Within majoritarian systems, one region’s winner wins it all and the loser - loses everything.
In countries using proportional electoral system, people vote for a party and its candidates’ list. Each party submits as many representatives as were the received votes – i.e. proportional thereto.
There are also mixed systems which have elements of majoritarianand proportional system.
Majoritarian electoral system
In majoritarian electoral system, elections are won by the candidate who receives the majority of voters in a constituency or nationwide. Majoritarian system allows voters to vote for a person and are influenced less by his party affiliation. [1] This system has two varieties. The first one is a simple majoritarian system with a relative majority, in which the one candidate who receives the most of votes in an electoral process wins, regardless of the number of candidates. A basic principle of the system is that the winner gets everything and the loser loses all. With this type MES it is possible for a winner to win 30-35% of the votes cast in the region, as long as each of the other candidates have less votes. This is applied in the U.S., UK and Canada.
The second option is majoritarian system of absolute majority where a requirement exists for a winning candidate to receive an absolute majority of the votes cast (50 + 1) in order to win elections. To achieve this result,it is possible a second round to be introduced in case the first round noone of all submitted candidates obtains an absolute majority. In this ESAM a candidate competes with all the other candidates simultaneously. To win the mandate, his results must be greater than the sum of the results of his opponents. In Bulgaria we have such in the case of presidential and mayors elections.
The main advantage of the majoritarian systems is:
That the majority vote has a strong personalization during the election campaign, voters are conducted mainly by the prestige of the election. Otherwisemajoritarian electoral system usually splits the national political system and stimulates the formation of local parties. Campaigns are focused on each region and voter seperately, making it more expensive and often deteriorate it in vote-buying. The impact on voters is total and includes canvassing door to door for everyone.
A serious drawback of this type of system is that it results in loss of votes. This loss comes from the fact that votes cast for particular candidate are lost. Contributed to the vote are only casted votes for the one candidate selected. Furthermore, not only casted votes for those failing to win are lost, but also votes for the candidate who wins, but had not been needed for victory. This loss of votes is a deviation from equal suffrage. Majority choice is that in the constituency the candidate who has netted the most votes wins, regardless which party appoints him/her.
Proportional electoral system
Proportional electoral system, designed to compensate the shortcomings of the majoritatian, was first appliedin Belgium in 1889. Under this system, the voting is for a party rather than for an individual candidate. Applicants are ranked by their parties in lists and the candidates entering parliament are those who are on the top of the list, according to the percentage of the votes cast for the party. This system is applied in different versions in different countries, but the most famous versions are two. In the first version of the system, a list is offered under which the parties arrange the listing of candidates and practically decide personally who will enter Parliament. There are also "flexible" options, where voters have the opportunity to rearrange the lists and to indicate which of the candidates to lead.
Proportional electoral system has certain very important advantages: it provides a better representation of the main social interests in parliament, preventing the emergence of political majorities in parliament who did not meet the real preferences among the electorate, it promotes the formation of parliamentary majorities through negotiations and it is built on compromise and consensus to overcome the danger of monopolization of political life by some big parties.
Main drawbacks of proportional electoral system is a breach of the relationship between voter and chosen candidates because of the mediation of political parties and party lists. It leads to excessive parliamentary fragmentation of space and complex formation of a Council of Ministers, which leads to unexpected coalitions. Methodologies for distribution of mandates are quite complex and difficult to understand for the average voter. Security of political representatives do not mobilize voters of weaker/smaller parties.
Mixed electoral system
Mixed electoral system were established after World War II. Their goal is to merge the advantages of Majoritarian electoral system and Proportional electoral system. It is used to select collective bodies only. Registering individual candidates and party lists. When voters vote for the candidate and lists. There are basically two types of Mixed electoral system, depending on the way the Majoritarian electoral system and Proportional electoral system are mixed.
Mechanically mixed Proportional electoral system and Majoritarian electoral system shall be applied in parallel. Such was the system of choice of Grand National Assembly in 1990. 200 out of 400 deputies were elected from single-mandate constituencies by majaritarian electoral system and other 200 - from 28 multimember constituencies (the current regional territorial division). The voter has two votes - one majority vote and one for a party list in multimember constituency.
When mixed functionally – the two methods are interlinked. An example for that is the electoral system for selecting the Bundestag in Germany. In certain provinces people vote for party lists and individual candidates of parties. Individual applicants vying for a majority victory (winning the one who has most of the votes), but the candidate is elected, if his party won enough mandates proportional vote. The German system is copied to the various options.
Mixed electoral systems are complex and poorly understood by voters who have to cast two votes: 1 majority, 1 for 1 party, etc.
This article is part of MOVE.BG`s programme in support of electoral reform "Elections: Direction future" " The publication of Handbook for electoral reform is coming in the end of October, but meantime check its page on Facebook.
See also:
Reference over electoral systems worldwide
