Concept
Wasted vote
Related concepts (21)
Single transferable vote
The single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate preferences if their preferred candidate is eliminated or elected with surplus votes, so that their vote is used to elect someone they prefer over others in the running. STV aims to approach proportional representation based on votes cast in the district where it is used, so that each vote is worth about the same as another.
Single non-transferable vote
Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an electoral system used to elect multiple winners. It is a generalization of first-past-the-post, applied to multi-member districts with each voter casting just one vote. Unlike FPTP, which is a single-winner system, in SNTV multiple winners are elected, typically in electoral districts; additionally, unlike FPTP, SNTV produces mixed representation and makes it unlikely for a single party to take all the seats in a city or a set area, which can happen under FPTP.
One man, one vote
"One man, one vote", or "one person, one vote", expresses the principle of equal representation in voting. This slogan is used by advocates of democracy and political equality, especially with regard to electoral reforms like universal suffrage and proportional representation. The violation of equal representation in the various systems of proportional representation can be measured with the Loosemore–Hanby index, the Gallagher index, or the amount of wasted vote.
Gerrymandering
In representative democracies, gerrymandering (ˈdʒErimændərɪŋ, originally ˈgɛrimændərɪŋ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The manipulation may involve "cracking" (diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts) or "packing" (concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts).
D'Hondt method
The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is an apportionment method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in proportional representation among political parties. It belongs to the class of highest-averages methods. The method was first described in 1792 by future U.S. president Thomas Jefferson. It was re-invented independently in 1878 by Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt, which is the reason for its two different names.
Score voting
Score voting or range voting is an electoral system for single-seat elections, in which voters give each candidate a score, the scores are added (or averaged), and the candidate with the highest total is elected. It has been described by various other names including evaluative voting, utilitarian voting, interval measure voting, the point system, ratings summation, 0-99 voting, average voting and utility voting. It is a type of cardinal voting electoral system, and aims to implement the utilitarian social choice rule.
Political apathy
In political science, political apathy is a lack of interest or apathy towards politics. This includes political alienation, voter apathy, information apathy and lack of interest in elections, political events, public meetings, and voting. Voter apathy is a lack of interest among voters in the elections of representative democracies. Political apathy or lack of interest is often cited as a cause of low turnout among eligible voters in jurisdictions where voting is optional, and the donkey vote where voting is compulsory.
Majority judgment
Majority judgment (MJ) is a single-winner voting system proposed in 2010 by Michel Balinski and Rida Laraki. It uses a highest median rule, i.e., a cardinal voting system that elects the candidate with the highest median rating. Unlike other voting methods, MJ guarantees that the winner between three or more candidates will be the candidate who had received an absolute majority of the highest grades given by all the voters.
Electoral threshold
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of all the votes cast that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can operate in various ways, e.g. in party-list proportional representation systems where an electoral threshold requires that a party must receive a specified minimum percentage of votes (e.g. 5%), either nationally or in a particular electoral district, to obtain seats in the legislature.
Spare vote
The spare vote is a version of single transferable voting applied to the ranking of parties, first proposed for elections in Germany in 2013. This preferential party system is a ranked proportional representation electoral system applying to political parties instead of individual candidates. The spare vote refers to a secondary vote (preference) of the voter, which only comes into play if the first preference for the political party preferred by the voter, is below the electoral threshold.