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For other types of Run-off voting systems, see Run-off voting.
Electoral methods
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The exhaustive ballot is a voting system used to elect a single winner. The plurality voting system is a Single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member The two-round system (also known as the second ballot or runoff voting) is a Voting system used to elect a single winner This article is about voting systems that use ranked ballots For alternative meanings see Preferential voting (disambiguation. The Condorcet candidate or Condorcet winner of an Election is the candidate who when compared with every other candidate is preferred by more voters A Condorcet method is any single-winner election method that meets the Condorcet criterion, that is which always selects the Condorcet winner, the candidate Copeland's method is a Condorcet method in which the winner is determined by finding the candidate with the most pairwise victories The Kemeny-Young method is a Voting system that uses Preferential ballots Pairwise comparison counts and sequence scores to identify the Minimax is often considered to be the simplest of the Condorcet methods It is also known as the Simpson-Kramer method, and the successive reversal method The Borda count can be combined with an Instant Runoff procedure to create hybrid election methods that are called Nanson method and Baldwin method. Ranked Pairs (RP or Tideman (named after its developer Nicolaus Tideman) is a Voting method that selects a single winner using votes that express The Schulze method is a Voting system developed in 1997 by Markus Schulze that selects a single winner using votes that express preferences. Bucklin voting is the name of a Voting system that can be used for single-member and multi-member districts. The Coombs' method, also called the Coombs rule is a Voting system created by Clyde Coombs used for single-winner Elections in which Instant-runoff voting ( IRV) is a Voting system used for single-winner elections in which voters have one vote and rank Candidates in order of The Borda count is a single-winner election method in which voters rank candidates in order of preference Approval voting is a single-winner voting system used for Elections Each voter may vote for (approve of as many of the candidates as they wish Range voting (also called ratings summation, average voting, cardinal ratings, score voting, 0–99 voting, or the score A voting system allows voters to choose between options often in an Election where candidates are selected for public office. Proportional representation (sometimes referred to as full representation or PR is a category of electoral formula aiming at a close match between the percentage of votes Cumulative voting (also accumulation voting or weighted voting) is a multiple-winner Voting system intended to promote Proportional representation Mixed member proportional representation, also termed mixed-member proportional voting and commonly abbreviated to MMP, is an ' additional member ' Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of Voting systems used in multiple-winner Elections (e Open list describes any variant of Party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected Closed list describes the variant of Party-list proportional representation where voters can (effectively only vote for political parties as a whole and thus The D'Hondt method (mathematically but not operationally equivalent to Jefferson's method, and Bader-Ofer method) is a Highest averages method for The highest averages method is one way of allocating seats proportionally for representative assemblies with party list Voting systems. The largest remainder method is one way of allocating seats proportionally for representative assemblies with party list Voting systems. The Sainte-Laguë method of the highest average (equivalent to Webster's method or divisor method with standard rounding is one way of allocating seats proportionally for Single transferable vote (STV is a preferential Voting system designed to minimize Wasted votes and provide Proportional representation The Quota Borda System or Quota Preference Score is a Voting system that was devised by the British philosopher Michael Dummett and first published in 1984 in his The matrix vote can be used when one group of people wishes to elect a smaller number of persons each of whom is to have a different assignment The Additional Member System (AMS is a branch of Voting systems in which some representatives are elected from geographic constituencies and others are elected under Parallel voting describes a mixed Voting system where voters in effect participate in two separate elections using different systems and where the results in one election have Cumulative voting (also accumulation voting or weighted voting) is a multiple-winner Voting system intended to promote Proportional representation The single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an Electoral system used in multi-member constituency elections Limited voting is a Voting system in which electors have fewer votes than there are positions available Sortition, also known as allotment, is an equal-chance method of selection by some form of lottery such as drawing coloured pebbles from a bag A voting system allows voters to choose between options often in an Election where candidates are selected for public office. Under the exhaustive ballot the voter simply casts a single vote for his or her favorite candidate. However if no candidate receives an absolute majority of votes then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and a further round of voting occurs. This process is repeated for as many rounds as necessary until one candidate has a majority.

