Talk:Electoral system

Ireland and Northern Ireland both use STV, yet have different scores on gallagher index, 2.22 for Ireland and 7.8 for Northern Ireland, so how they can be protional

Ireland 2020 GE, 160

Fianna Fail Vote share 22.2% Seat share 23.75 Seat won 38 160×22.2%=35 seats

Sinn Fein vote share 24.5% Seat share 23.125% Seat won 37 160×24.5=39 seats

Fine Gael Vote share 20.9% Seat share 21.875% Seats won 35 160×20.9%=33 seats

Northern ireland 2022 Assembly elections

Sinn Fein Vote share 29% Seat share 30% Seats won 27 90×29%=26 seat

DUP Vote share 21.3% Seat share 27.7% Seat won 25 90×21.3%=19 seats

Alliance Alliance Vote share 13.5 Seat share 18.8% Seat won 17 90×13.5=12 seats

jamestwice Jamestwice (talk) 10:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

They use districts of different sizes.

and the district magnitude and the way votes are split among districts helps set the Gallagher index. 68.150.205.46 (talk) 04:32, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

7.8 is high for PR but is close to GI 5, which is taken as goal of PR.

Non-PR systems produce GI in mid-teens, or worse, by comparison. 2604:3D09:887F:4680:9004:4756:EC0B:CECD (talk) 22:08, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Lots of people I talk to are basically convinced that electoral systems don't matter, mostly because of the big wave of recent studies showing ranked-choice voting has no effect on most outcomes of interest when compared to first-past-the-post. I'm pretty sure that's not the case when you look outside of the plurality-with-elimination family, and particularly when you look at proportional representation. This seems like a very important thing to talk about—I'd love to have more information on studies relating to the importance of electoral systems to outcomes like democratic backsliding, voter satisfaction, and overall stability. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:25, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

In the United States, ranked choice ballots have not yet been used to elect state legislators, or a meaningful number of members of Congress. When that happens laws and taxes are likely to be reformed. Then the economic advantages (reduced corruption, fewer unfair monopolies, fewer unfair tax subsidies, fewer unfair tax breaks, etc.) will become evident. In the meantime it's nearly impossible to research and yield evidence of these advantages. Remember the role of governors and presidents is to enforce the laws and taxes passed in legislatures. VoteFair (talk) 18:18, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not talking about effects on government policy. I doubt any study could show effects on that because reality is underpowered. I'm just referring to papers showing no difference on the results of elections—null effects on electoral competition, number of parties, or descriptive representation of groups like minorities and women. And in ~96% of cases where voting goes into multiple rounds, IRV and FPP line up. So, if it has no effect on the candidates who run, and no effect on which candidate wins, that's some pretty airtight evidence that there's no effect at all. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:17, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

(Note that I'm referring to the American political context, where my read on the literature is that IRV is basically reinventing the existing primary system, which already prevents spoilers from substantially affecting the results of an election.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:12, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

We cannot yet prove or disprove that a method "... has no effect on the candidates who run ..." because party politics is dominated by the worst vote-counting system within a nation. There will be a change in who enters elections when a full election system is well-designed, but so far no nation uses a well-designed vote-counting system. For example, the electoral college in the US constrains what can happen in Congressional elections; the ability of a parliament to trigger a new election through a vote of no confidence is linked to how ministers, including prime ministers, are selected, which affects parties, which limits the ability of a reform-minded candidate to get elected, which means reform-minded candidates do not enter politics; "open primaries" in the US do not yet use a well-chosen vote-counting method in the first/nomination round; etc. VoteFair (talk) 15:58, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Some people mean Instant-Runoff Voting when they say ranked choice voting.

IRV does elect the same as FPTP (assuming people vote the same).

Under IRV, most leaders in the first count go on to be elected even after vote transfers

so the result is not much different than under FPTP.

but ranked voting under STV -- where multiple winners are elected with each party taking seats at same ratio of votes per seats - means fairness. and a real difference from FPTP. 2604:3D09:887F:4680:9004:4756:EC0B:CECD (talk) 22:14, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Number 57, I wanted to ask for clarification regarding this diff: is it true that no candidate may have a majority? If I understand the passage correctly, it's describing the case in which the number of candidates remaining has been reduced to 2, so one of them must have a majority of the remaining votes (or there is an exact tie, which is an edge case resolved not by plurality but by, say, a coin flip). If you mean that it's possible that no candidate has the support of more than half the total number of voters (which could happen if enough voters did not use all of their rankings), that makes sense, but then I think the wording overall could be improved. And to that point, I may also be misunderstanding the passage, which is why I figured it's best to discuss here. Astrophobe (talk) 15:36, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

I suppose it's a classic 'it depends'; I'm pretty sure I've seen cases of electoral authorities including the exhausted ballots in the total, meaning the winner may not have a majority. However, I think in most cases you're right, so I've restored. It would be good to get some sourcing the this though. Number 57 20:38, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Although having said that, there is the point that some also consider it not to be a majority if it is not a majority of the total votes cast including those that have been exhausted – see Ballot (and voter) “exhaustion” under Instant Runoff Voting: An examination of four ranked-choice elections, which states "IRV does not ensure that the winning candidate will have received a majority of all votes cast, only a majority of all valid votes in the final round of tallying. Thus, it is possible that the winning candidate will fall short of an actual majority when a substantial number of ballots are eliminated, or “exhausted,” during the vote redistribution process." and "While FairVote.org claims that IRV produces a winner who “is considered at least acceptable to a true majority”, our research shows that the “true majority” in these elections may often be a plurality of all votes cast". Number 57 20:46, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

FPTP countries more common than 58 but only if you include those countries who elect even just some of its members.

Wiki "List of electoral systems by country" shows 63 countries using FPTP to elect all or some of at least one of a country's legislative chambers. (I know Wikipedia is not a source to cite in other Wikipedia articles but still I assume it is correct) 31 have a chamber where all members are elected by FPTP. 32 have a chamber where only some of the members are elected by FPTP.

The figure of 58 therefore is both low for all/partial FPTP, and high if referring to countries where a full chamber is elected through FPTP, and of course too, too high if reader assumes that a country among the 58 only uses FPTP to elect its legislators. (Often one chamber is elected by FPTP partially or fully, while the other chamber (usually there are two chambers) is almost always elected by a non-FPTP system.) 2604:3D09:887F:4680:9004:4756:EC0B:CECD (talk) 22:25, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I thought I had heard of another method for electing multiple representatives, but I can't find it discussed here. The idea is that if a region has N representatives (N>1), then each voter gets N votes to be distributed however they wish. They could cast N votes for a single candidate, or 1 vote each for N candidates, or anything in between. Has such a system been proposed? If so, does it have a name? Mcswell (talk) 02:56, 14 November 2025 (UTC)