Planet Laurel

Fair enough: I’ve changed it from “majoritan” to to “majoritan/plurality.”

I’ve edited:
More formally known as “majoritan,” electoral systems that only allow for a single winner are “winner-take-all.”
to
More formally known as “majoritan/plurality,” electoral systems that only allow for a single winner are “winner-take-all.”

Even so, while each MP is elected with a plurality, our “majority” governments consist of an actual majority of seats in Parliament (albeit plurality seats).

Just so you know, I am not an expert, just a frustrated citizen who has learned a great deal about this and is still learning. This article was written a bit more than a year ago, and I wouldn’t make this mistake today. I have unvested a great deal of time and energy to this and I strive for accuracy. If you catch any further errors, please let me know.

Just one problem: our system is NOT Majoritarian. In a majoritarian system, a candidate has to win more than 50% to win a seat. Examples are Alternative Vote and instant run-off. In our system, a candidate can win with less than 50%, which makes our system a Plurality system.

This is one of the most common mistakes about electoral systems. I see it repeated in newspaper articles on a regular basis. Another popular misconception is that “ranked ballot” is a system, when in fact it’s a type of ballot that can be used in either a Majoritarian or a Proportional system.

Unfortunately, these mistakes are not harmless. The first leads to people thinking our system is better than it is. Polls find that many people wrongly believe that a candidate needs to get 50% or more of the vote to win in our system. The second leads people to assume that Ireland’s system is not proportional, and therefore to undercount the number of countries that have PR.

If we are ever going to get a decent electoral system in this country, we’ll need to stop the spread of misinformation about PR and start getting the facts out.

#WRally4PR