The exhaustive ballot is similar to the two round system, but differs from it in that the two round system involves only two rounds of voting, whereas in the exhaustive ballot there are often several. The two-round system (also known as the second ballot or runoff voting) is a Voting system used to elect a single winner Because voters may have to cast votes several times, the exhaustive ballot is not used in large-scale public elections. Instead it is usually used in elections involving, at most, a few hundred voters, such as the election of the presiding officer of an assembly. The exhaustive ballot is currently used, in different forms, to elect the President of the European Parliament, the speakers of the Canadian and (in future) British Houses of Commons, the various party nominees for President of the United States, and the host city of the Olympic Games. The President of the European Parliament presides over the debates and activities of the European Parliament. The term speaker is a title often given to the presiding officer of a legislative body Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The House of Commons is the name of the elected Lower house of the Bicameral Parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. The President of the United States is the Head of state and Head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in United States by The Olympic Games is an international Multi-sport event established for both summer and winter games

Contents

Voting and counting

An example of a ballot paper.
An example of a ballot paper.

In each round of an exhaustive ballot the voter simply marks an 'x' beside his or her favourite candidate. If no candidate has an absolute majority of votes (i. e. more than half) in the first round, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated while all other candidates advance to a second round. If there is still no candidate with a majority then the candidate with fewest votes is again eliminated there is a third round. The process repeats itself for as many rounds as are necessary for one candidate achieve a majority. If necessary the election will continue until only two candidates remain. When this occurs one of the two must achieve an absolute majority. From one round to another, the voter is entirely free to change the candidate he or she votes for, even if his or her preferred candidate has not yet been eliminated but he or she has merely changed his or her mind.

Variations

Examples

Example I

Imagine an election to choose which food to eat for dessert. There are 25 people having dessert and four candidates: Ice Cream, Apple Pie, Fruit and Celery. An exhaustive ballot is held to find the winner.

Round 1: In the first round of voting each diner votes for the one candidate they most prefer. The results are as follows:

Round 2: No candidate has an absolute majority of votes (in this election that would be 13), so Celery, which has the fewest votes, is eliminated. The three remaining candidates proceed to the second round. The Celery supporter is health conscious, so now gives his vote to Fruit rather than either of the other two candidates. None of the other diners choose to change their votes. So in the second round the votes cast are:

Round 3: There is still no candidate with a majority so Apple Pie, who is now the candidate with least votes, is eliminated. Apple Pie supporters now split into two groups. 2 prefer Ice Cream but 4 vote for Fruit. So the final result is:

Result: Fruit now has an absolute majority so is declared the winner.

Example II

Tennessee's four cities are spread throughout the state

Imagine that the population of Tennessee, a state in the United States, is voting on the location of its capital. Tennessee ( is a state located in the Southern United States. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The population of Tennessee is concentrated around its four major cities, which are spread throughout the state. For this example, suppose that the entire electorate live in one of these four cities, and that they would like the capital to be established as close to their city as possible.

The candidates for the capital are:

Round 1: In the first round of voting the results will be as follows:

Round 2: No candidate has an absolute majority in the first round (this would be greater than 50%), so Chattanooga, who has the fewest votes, is eliminated and the remaining three candidates proceed to Round 2. Memphis is a City in the southwest corner of Tennessee, and the County seat of Shelby County. In this round the Chattanooga supporters vote instead for Knoxville, the next nearest city to their own. None of the other voters need change their votes. The results are therefore:

Round 3: Nashville is now eliminated, so that only two candidates remain for the final round. The Nashville supporters change their vote to Knoxville, the next nearest city to their own. The result of the third round is therefore:

Result: After round three Knoxville has an absolute majority so is the winner.

Use in practice

Other runoff systems

The two round system

As noted above the exhaustive ballot is similar to the two round system. The two-round system (also known as the second ballot or runoff voting) is a Voting system used to elect a single winner However under the two round system if no candidate achieves an absolute majority in the first round then, rather than just a single candidate being eliminated, all candidates are immediately excluded except the two with the most votes. There is then a second and final round. Because, at most, it requires voters to return to the polls only once, the two-round system is considered more practical for large public elections than the exhaustive ballot, and is used in many countries for the election of presidents and legislative bodies. However the two systems often produce different winners. This is because, under the two-round system, a candidate may be eliminated in the first round who would have gone on to win the contest if they had been permitted to survive to the second round. In Example I above the winner would not have changed if the two rounds system had been used instead of the exhaustive ballot. However in Example II the two round system would have elected Nashville instead of Knoxville.

