Systems of Voting around the World

    The first voting system, also the simplest system and popular, is Plurality voting, also known as First-past-the-post voting. This is the one you’re probably most familiar with, and it’s the easiest to understand. When you go to vote, you vote for one person of your choosing, and whoever gets the most votes wins the election. This system works great because it is extremely simple to understand, but it also means that candidates don’t need a majority to win the election. They only need more votes than the other candidates on the ballot.

    But if you want a system that requires a majority to get elected, the next system we have is called Two Round Voting, also called “Majority Voting”. Two Round Voting fixes the main problem with first-past-the-post by requiring a majority of votes to allow a candidate to win. If no candidate secures a majority in the initial vote, a runoff election is called to pick a winner between the top two candidates who received the most votes. Now, this does mean that the winner of the election will win with a majority of the voters backing, but it also means that you will have to vote twice.

    Alright, on to the third voting system. This one’s arguably the most controversial of all the systems I share with you today, but it’s also the most unique system I’ll be sharing today! I am talking about Instant-runoff voting, or Ranked Choice Voting. Instant-runoff voting is a system that allows voters to vote for the candidates in order of preference. This is what you will be asked to do on your ballot. If no candidate achieves a majority after all the votes are counted, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed to their second-choice candidates. The process repeats until there is a candidate with a majority of the votes.

    Let’s say that Instant-runoff is too complicated for you, and you want something that feels more like the usual. Well, I think I got what you’re looking for, say hello to Approval Voting. Instead of voting for one person, you can vote for as many people that you approve of, and whoever gets the most votes wins. It’s very similar to the First-past-the-post, and Two Round, but now you can vote for anyone on the ballot. When you get your ballot, you will simply be asked to vote for any candidate you like.

    These are all different ways of voting, but all of them achieve the same result. One winner. Now, there are systems of voting that produce multiple winners, but they aren’t very used, so I’ll go over them very quickly. The first system is called single-transferable vote. Single-transferable vote is like Instant-runoff voting, but instead of needing a majority to win, candidates need only a quota to pass to be elected. The quota is determined by this equation. For an example, if 500,000 people voted, and there are 4 seats available, candidates would need 100,001 votes to be elected. The way the voters vote is the exact same as Instant-runoff, vote for your favorite candidates in order of preference. Counting the votes counting the votes is where it changes, once a candidate reaches the quota, their excess votes are redistributed to their second choices until all the seats are filled up. And the second system is called the opposite, Single non-transferable vote. This system looks and functions the same as First-past-the-post, you vote for one candidate on the ballot, and whoever gets the most votes wins. The difference comes to who gets elected. The candidates with the most votes will fill the allocated seats. And finally, the last of the multi-winner systems, is known as Block voting, or Plurality-at-large voting. This system is nearly identical to Single non-transferable, but you can vote for anyone on the ballot, instead of just one. Counting the votes is identical to Single Non-transferable.

(I was gonna use this for a video, but I decided against it. So I'm putting it here)