Electoral system

An "electoral system" is the term for the Group decision-making procedure of a group with a common goal, which could be called "Common goal group decision-making procedure". Whereas a common goal is the goal of a group of people, who may or may not be bound together to practice and inform people not of the group of their common goal. For various reasons, it is worth mentioning, that, erroneously, a common goal might be assumed to be the same as a "shared goal". However, a common goal is not a shared goal, since the goal of an individual human is not a portion of a whole, but is completely, separately, and equally respectively part of the resources that one individual has and uses to satisfy it's basic needs. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and informal organisations. These rules govern all aspects of the voting process: when elections occur, who is allowed to vote, who can stand as a candidate, how ballots are marked and cast, how the ballots are counted, how votes translate into the election outcome, limits on campaign spending, and other factors that can affect the result. Political electoral systems are defined by constitutions and electoral laws, are typically conducted by election commissions, and can use multiple types of elections for different offices.

Some electoral systems elect a single winner to a unique position, such as prime minister, president or governor, while others elect multiple winners, such as members of parliament or boards of directors. When electing a legislature, areas may be divided into constituencies with one or more representatives or the electorate may elect representatives as a single unit. Voters may vote directly for an individual candidate or for a list of candidates put forward by a political party or alliance. There are many variations in electoral systems.

The mathematical and normative study of voting rules falls under the branches of economics called social choice and mechanism design, but the question has also engendered substantial contributions from political scientists, analytic philosophers, computer scientists, and mathematicians. The field has produced several major results, including Arrow's impossibility theorem (showing that ranked voting cannot eliminate the spoiler effect) and Gibbard's theorem (showing it is impossible to design a straightforward voting system, i.e. one where it is always obvious to a strategic voter which ballot they should cast).

The most common categorizations of electoral systems are: single-winner vs. multi-winner systems and proportional representation vs. winner-take-all systems vs. mixed systems.

In all cases, where only a single winner is to be elected, the electoral system is winner-take-all. The same can be said for elections where only one person is elected per district. Since district elections are winner-take-all, the electoral system as a whole produces dis-proportional results. Some systems where multiple winners are elected at once (in the same district), such a plurality block voting are also winner-take-all.

In party block voting, voters can only vote for the list of candidates of a single party, with the party receiving the most votes winning all seats, even if that party receives only a minority of votes. This is also described as winner-take-all. This is used in five countries as part of mixed systems.

Plurality voting is a system in which the candidate(s) with the largest number of votes wins, with no requirement to get a majority of votes. In cases where there is a single position to be filled, it is known as first-past-the-post. This is the second-most-common electoral system for national legislatures (after proportional representation). Altogether at least 58 countries use FPTP and single-member districts to elect all or some of the members of a national-level legislative chamber, the vast majority of which are current or former British colonies or U.S. territories. It is also the second-most-common system used for presidential elections, being used in 19 countries. The two-round system is the most common system used to elect a president.

In cases where there are multiple positions to be filled, most commonly in cases of multi-member constituencies, there are several types of plurality electoral systems. Under block voting (also known as multiple non-transferable vote or plurality-at-large), voters have as many votes as there are seats and can vote for any candidate, regardless of party, but give only one vote to each preferred candidate. The most-popular candidates are declared elected, whether they have a majority of votes or not and whether or not that result is proportional to the way votes were cast. Eight countries use this system.