each other. Americans hold more frequent elections at all level of government for more offices than any other nation and the number of participating electorates increases steadily over time (O 'Connor, Sabato, Yanus 359). Many European countries use Single
Transferable vote system; a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation that apportions legislative seats according to the percentage of votes a political party receives. Unlike most European countries, the United states has a singlemember, plurality electoral system, often referred to as the winnertakeall system, or a system in which the party that receives one more vote than any other part
wins the election (O 'Connor, Sabato, Yanus 349). This U.S electoral system is also referred to as the unit rule allocation of electors.
A major difference between these systems is that the European system have significant nationalist regional parties represented in their legislatures while the United States has two major parties; Democratic and Republican.
I prefer the European representation system to the U.S electoral system because; ● It is more democratic, it response more to desires and opinions of the people.
Faithfully translate votes cast into seats won, and thus avoid some of the more
‘unfair’ results thrown up by plurality/winnertakeall electoral systems.
● It gives everyone a chance. The winnertakeall system is a very huge barrier to minorparties success. That is, minor parties will find it easier to win more popular votes, if they have more dedicated volunteers.
● Give rise to very few wasted votes.
In response to this U.S electoral system, candidates for offices are often divided and this leads to Polarization. This might lead to conflict between Republicans and
Democrats in congress. For example conflict between president George W. Bush and
Senator John Kerry during 2004 presidential elections. To conclude, the U.S electoral system has a very massive advantage over the representative system in that, candidates with more popular votes easily gets the required 270 election votes from the Electoral College.
WorkCited
O 'Connor, Karen, Larry J. Sabato, and Alixandra B. Yanus. American
Government:
Roots and Reform, 2012 Election Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2014. Print.