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Wasted Vote
In electoral systems, a wasted vote is any vote which is not for an elected candidate or, more broadly, a vote that does not help to elect a candidate. The narrower meaning includes ''lost votes'', being only those votes which are for a losing candidate or party. The broader definition of wasted votes includes ''excess votes'', namely votes for winning candidates in excess of the minimum needed to win. Wasted votes and efficiency gap are defined pp. 850–852. In plurality systems, wasted votes are the basis of the ''efficiency gap'' measure, where the shape of electoral districts (or the existence of them) can be quantified to show just how imperfect such a system is at allocating voter preferences. The efficiency gap has been called the most scrutinized method of measuring gerrymandering. Ranked voting almost always reduces wasted votes in plurality systems by offering multiple chances for a vote to count towards a winner, where exhausted ballots include only the ballots where all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electoral System
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, non-profit organisations 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 me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Two-round System
The two-round system (TRS), also known as runoff voting, second ballot, or ballotage, is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. It generally ensures a majoritarian result, not a simple plurality result as under First past the post. Under the two-round election system, the election process usually proceeds to a second round only if in the first round no candidate received a simple majority (more than 50%) of votes cast, or some other lower prescribed percentage. Under the two-round system, usually only the two candidates who received the most votes in the first round, or only those candidates who received above a prescribed proportion of the votes, are candidates in the second round. Other candidates are excluded from the second round. The two-round system is widely used in the election of legislative bodies and directly elected presidents, as well as in other contexts, such as in the election of politi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brennan Center For Justice
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is a nonprofit law and public policy institute. The organization is named after Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Generally considered liberal, the Brennan Center advocates for a number of progressive public policy positions, including raising the minimum wage, opposing restrictive voter ID laws, and calling for public funding of elections. The organization opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in ''Citizens United v. FEC'', which held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by nonprofits. The organization's stated mission is to "work to hold our political institutions and laws accountable to the twin American ideals of democracy and equal justice for all." Its president is Michael Waldman, former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton. History and mission The Brennan Center for Justice was founded in 1995 by the family and form ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spoilt Vote
In voting, a ballot is considered spoilt, spoiled, void, null, informal, invalid or stray if a law declares or an election authority determines that it is invalid and thus not included in the vote count. This may occur accidentally or deliberately. The total number of spoilt votes in a United States election has been called the residual vote. In Australia, such votes are generally referred to as informal votes, and in Canada they are referred to as rejected votes. In some jurisdictions spoilt votes are counted and reported. Types of spoilt vote A ballot may be spoilt in a number of ways, including: * Failing to mark the ballot at all ( blank vote), or otherwise defacing the ballot instead of attempting to vote. * Filling out the ballot in a manner that is incompatible with the voting system being used, e.g.: ** Marking more choices than permitted (overvoting), or fewer than necessary ( undervoting). ** Filling a preference ballot out of sequence, e.g. 1-2-2-3-4 or 1-2-4-5-6, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Efficiency Gap
The efficiency gap is a measure devised by University of Chicago law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos and political scientist Eric McGhee in 2014. This statistic has been used to quantitatively assess the effect of gerrymandering, the assigning of voters to electoral districts in such a way as to increase the number of districts won by one political party at the expense of another. It has been called the most scrutinized method of measuring gerrymandering. The heart of the computation is to add up, over all electoral districts, the wasted votes of each party's candidates. The efficiency gap is the difference between the two parties' wasted votes, divided by the total number of votes. Wasted votes and efficiency gap are defined pp. 850–852. Stephanopoulos and McGhee argued that in a non-partisan redistricting with two roughly equally popular parties, the efficiency gap would be zero, with an equal number of wasted votes from either party. An efficiency gap above 7% or below -7% ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unrepresented Vote
