4.0 Introduction
Who is the winner? In the 2016 American presidential election, Hillary Clinton received over 2.8 million more votes than her opponent, Donald Trump; however, Trump was declared the winner and inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. How did that happen? The United States of America uses an arcane method of determining a winner of their Presidential elections, and within their system, it’s possible that the winner isn’t the candidate with the most votes.
A country’s method of determining a winner is known as their electoral system. In this chapter, we will compare the two most common configurations of systems: majoritarian and proportional. We will also examine the peculiar system used in American presidential elections, which doesn’t fit into either category. We will conclude the chapter by looking at other election variants that are used for collective decision-making.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
- Describe the decision rules and thresholds used to turn voter preferences into seats in a legislature
- Compare the characteristics of majoritarian and proportional systems
- Explain the advantages and disadvantages of different electoral systems
Things we need to know
In this chapter, you can expect to encounter the following terms/concepts.
- Electoral system
- Majoritarian
- Proportional
- Plurality
- Referendum
- Recall
- Threshold
