Compare And Contrast Of Single Member District Plurality Against Alternative Vote Electoral SystemLEARNING OBJECTIVE 3
Hisham Alkhunayn
Dr. Debra Holzhauer
PS104
How the Member District Plurality has deficiencies when compared to Alternative Vote Electoral system The Single Member District Plurality system in definition is very simple. In a democracy there are several parties that want to represent the country. So for the election a representative of these parties become the face of their party and they campaign heavily. Then the citizen of the country vote for one of the candidates. The candidate that has the maximum number of votes wins the election and comes to power. It is simple till this part, but then there is the issue with the number of people who did not vote for the winning candidate. Since there are several candidates, the votes got distributed between all of them and if add up the votes for everyone excepting that of the winning candidate, we would see that majority of the voters did not vote for him. So when this person comes to power, it becomes a minority rule which is against the spirit of democracy. Then there is the alternative vote Electoral system. Here instead of voting for just one person, the votes can fill out a ballot sheet where they can mark the participating candidates in order of preference. In the previous method, the voters often vote against the person they don’t want to see in power, so rarely the person or party they support comes to power. In this one, because of the preference list, their choices get better represented. Often in the former system many voters remain unsatisfied with the result. Election after election they see that their candidate of choice remains unelected. These are usually the people who support extremist candidates. However with the alternative vote electoral system, even if their first choice doesn’t come to power, their second or third choice might. A problem with the first system is that it often gets reduced to a two party election. There are some parties and their candidates that are more popular than the others.
Dr. Debra Holzhauer
PS104
How the Member District Plurality has deficiencies when compared to Alternative Vote Electoral system The Single Member District Plurality system in definition is very simple. In a democracy there are several parties that want to represent the country. So for the election a representative of these parties become the face of their party and they campaign heavily. Then the citizen of the country vote for one of the candidates. The candidate that has the maximum number of votes wins the election and comes to power. It is simple till this part, but then there is the issue with the number of people who did not vote for the winning candidate. Since there are several candidates, the votes got distributed between all of them and if add up the votes for everyone excepting that of the winning candidate, we would see that majority of the voters did not vote for him. So when this person comes to power, it becomes a minority rule which is against the spirit of democracy. Then there is the alternative vote Electoral system. Here instead of voting for just one person, the votes can fill out a ballot sheet where they can mark the participating candidates in order of preference. In the previous method, the voters often vote against the person they don’t want to see in power, so rarely the person or party they support comes to power. In this one, because of the preference list, their choices get better represented. Often in the former system many voters remain unsatisfied with the result. Election after election they see that their candidate of choice remains unelected. These are usually the people who support extremist candidates. However with the alternative vote electoral system, even if their first choice doesn’t come to power, their second or third choice might. A problem with the first system is that it often gets reduced to a two party election. There are some parties and their candidates that are more popular than the others.