A winner-take-all

electoral system An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and Referendum, referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political ...

is one where a

voting bloc A voting bloc is a group of voters that are strongly motivated by a specific common concern or group of concerns to the point that such specific concerns tend to dominate their voting patterns, causing them to vote together in elections. For example ...

can win all seats in a

legislature A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its p ...

electoral district 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 ...

, denying representation to any political minorities. Such systems are used in many major democracies. Such systems are sometimes called "majoritarian representation", though this term is a

misnomer A misnomer is a name that is incorrectly or unsuitably applied. Misnomers often arise because something was named long before its correct nature was known, or because an earlier form of something has been replaced by a later form to which the name ...

, as most such systems do not always elect majority preferred candidates and can allow parties to take a majority of seats with a minority of the vote. Any election with only a single seat is a winner-take-all system (as it is impossible for the winner to take less than one seat). As a result, legislatures elected by

single-member districts A single-member district is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. Single-member districts are also sometimes called single-winner vot ...

are often described as using "winner-take-all". However, winner-take-all systems do not necessarily mean the majority of voters are represented properly. A minority of voters across the country may take all the seats; a minority of votes cast in a district may elect all the winners in a district. Conversely, a party with just a sliver of votes in a country-wide sense may have local dominance and take a seat in a particular

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 (polity), state (a country, administrative region, ...

Definition and types

Formally, a

voting 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 ma ...

is called winner-take-all if a majority of voters, by coordinating, can ''force'' all seats up for election in their district, denying representation to all minorities. By definition, all single-winner voting systems are winner-take-all. For multi-winner elections, the electorate can be divided into

constituencies 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 ...

, such as

(SMDs), or the election can be held using

block voting Block voting or bloc voting refers to electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected at once and a group (voting bloc) of voters can force the system to elect only their preferred candidates. Block voting may be used at large (in a si ...

with

at-large At large (''before a noun'': at-large) is a description for members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent a whole membership or population (notably a city, county, state, province, nation, club or association), rather than ...

or multi-member districts. Majoritarian representation does not mean the party with a plurality or majority always receive a majority of seats, which is not always guaranteed (see

hung parliament A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisl ...

). Sometimes the party receiving the most votes gets fewer seats than the party with the second most votes (see

electoral inversion An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...

). The principle of

majoritarian democracy Majoritarian democracy is a form of democracy based upon majority rule of a polity's citizens. Majoritarian democracy contrasts with consensus democracy, rule by as many people as possible. Characteristics In the majoritarian vision of democrac ...

does not necessarily imply that a winner-take-all electoral system needs to be used, in fact, using proportional systems to elect legislature usually better serve this principle as such aims to ensures that the legislature accurately reflects the whole population, not just the winners of the election and the

majority rule Majority rule is a principle that means the decision-making power belongs to the group that has the most members. In politics, majority rule requires the deciding vote to have majority, that is, more than half the votes. It is the binary deci ...

is then used within the legislature. The most widely accepted modern views of

representative democracy Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represen ...

no longer consider winner-take-all representation to be democratic. For this reason, nowadays winner-take-all representation is most often used in single-winner districts, which allows nationwide minorities to gain representation if they make up a plurality or majority in at least one district, but some also consider this anti-democratic because of the possibility of an electoral inversion (like in the case of some US presidential elections:

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

). Winner-take-all and proportional systems are the most commonly used voting system worldwide, followed by

mixed electoral system A mixed electoral system or mixed-member electoral system combines methods of majoritarian representation, majoritarian and proportional representation (PR). The majoritarian component is usually first-past-the-post voting (FPTP/SMP), whereas the ...

s, which usually combine winner-take-all and proportional representation, although there are mixed system that combine two winner-take-all systems as well. Winner-take-all representation is also contrasted with

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

, which provides for representation of political minorities according to their share of the popular vote and

semi-proportional representation Semi-proportional representation characterizes multi-winner electoral systems which allow representation of minorities, but are not intended to reflect the strength of the competing political forces in close proportion to the votes they receive. S ...

, which inherently provides for some representation of minorities (at least above a certain threshold). Within mixed systems,

mixed-member majoritarian representation Mixed member majoritarian representation (MMM) is type of a mixed electoral system combining majoritarian and proportional methods, where the disproportional results of the ''majoritarian'' side of the system prevail over the ''proportional'' ...

(also known as parallel voting) provides semi-proportional representation, as opposed to mixed-member proportional systems.

At-large winner-take-all representation

Historically the first multi-winner electoral systems were winner-take-all elections held at-large, or more generally the

multiple non-transferable vote The multiple non-transferable vote (MNTV) is a group of voting system, in which voters elect several representatives at once, with each voter having more than one vote. MNTV uses multi-member electoral districts or only one district, which conta ...

Decline

Until the first half of the 19th century, the classic winner-take-all system of

began to be more and more criticized. This introduced in two senses: * a first possibility was to reduce the size of the constituencies, so to divide the election in many local contests, and consequently increase the possibility for the minority to win in some areas.

