Schulze methodThe Schulze method (ˈʃʊltsə) is an electoral system developed in 1997 by Markus Schulze that selects a single winner using votes that express preferences. The method can also be used to create a sorted list of winners. The Schulze method is also known as Schwartz Sequential dropping (SSD), cloneproof Schwartz sequential dropping (CSSD), the beatpath method, beatpath winner, path voting, and path winner.
Majority ruleMajority rule is the principle that the group that has the most supporters gets its way. A majority is more than half of the voters involved, and rule by such a majority is thought to be to the benefit of more than rule by less than half (a mere minority) would be. Majority rule is the binary decision rule most often used in decision-making bodies, including many legislatures of democratic nations. Where no one party wins a majority of the seats in a legislature, the majority of legislators that wields power is partly composed of members of other parties in support.
Mixed-member majoritarian representationMixed member majoritarian representation (MMM) is type of a mixed electoral system combining majoritarian and proportional methods, where the disproportional results of the majoritarian side of the system prevail over the proportional component. Mixed member majoritarian systems are therefore also as a type of semi-proportional representation, and are usually contrasted with mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) which aims to provide proportional representation via additional compensation ("top-up") seats.
Direct electionDirect election is a system of choosing political officeholders in which the voters directly cast ballots for the persons or political party that they desire to see elected. The method by which the winner or winners of a direct election are chosen depends upon the electoral system used. The most commonly used systems are the plurality system and the two-round system for single-winner elections, such as a presidential election, and party-list proportional representation for the election of a legislature.
Highest averages methodA highest-averages method, also called a divisor method, is a class of methods for allocating seats in a parliament among agents such as political parties or federal states. A divisor method is an iterative method: at each iteration, the number of votes of each party is divided by its divisor, which is a function of the number of seats (initially 0) currently allocated to that party. The next seat is allocated to the party whose resulting ratio is largest.
Political representationPolitical representation is the activity of making citizens "present" in public policy-making processes when political actors act in the best interest of citizens. This definition of political representation is consistent with a wide variety of views on what representing implies and what the duties of representatives are. For example, representing may imply acting on the expressed wishes of citizens, but it may alternatively imply acting according to what the representatives themselves judge is in the best interests of citizens.
Semi-proportional representationSemi-proportional representation characterizes multi-winner electoral systems which allow representation of minorities, but are not intended to reflect the strength of the competing political forces in close proportion to the votes they receive. Semi-proportional voting systems can be regarded as compromises between forms of proportional representation such as party-list PR, and plurality/majoritarian systems such as first-past-the-post voting. Examples of semi-proportional systems include the single non-transferable vote, limited voting, and parallel voting.
Voter registrationIn electoral systems, voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise eligible to vote must register (or enroll) on an electoral roll, which is usually a prerequisite for being entitled or permitted to vote. The rules governing registration vary between jurisdictions. In many jurisdictions, registration is an automatic process performed by extracting the names of voting age residents of a precinct from a general-use population registry ahead of election day, while in others, registration may require an application being made by an eligible voter and registered persons to re-register or update registration details when they change residence or other relevant information changes.
ElectionAn election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is also used in many other private and business organisations, from clubs to voluntary associations and corporations.
Exhaustive ballotThe exhaustive ballot is a voting system used to elect a single winner. Under the exhaustive ballot the elector casts a single vote for their chosen candidate. However, if no candidate is supported by an overall 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 with key differences.
Condorcet methodA Condorcet method (pronkɒndɔrˈseɪ; kɔ̃dɔʁsɛ) is an election method that elects the candidate who wins a majority of the vote in every head-to-head election against each of the other candidates, that is, a candidate preferred by more voters than any others, whenever there is such a candidate. A candidate with this property, the pairwise champion or beats-all winner, is formally called the Condorcet winner. The head-to-head elections need not be done separately; a voter's choice within any given pair can be determined from the ranking.
Consistency criterionA voting system is consistent if, whenever the electorate is divided (arbitrarily) into several parts and elections in those parts garner the same result, then an election of the entire electorate also garners that result. Smith calls this property separability and Woodall calls it convexity. It has been proven a ranked voting system is "consistent if and only if it is a scoring function", i.e. a positional voting system. Borda count is an example of this. The failure of the consistency criterion can be seen as an example of Simpson's paradox.
