POLSCI 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Direct Democracy, Long Term Ecological Research Network, Plurality Voting System
2 Jan 2017
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Document Summary
Our political system is a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy. Elected representatives (in theory) give voice to the will of the people. The institutional mechanism chosen to allocate votes to representatives is profoundly political. Electoral systems play a signi cant role in determining electoral outcomes. There are a number of different electoral systems in use amongst the world"s democracies: plurality/majority electoral systems. A) single member plurality system first past the post winner takes all. When there are more than 2 candidates and with a lot of ridings it creates distortions. The party with fewer votes win the elections, the one with the more ridings win. This is the institutional procedure used in canada, britain, u. s. It is marked by a distortion between the votes cast and the electoral outcomes produced: 1. Parties with geographically concentrated support may see their in uence magni ed: 2.