At-large At large (''before a noun'': at-large) is a description for members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent a whole membership or population (notably a city, county, state, province, nation, club or association), rather than ...

elections were substituted by many multi-member

and, finally, by single-winner

s. *

Cumulative voting Cumulative voting (also accumulation voting, weighted voting or multi-voting) is a multiple-winner method intended to promote more proportional representation than winner-take-all elections such as block voting or first past the post. Cumulative ...

and the

single non-transferable vote Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an electoral system used to elect multiple winners. It is a generalization of first-past-the-post, applied to multi-member districts with each voter casting just one vote. Unlike FPTP, which is a single-winn ...

were introduced to allow minorities to have some representation, creating the first semiproportional systems. By allowing minority groups to concentrate their votes on a few candidates, such systems ended the winner-take-all nature of the * Eventually,

methods were developed in both

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and separately (for

apportionment The legal term apportionment (french: apportionement; Mediaeval Latin: , derived from la, portio, share), also called delimitation, is in general the distribution or allotment of proper shares, though may have different meanings in different c ...

) in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

The version of block voting using electoral lists instead of individual candidates (

general ticket The general ticket, also known as party block voting (PBV) or ticket voting, is a type of block voting in which voters opt for a party, or a team's set list of candidates, and the highest-polling party/team becomes the winner. Unless specifically ...

or ''party block voting'') was almost completely replaced by party-list proportional voting systems, which fully abandon the winner-take-all ideal in favor of equal representation. However, with the

majority bonus The majority bonus system (MBS) is a form of semi-proportional representation used in some European countries. Its feature is a majority bonus which gives extra seats or representation in an elected body to the party or to the joined parties with ...

or ''majority jackpot'' types of mixed system, this type of winner-take-most system has partially reappeared in certain electoral systems.

Winner-take-all districts

Winner-take-all representation using single-winner districts is the most common form of pure winner-take-all systems today, with the most common being single-member plurality (SMP). However, due to high disproportionalities, it is also considered undemocratic by many. In Europe only Belarus and the United Kingdom use FPTP/SMP to elect the primary (lower) chamber of their legislature and France uses a two-round system (TRS). All other European countries either use proportional representation or use winner-take-all representation as part of a mixed-member winner-take-all system (Andorra, Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine) or a

mixed-member proportional Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...

system (Germany). However, other European countries also occasionally use winner-take-all systems (apart from single-winner elections, like presidential or mayoral elections) for elections to the secondary chamber (upper house) of their legislature (Poland) and sub-national (local and regional) elections. Winner-take-all system are much more common outside Europe, particularly in the countries of the former British Empire, like Australia (IRV), Bangladesh, Canada, Egypt, India, Pakistan and the United States (FPTP/SMP). Nowadays,

winner-take-all representation is used for national elections only in the

Senate of the Philippines The Senate of the Philippines (Filipino: ''Senado ng Pilipinas'', also ''Mataas na Kapulungan ng Pilipinas'' or "upper chamber") is the upper house of Congress of the bicameral legislature of the Philippines with the House of Representatives as ...

, while it is sometimes still used for local elections organised on

non-partisan Nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with, and a lack of bias towards, a political party. While an Oxford English Dictionary definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers sp ...

bases. Residual usage in several multi-member constituencies is reduced to the election of the Electoral college of the

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

. Block voting is also used to elect a part of the assemblies in the regional elections in

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and

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Countries using winner-take-all rules

Below is a table of winner-take-all systems currently used on a national level. Single-winner elections (presidential elections) and mixed systems are not included, see

List of electoral systems by country This is a list of electoral systems by country in alphabetical order. An electoral system is used to elect national legislatures and heads of state. Maps Electoral systems by country Key Type of system type of representation: single win ...

for full list of electoral systems. Key: * Legislative body **Light blue background indicates

upper house An upper house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house.''Bicameralism'' (1997) by George Tsebelis The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smalle ...

s of bicameral legislatures, in countries where such a chamber exists, the (usually more important)

lower house A lower house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has co ...

might be elected with a winner-take-all system as well (in which case it is also in the list) or in might be elected with a different system, in which case (the lower house) is not included in the list. See

for full list of electoral systems. ** Light turquoise background indicates an electoral college elected by a winner-take-all system, instead of a chamber of legislature. *Latest election (year), in most cases this election was held under the electoral system indicated, however if the next election is already scheduled to be held under a different system, the new system is indicated and the former system is listed under Notes. *Type of winner-take-all system may be **''block voting at-large'' **''block voting via multi-member districts'' or coexistence of multi-member districts and single-winner districts **''single-winner districts'' **or ''varies by state'' if different states may set their own system in

federal Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

countries *Constituencies indicates if the electoral districts are equivalent to or based on other administrative divisions of the country

Current use

Former use

Countries that replaced winner-take-all representation before 1990 are not (yet) included.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Block voting
Electoral systems Non-proportional multi-winner electoral systems