Voting

Voting is a method for a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, to make a collective decision or express an opinion, usually following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting. Residents of a place represented by an elected official are called "constituents", and those constituents who cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called "voters". There are different systems for collecting votes, with the most common being plurality voting and proportional representation.

Types of Voting

Voting can occur in a variety of forms. The most common types include:

• Plurality voting: This is the most common form of voting in the United States. In this system, the candidate with the most votes wins, even if they do not receive a majority of the votes.

• Proportional representation: This system is designed to ensure that the proportion of seats a party has in the legislature matches the proportion of votes it received in the election.

• Ranked voting: In this system, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates, based on the second preferences of the eliminated candidate's voters. This process continues until a candidate has a majority of votes.

Voting Systems

Different voting systems use different types of votes. Plurality voting does not require the winner to achieve a majority, or more than fifty percent of the total votes cast. In a voting system that uses a single vote per race, when more than two candidates run, the winner may commonly have less than fifty percent of the vote.

Voting Methods

There are many variations in electoral systems, but the most common systems are:

• First-past-the-post voting: This is a plurality voting method. FPTP is a common, but not universal, feature of electoral systems with single-member electoral divisions.

• Two-round system: This is a voting method used to elect a single winner, where the voter casts a single vote for their chosen candidate.

See Also

• Election
• Democracy
• Electoral system
• Voter registration

Voting Resources
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