Winner-take-all

Winner-take-all or winner-takes-all is an electoral system in which a single political party or group can elect every office within a given district or jurisdiction. Winner-take-all is contrasted with proportional representation, in which more than one political party or group can elect offices in proportion to their voting power.

Winner-take-all voting methods

Although proportional and semi-proportional voting methods are used in the United States, winner-take-all voting methods remain the norm. There are several such winner-take-all voting methods used in the United States:

• In a single-winner district system, a legislative body is elected by dividing the jurisdiction into geographic constituencies, each electing exactly one representative. Although this may result in diverse representation due to different political groups making up majorities of different districts, within each district, only one political party or group will be able to elect a candidate.

• In bloc voting all candidates appear on a single ballot for a multi-winner election. Voters may cast as many votes as seats to be elected, but they do not have cumulative voting rights, meaning they may cast no more than one of their votes for each candidate. If the largest political party or group votes for the same slate of candidates, every member of that slate will be elected. Bloc voting is the most common method of electing multi-winner offices in the United States and is the most common method of electing city councils in particular.

• In a numbered-post system, multiple candidates will win election in a single district or jurisdiction, but candidates must run for distinct positions. In some jurisdictions, the posts are based on geographic districts, such that candidates must live in different parts of the jurisdiction but are nonetheless elected at large.

• In the winner-take-all elector system, the selection of a state's electors for the Electoral College are awarded on a winner-take-all basis. Voters do not vote directly for electors, but instead vote for the presidential and vice presidential candidate team for which the electors are pledged. The slate of electors pledged to the team with the most votes are all elected together. Every state with the exception of Maine and Nebraska use this system, though many states using the winner-take-all elector system have also signed on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Differences between winner-take-all and proportional representation

There are a few apparent differences between a winner-take-all system and a proportional representation system:

• Winner-take-all elections may take the form of single-winner or multi-winner elections, while proportional representation elections are necessarily multi-winner (though they may combine single-winner elections with multi-winner or compensatory seat elections).

• Winner-take-all systems typically reward larger parties while penalizing smaller parties. Proportional representation guarantees that smaller parties garner representation that is proportionate to their votes received in an election.

Winner-take-all and the Voting Rights Act

Because winner-take-all elections allow the single largest politically cohesive group to elect every office in a jurisdiction, they may result in racial minority vote dilution in places where voting is racially polarized. For that reason, they may be illegal under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Such vote dilution is typically remedied by drawing or redrawing district lines for single-winner districts and including at least one district in which the racial minority population will be able to elect a candidate of choice. In some cases, however, vote dilution is remedied by changing the winner-take-all voting method to a proportional or semi-proportional voting method.

See also

• U.S. House of Representatives
• Terms and definitions

External links

Suggest a link

• Georgetown University, "Electoral Systems"

Additional reading

• Fair Vote, "Fair Voting/Proportional Representation"