Primary two round system

A nonpartisan primary election system is a variation of the two round system which holds a pre-election, and allows the top two candidates to pass to the generation election. A primary election ( nominating primary) also referred to simply as a primary, is an election in which voters in a Jurisdiction select candidates The two-round system (also known as the second ballot or runoff voting) is a Voting system used to elect a single winner It differs from the two round system because the first election isn't allowed to pick a winner.

Instant-runoff voting

In some respects the exhaustive ballot closely resembles instant-runoff voting (also known as the 'Alternative Vote'). Instant-runoff voting ( IRV) is a Voting system used for single-winner elections in which voters have one vote and rank Candidates in order of Under both systems if no candidate has an absolute majority in the first round then there are further rounds, with the candidate with the fewest votes being eliminated after each round. However while under the exhaustive ballot each round involves voters returning to cast a new vote, under instant-runoff (IRV) voters vote only once. This is possible because, rather than voting for only a single candidate, the voter ranks all of the candidates in order of preference. These preferences are then used to 'transfer' the votes of those whose first preference has been eliminated during the course of the count.

Because the exhaustive ballot involves separate rounds of voting, voters can use the results of one round to inform how they will vote in the next, whereas this is not possible under IRV. Furthermore, because it is necessary to vote only once, IRV has been used for large-scale elections in many places.

Tactical voting

Like instant-runoff voting, the exhaustive ballot is intended to improve upon the simpler 'first past the post' (plurality) system by reducing the potential for tactical voting by avoiding 'wasted' votes. The plurality voting system is a Single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member In Voting systems tactical voting (or strategic voting or sophisticated voting) occurs when a voter supports a candidate other than his or her Under the plurality system, which involves only one round, voters are encouraged to vote tactically by voting for only one of the two leading candidates, because a vote for any other candidate will not affect the result. Under the exhaustive ballot this tactic, known as 'compromising', is sometimes unnecessary because, even if the voter's first choice is unlikely to be elected, she will still have the opportunity to influence the outcome of the election by voting for more popular candidates once her favourite has been eliminated. However the exhaustive ballot is still vulnerable to tactical voting under some circumstance. Because of the similarity between the two systems it is open to the same forms of tactical voting as IRV.

Although the exhaustive ballot is designed to avoid 'compromising' the tactic is still effective in some elections. Compromising is where a voter votes for a certain candidate, not because they necessarily support them, but as a way of avoiding the election of a candidate who they dislike even more. The compromising tactic is sometimes effective because the exhaustive ballot eliminates candidates who are unpopular in early rounds, who might have had sufficient support to win the election had they survived a little longer. This can create strong incentives for voters to vote tactically.

Like IRV, the exhaustive ballot is also vulnerable to the tactic of 'push over'. 'Push over' is a tactic by which voters vote tactically for an unpopular 'push over' candidate in one round as a way of helping their true favourite candidate win in a later round. The purpose of voting for the 'push over' is to ensure that it is this weak candidate, rather than a stronger rival, who remains to challenge a voter's preferred candidate in later rounds. By supporting a 'push over' candidate it is hoped to eliminate a stronger candidate who might have gone on to win the election. The 'push over' tactic requires voters to be able to reliably predict how others will vote. It runs the risk of backfiring, because if the tactical voter miscalculates then the candidate intended as a 'push over' might end up actually beating the voter's preferred candidate.

