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Concept
Electoral system
Summary
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, non-profit organisations and informal organisations. These rules govern all aspects of the voting process: when elections occur, who is allowed to vote, who can stand as a candidate, how ballots are marked and cast, how the ballots are counted, how votes translate into the election outcome, limits on campaign spending, and other factors that can affect the result. Political electoral systems are defined by constitutions and electoral laws, are typically conducted by election commissions, and can use multiple types of elections for different offices.
Some electoral systems elect a single winner to a unique position, such as prime minister, president or governor, while others elect multiple winners, such as members of parliament or boards of directors. When electing a legislature, areas may be divided into constituencies with one or more representatives. Voters may vote directly for individual candidates or for a list of candidates put forward by a political party or alliance. There are many variations in electoral systems, with the most common systems being first-past-the-post voting, block voting, the two-round (runoff) system, proportional representation and ranked voting. Some electoral systems, such as mixed systems, attempt to combine the benefits of non-proportional and proportional systems.
The study of formally defined electoral methods is called social choice theory or voting theory, and this study can take place within the field of political science, economics, or mathematics, and specifically within the subfields of game theory and mechanism design. Impossibility proofs such as Arrow's impossibility theorem demonstrate that when voters have three or more alternatives, no preferential voting system can guarantee the race between two candidates remains unaffected when an irrelevant candidate participates or drops out of the election.
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Hare quota
The Hare quota (also known as the simple quota) is a formula used under some forms of proportional representation. In these voting systems the quota is the number of votes that guarantees a candidate, or a party in some cases, captures a seat. The Hare quota is the total number of votes divided by the number of seats to be filled. This is the simplest quota, but the Droop quota is mostly used currently. The Hare quota can be used in the single transferable vote (STV-Hare) system and the largest remainder method (LR-Hare) and other quota rule compatible methods of party-list proportional representation.
Absentee ballot
An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station to which the voter is normally allocated. Methods include voting at a different location, postal voting, proxy voting and online voting. Increasing the ease of access to absentee ballots is seen by many as one way to improve voter turnout through convenience voting, though some countries require that a valid reason, such as infirmity or travel, be given before a voter can participate in an absentee ballot.
Elections in Argentina
At the national level, Argentina elects a head of state (the President) and a legislature. The franchise extends to all citizens aged 16 and over, and voting is mandatory (with a few exceptions) for all those who are between 18 and 70 years of age. The President and the Vice-President are elected in one ballot, for a four-year term, by direct popular vote, using a runoff voting system: a second vote is held if no party wins more than 45% of the votes, or more than 40% with also at least 10 percentage points more than the runner-up.