Electoral Systems

Bernard Grofman

One may view electoral rules for a given office as having six basic components: (1) determination of who is eligible to be on the ballot (e.g., parties only or also individual candidates), (2) internal party rules for determining who are to be a given party's candidates and/or for specifying candidate rankings within a party list, (3) specification of ballot type, (4) specification of constituencies (districts), (5) determination of election timing, and (6) rules for ballot aggregation (tallying rules). In addition, what is not to be forgotten is the seventh component of all elections—the voter—whose preferences and beliefs about how voting rules will translate those preferences into outcomes as well as the ways in which voter preferences are geographically distributed will critically affect how electoral rules operate in the real world. Sometimes the term electoral system is used more broadly to include other aspects of elections and their regulation, such Elections ...

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