papers to elect one person each iteration for each vacant position.