A winner-take-all (or winner-takes-all)

electoral system An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...

is one where a

voting bloc A voting bloc is a group of voting, 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. ...

can win all seats in a

legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...

electoral district An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

, 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arise because something was named long before its correct nature was known, or because an earlier form of something has been replaced by a later form to which the nam ...

, as most such systems do not always elect majority preferred candidates and do not always produce winners who received majority of votes cast in the district, and they allow parties to take a majority of seats in the chamber with just 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 district A single-member district or constituency is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. In some countries, such as Australia and India ...

s 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 (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

, or such an extreme candidate can win even with just a plurality in the district, leaving the majority in the district unrepresented.

Definition and types

Formally, a

voting system An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...

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 (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

, such as

s (SMDs), or the election can be held using

block voting Block or bloc voting refers to a class of electoral systems where multiple candidates are elected simultaneously. They do not guarantee minority representation and allow a group of voters (a voting bloc) to ensure that only their preferred candi ...

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 tha ...

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 (typically employing Majoritarian representation, majoritarian electoral systems) to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing ...

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

electoral inversion Static population-monotonicity, also called concordance, says that a party with more votes should not receive a smaller apportionment of seats. Failures of concordance are often called electoral inversions or majority reversals. References ...

). The principle of

majoritarian democracy Majoritarian democracy is a form of democracy based upon a principle of majority rule. Majoritarian democracy contrasts with consensus democracy, rule by as many people as possible. Characteristics Arend Lijphart offers what is perhaps the do ...

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 In social choice theory, the majority rule (MR) is a social choice rule which says that, when comparing two options (such as bills or candidates), the option preferred by more than half of the voters (a ''majority'') should win. In political ...

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

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

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:

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2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

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

mixed electoral system A mixed electoral system is one that uses different Electoral system, electoral systems to elect different seats in a legislature. Most often, this involves a First Past the Post combined with a Proportional representation, proportional component ...

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 any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

, 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. Se ...

, 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 winner-take-all and proportional methods, where the disproportional results of the winner-take-all part are dominant over the ''proportional'' compon ...

(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.

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 tha ...

elections were substituted by many multi-member

and, finally, by single-winner

s. *

Cumulative voting Cumulative voting (sometimes called the single divisible vote) is an election system where a voter casts multiple votes but can lump votes on a specific candidate or can split their votes across multiple candidates. The candidates elected are tho ...

and the

single non-transferable vote Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote. Being a semi-proportional variant of first-past-the-post voting, under SNTV small parties, as well as large parties, have a chance t ...

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 continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and separately (for apportionment) in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

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

general ticket The general ticket or party block voting (PBV), is a type of block voting in which voters opt for a party or a team of candidates, and the highest-polling party/team becomes the winner and receives 100% of the seats for this multi-member distric ...

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 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 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 () is the upper house of Congress of the Philippines, Congress, the bicameral legislature of the Philippines, with the House of Representatives of the Philippines, House of Representatives as the lower house. The ...

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

non-partisan Nonpartisanship, also known as nonpartisanism, is a lack of affiliation with a political party and a lack of political bias. While an ''Oxford English Dictionary'' definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., ...

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

Electoral college An electoral college is a body whose task is to elect a candidate to a particular office. It is mostly used in the political context for a constitutional body that appoints the head of state or government, and sometimes the upper parliament ...

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. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

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

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

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

upper house An upper house is one of two Legislative chamber, chambers of a bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house. The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smaller and often has more restricted p ...

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

lower house A lower house is the lower chamber of a bicameral legislature, where the other chamber is the upper house. Although styled as "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or otherwise e ...

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 List of electoral systems by country 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 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