Plurality System
Plurality system, or the bloc system, is an electoral voting process in which a candidate who garners the most votes during polls than any other candidate is declared the winner. Hence, it is described as the single winner voting system used to select members of the executive and the legislature as per the constitution of the US and other nations involved while, at the same time, a voter is only allowed to vote one candidate at a time. It is also involved in multi member constitutions which have several positions vied for during an electoral process hence leading to an exhaustive tallying method where one person is voted at a time before being repeated till all the vacancies are filled. Plurality system is used to determine the absolute majority winner who must gain more than any other contestant (Araújo, Andrade Jr, and Herrmann 12446).
Plurality system in the US varies in some states. Georgia and Louisiana adopt the two vote and a runoff plurality system where by a winner is determined after two rounds of elections when two uppermost chosen aspirants of the first vote participate in a two-aspirant second vote, or every one of the aspirants exceeding a set threshold in the initial vote participate in the second vote. Plurality is easily understood by voters, is convenient and inexpensive thus it provides voters with a quick decision to make as well as the tallying, as opposed to voting by majority systems. Plurality encourages tactical voting techniques where a voter is likely to vote a candidate who is probable of victory even if their preferred candidate is neither (Araújo, Andrade Jr, and Herrmann 12446). For example, a democrat Al Gore lost the presidential race of 2000 to Bush probably as some voters voted Ralph, but the exit polls indicated they would have favored Gore at forty-five percent as opposed to Bush at 27%. In my opinion, plurality system would allow election of candidates with minority votes especially if many candidates contest the positions thus interfering with the percentage of votes, which at times could be as low as 25% for the winner.
Work Cited
Araújo, Nuno, José Andrade Jr, and Hans Herrmann. “Tactical voting in plurality elections.” PloS one 5.9 (2010): 12446.