Week 6 Terms: Electoral Rules

Question 1

Ballot Structure

Answer 1

How do you cast a vote? (for a candidate? for a party? rank choice?)

Question 2

Electoral Threshold

Answer 2

What is the minimum # of votes you need to win a seat? (Plurality? Majority? Unanimity?)

Question 3

District Magnitude

Answer 3

What are the # of seats in a district? (single member? multi member?)

Question 4

Electoral Formula

Answer 4

How are votes converted into seats? (single member=same as threshold, multimember=need a rule)

Question 5

Plurality *

Answer 5

Electoral process whereby the candidate who receives the most votes in the election wins

Question 6

Majority *

Answer 6

Electoral process whereby the candidate who receives a majority of votes in the election wins

Question 7

Majoritarian Systems

Answer 7

A system of voting in which the country is divided up into districts and politicians compete for individual district seats. The candidate who receives the highest vote share wins the election and represents the district

Question 8

First round plurality/First Past-The-Post*

Answer 8

The candidate with the most votes wins the election

Question 9

Two-Round/Runoff*

Answer 9

If you pass the threshold in the first round (50%>), you win, but if you do not, ‘x’ number of candidates (usually 2) advance to the second round in which a winner is selected

Question 10

Mixed Systems

Answer 10

Mixed systems of voting have qualities between both majoritarian and proportional representation systems.

Question 11

Multi-Tier Systems

Answer 11

A system of voting in which you cast a vote in one election and that vote can be transferred to another election

Question 12

Closed vs. Open Systems

Answer 12

Closed systems- you are only given the opportunity to vote for a party, and then the party is appointed a certain number of seats and order of candidates on the party list will determine office holders.
Open systems- you are given the opportunity to vote for both a party and candidate; party is appointed a certain number of seats and top candidates win seats

Question 13

Proportional Representation

Answer 13

A system of voting in which citizens vote for political parties instead of individual candidates. Seats in a legislature are then allocated in proportion to votes shares

Question 14

Bloc Vote

Answer 14

Each district gets a certain amount of votes to cast for candidates

Question 15

Cumulative Vote

Answer 15

Similar to bloc voting, but all votes can be cast for the same candidate

Question 16

Single non-transferrable vote

Answer 16

A majoritarian system of voting in which each voter gets only one vote in a multi-member district

Question 17

Limited vote

Question 18

Alternative vote

Question 19

Single transferrable vote

Question 20

Party lists

Question 21

Negative voting

Answer 21

An alternative system of voting in which you can vote for the candidate that you do not want to win the election

Question 22

Electoral Procedures