Voting Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Voting Systems - Essay Example Plurality or majority system is the most frequently used voting system. This system of voting comes first in mind when people think of voting. This system has been inherited from British and today it is commonly used in United States, UK and some other countries as well. According to this kind of voting system the candidate who will gather either the majority or plurality of voters will ultimately win the election. The main object of this voting system is to represent the majority or plurality of voters in a particular district, locality or state. This system can be further divided into four different types which separate the plurality and majority system of voting. The first two are commonly used plurality system of voting, while the other two are majority systems. After plurality/majority system proportional representation system is the most used voting system. This voting system seems to be the competitor of plurality/majority voting system as this system is receiving popularity and persistently being used in most of the European countries. Proportional representation system provides more accurate representation of parties. The basic approach of proportional representation system is to represent or show multimember district instead of single member district. The number of seats declared to be won by a particular party in an election is proportional to the amount of votes given to that party by the voters. Electoral system de Electoral system designers divided the proportional representation system in three basic kinds in order to achieve more accurate proportionate results of voting. These three types of PR voting system are as follows 1. Party List. 2. Mixed-Member Proportional. 3. Single transferable vote. Semi Proportional System Semi proportional system lies somewhere between plurality/majority system and proportional representation system. Electoral administrator developed this type of voting system to solve the problem of misrepresentation of parties arising from the plurality/majority voting system. In this voting system candidates run in a multi-member district. People have multiple votes and vote for individual candidates. The winners are the candidates with the most votes. In this system votes of voters and the number of seats are closely related. Number of votes of voters depends upon the seats available. Semi proportional system of voting has two kinds which are the variations of at-large voting system. These two types of semi proportional system are as follows 1. Cumulative Vote 2. Limited Vote Plurality Voting System Plurality system as explained earlier is based on single member constituency system and is used in a majority of countries. Canada, India, the UK, and the USA are some of the prominnent democracies using this system of voting. There are different advantages and disadvantages of the different voting systems but here we are only analyzing the major advanatages and disadvantages of the plurality or majority system with respect to other systems available. Advanatges & Disadvantages Simplicty: First thought that comes to mind about plurality