The unrepresented voters are considered the total amount of voters not represented by any party sitting in the legislature in the case of proportional representation. In contrast, the related concept of wasted votes generally applies to plurality voting, which generally has a higher percentage of wasted votes. The unrepresented voters are calculated as:v_=\sum_^nv_i where v_i is the vote share of unrepresented party i and n is the overall number of unrepresented parties. The unrepresented voters can be given as a percentage of the total amount of votes or as the absolute number of votes. The unrepresented voters increases with a higher electoral threshold, one of the ways to reduce political fragmentation. Even with no explicit electoral threshold, the natural electoral threshold applies. On occasion, unrepresented voters have resulted in a party winning an outright majority of seats without winning an outright majority of votes, the sort of outcome that a proportional voting syste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electoral College (United States)
The United States Electoral College is the group of presidential electors required by the Constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of appointing the president and vice president. Each state and the District of Columbia appoints electors pursuant to the methods described by its legislature, equal in number to its congressional delegation (representatives and senators). Federal office holders, including senators and representatives, cannot be electors. Of the current 538 electors, an absolute majority of 270 or more ''electoral votes'' is required to elect the president and vice president. If no candidate achieves an absolute majority there, a contingent election is held by the United States House of Representatives to elect the president, and by the United States Senate to elect the vice president. The states and the District of Columbia hold a statewide or districtwide popular vote on Election Day in November to choose electors based upon how the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constituency
An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity) created to provide its population with representation in the larger state's legislative body. That body, or the state's constitution or a body established for that purpose, determines each district's boundaries and whether each will be represented by a single member or multiple members. Generally, only voters (''constituents'') who reside within the district are permitted to vote in an election held there. District representatives may be elected by a first-past-the-post system, a proportional representative system, or another voting method. They may be selected by a direct election under universal suffrage, an indirect election, or another form of suffrage. Terminology The names for electoral districts vary across countries an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D'Hondt Method
The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest-averages methods. The method was first described in 1792 by future U.S. president Thomas Jefferson. It was re-invented independently in 1878 by Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt, which is the reason for its two different names. Motivation Proportional representation systems aim to allocate seats to parties approximately in proportion to the number of votes received. For example, if a party wins one-third of the votes then it should gain about one-third of the seats. In general, exact proportionality is not possible because these divisions produce fractional numbers of seats. As a result, several methods, of which the D'Hondt method is one, have been devised which ensure that the parties' seat allocations, which are of whole numb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plurality Voting System
Plurality voting refers to electoral systems in which a candidate, or candidates, who poll more than any other counterpart (that is, receive a plurality), are elected. In systems based on single-member districts, it elects just one member per district and may also be referred to as first-past-the-post (FPTP), single-member plurality (SMP/SMDP), single-choice voting (an imprecise term as non-plurality voting systems may also use a single choice), simple plurality or relative majority (as opposed to an ''absolute majorit''y, where more than half of votes is needed, this is called ''majority voting''). A system which elects multiple winners elected at once with the plurality rule, such as one based on multi-seat districts, is referred to as plurality block voting. Plurality voting is distinguished from ''majority voting'', in which a winning candidate must receive an absolute majority of votes: more than half of all votes (more than all other candidates combined if each voter has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tactical Voting
Strategic voting, also called tactical voting, sophisticated voting or insincere voting, occurs in voting systems when a voter votes for another candidate or party than their ''sincere preference'' to prevent an undesirable outcome. For example, in a simple plurality election, a voter might gain a better outcome by voting for a less preferred but more generally popular candidate. Gibbard's theorem shows that ''all'' single-winner voting methods are susceptible to strategic voting, unless there are only two options or ''dictatorial'' (i.e., a distinguished agent exists who can impose the outcome). For multi-winner elections no general theorem for strategic voting exists. Strategic voting is observed due to non-proportionality, electoral thresholds and quotas. Types of strategic voting ; (sometimes "useful vote"): A voter insincerely ranks an alternative higher in the hope of getting that candidate elected. For example, in the first-past-the-post election, voters may vote fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
