POLS 1150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Single Transferable Vote, Majority Government, Instant-Runoff Voting
9 May 2016
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Document Summary
Democracy and voting: direct democracy: citizens are directly involved in the decision making process - relies on referendums. Indirect democracy: political system of representation in which citizens elect a delegate to act on their behalf - representative democracy. Indirect democracy requires elections - giving authority to individuals to make decisions for the whole political community. Suffrage: historically systems were highly discriminatory - discrimination based on age, gender, economic granting the right to vote status, race, literacy and criminal behaviour, most countries discriminate based on age, canada discriminates by only allowing voting at 18+ Parties: an organization that seeks to gain and maintain political power. Elections are divided into constituencies or ridings: enumeration: process of determining the number of individuals eligible to vote in a riding. Enumeration can be controversial, altered for political gain. Likelihood of voting reflects position in society, education, family background and profession: mandatory voting: Legal obligation to vote; face fines or imprisonment (australia, brazil, peru and turkey)
