POLS 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Electronic Voting, Liberal Democracy, Proportional Representation

• School: York University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLS 1000
• Professor: Bruce Smardon

Document Summary

Structures of representation: refers to the way in which political order has systematic ways of organizing and managing how interests and views are represented managing. Conservatives have more support in rural areas while concentrated urban areas support liberals: the electoral system is how votes are translated into the composition of the legislature and selection of the government, votes are translated into seats. Single member plurality system: anglo-american parliamentary and presidential model for legislative elections, candidates with the most votes wins even if its not by a majority. In an electoral contest where the vote is divided among three or more parties, there can be a winner who does not have a majority vote: this gives representation for voters who backed losing candidates. In canada, parties have consistently won elections with a minority vote: under the smp system, parties that are able to concentrate their vote in specific riding sufficiently do better.