Examples

Compromise

In Example I above, if Ice Cream supporters had voted tactically for Apple Pie in the first round then Apple Pie (their second choice) would have been elected instead of Fruit (their last choice). In Example II Knoxville wins, the last choice of both Nashville and Memphis supporters. If Memphis supporters had 'compromised' by voting for Nashville (their second choice) in the first round then Nashville would have been elected immediately, while if Nashville supporters had all 'compromised' by voting for their second choice of Chattanooga in the first round, then Chattanooga would have gone on to be elected in the second round

Push over

Imagine an election, like the one at the start of this article, in which there are 100 voters who vote as follows:

No candidate has an absolute majority of votes so Ice Cream is eliminated in the first round. Ice Cream supporters prefer Apple Pie to Fruit so in the second round they vote for Apple Pie and Apple Pie is the winner. However, if only six Fruit supporters had used the tactic of 'push over' then they could have changed this outcome and ensured the election of Fruit. These six voters can do this by voting for Ice Cream in the first round as a 'push over'. If they do this then the votes cast in the first round will look like this:

This time Apple Pie is eliminated in the first round and Ice Cream and Fruit survive to the second round. This outcome is deliberate. The tactical voters know that Ice Cream will be an easier candidate for Fruit to beat in the second round than Apple Pie–in other words, that Ice Cream will be a 'push-over'. In the second round the tactical voters vote for their real first preference, Fruit. Therefore even if only 6 Apple Pie supporters prefer Fruit to Ice Cream, the result of the second round will be:

Fruit will therefore be elected. The success of this tactic relies on the Fruit supporters being able to predict that Ice Cream can be beaten by Fruit in the second round. If a large majority of Apple Pie supporters had voted for Ice Cream then the 'push over' tactic would have backfired, leading to the election of Ice Cream, which Fruit partisans like even less than Apple Pie.

Strategic nomination

The exhaustive ballot can also be influenced by strategic nomination; this is where candidates and political factions influence the result of an election by either nominating extra candidates or withdrawing a candidate who would otherwise have stood. Strategic nomination is the manipulation of an Election through its candidate set (compare this to Tactical voting, where the manipulation comes from the voters The exhaustive ballot is vulnerable to strategic nomination for the same reasons that it is open to the voting tactic of 'compromising'. This is because a candidate who knows they are unlikely to win can bring about the election of a more desirable compromise candidate by withdrawing from the race, or by never standing in the first place. By the same token a candidate can bring about a less desirable result by unwisely choosing to stand in an election; this is because of the spoiler effect, by which a new candidate can 'split the vote' and cost another similar candidate the election. The " spoiler effect " is a term to describe the effect a Minor party candidate with little chance of winning can have on a close Election, in which their

The exhaustive vote's system of multiple rounds makes it less vulnerable to the spoiler effect than the plurality system or the two round system. This is because a potential spoiler candidate often has only minor support; therefore he will be eliminated early and his supporters will have the opportunity to influence the result of the election by voting for more popular candidates in later rounds. Voters can also counteract the effect of vote splitting by using the 'compromise' tactic.

The exhaustive vote is essentially vulnerable to the same forms of strategic nomination as instant-runoff voting, the difference being that under the exhaustive vote candidates can use the results of early rounds to inform whether or not they should strategically withdraw in later rounds. This is impossible under IRV. In IRV the electorate votes only once, so candidates must make the judgement of whether or not to participate in an election before the poll, and before even one round of counting has occurred.

Effect on candidates and factions

The exhaustive ballot encourages candidates to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters. This is because, in order to eventually receive an absolute majority of votes, it is necessary for a candidate to win the support of voters whose favourite candidate has been eliminated. An absolute majority or majority of the entire membership (in American English, a Supermajority Voting requirement is a Voting basis Under the exhaustive ballot eliminated candidates, and the factions who previously supported them, often issue recommendations to their supporters as to who they should vote for the remaining rounds of the contest. This means that eliminated candidates are still able to influence the result of the election.

References

  1. ^ DFL Call 2008/2009 Page 27: VIII. Endorsement for U. S. Senate: 22. GENERAL ENDORSEMENT RULES:
      • Drop off rule: Candidates receiving less than 5% will be dropped after the first ballot. On subsequent ballots, the drop off percent will be raised by 5% each ballot to a maximum of 25%. After the fifth ballot and each subsequent ballot, the lowest remaining candidates will be dropped so that no more than two candidates remain. In the event that application of the drop off rule would eliminate all but one candidate, then the two candidates who received the highest percent of the vote on the prior ballot shall be the remaining candidates.

External links

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