The New Orleans City Council is the legislative branch of the City of New Orleans , Louisiana , United States . The current mayor-council form of city government was created in 1954, following the 1950 amendment of the state constitution that provided for a home rule charter for the city. The 1954 Charter provided for seven members, five elected from single-member districts , and two elected at-large , replacing the 1912 Charter, which provided for a commission form of government with a mayor and four commissioners.
88-556: The council members are elected to four-year terms, using the two-round system . The president and the vice president of the council are chosen by the council at its organizational meeting on the day members take office following the election. The president is elected from the two at-large members; any of the other members of the council may be elected vice president. The current members of the New Orleans City Council: Officers: All 7 members of
176-430: A parliamentary system , it is more likely to produce single-party governments than are PR methods, which tend to produce coalition governments . While runoff voting is designed to ensure that each individual candidate elected is supported by a majority of those in their constituency, if used to elect an assembly it does not ensure this result on a national level. As in other non-PR methods, the party or coalition which wins
264-481: A ranked-choice runoff between them in the second round. In the rest of the country, the use of partisan primaries paired with the two-party system is structurally similar and is often described as a de facto two-round system. Although advocates hoped the two-round method would elect more moderates and encourage turnout among independents, research has shown the method has little to no effect when compared to partisan primaries, or with systems that only require
352-540: A write-in candidate . This is a general example for single-winner plurality voting ("first-past-the-post"), using population percentages taken from one state for illustrative purposes. [REDACTED] Suppose that Tennessee is holding an election on the location of its capital . The population is concentrated around four major cities. All voters want the capital to be as close to them as possible. The options are: The preferences of each region's voters are: If each voter in each city naively selects one city on
440-413: A Condorcet winner exists, the candidate does not necessarily win a runoff election due to insufficient support in the first round. Runoff advocates counter that voters' first preference is more important than lower preferences because that is where voters are putting the most effort of decision and that, unlike Condorcet methods, runoffs require a high showing among the full field of choices in addition to
528-458: A candidate to win the support of voters whose favorite candidate has been eliminated. Under runoff voting, between rounds of voting, eliminated candidates, and the factions who previously supported them, often issue recommendations to their supporters as to whom to vote for in the second round of the contest. This means that eliminated candidates are still able to influence the result of the election. This influence leads to political bargaining between
616-516: A centralized count, as it is impossible to tally or audit RCV results locally . The two-round voting system also has the potential to cause political instability between the two rounds of voting. The two-round system is the most common way used to elect heads of state (presidents) of countries worldwide, a total of 87 countries elect their heads of state directly with a two-round system as opposed to only 22 countries that used single-round plurality ( first-past-the-post ). Two-round voting
704-440: A council or legislature it will not produce proportional representation (PR). This means that it is likely to lead to the representation of a small number of larger parties in an assembly, rather than a proliferation of small parties. In practice, runoff voting produces results very similar to those produced by the plurality method, and encourages a two-party system similar to those found in many countries that use plurality. Under
792-403: A different winner than the candidate elected by the other two. Advocates of Condorcet methods argue that a candidate can claim to have majority support only if they are the "Condorcet winner" – that is, the candidate who would beat every other candidate in a series of one-on-one elections. In runoff voting the winning candidate is only matched, one-on-one, with one of the other candidates. When
880-409: A form of runoff. In single-winner plurality voting ( first-past-the-post ), each voter is allowed to vote for only one candidate, and the winner of the election is the candidate who represents a plurality of voters or, in other words, received more votes than any other candidate. In an election for a single seat, such as for president in a presidential system , voters may vote for one candidate from
968-402: A history of repeatedly electing candidates of a certain party, many districts are known to have safe seats . On such, a candidate or party has a near 100% chance that they win the seats. Supporters of others sometimes do not even bother to vote knowing of the odds that face their candidate. Alternative electoral systems, such as proportional representation , attempt to ensure that almost all of
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#17327721011521056-560: A large excess of votes. This is because like other plurality systems, STNV does not transfer loser and surplus votes. Another way to count wasted votes, is to see the ones that may play no part in determining the outcome. Under FPTP for example, usually only votes for the top two candidates can be seen as really competing for the position, with only one possible to win; votes placed on other candidates are almost certain not to be used to elect anyone and therefore wasted. Sometimes not even two candidate are seen as being competitive. Due to having
1144-446: A list of the candidates who are competing, and the winner is whichever candidate receives the highest number of votes. Compare first-past-the-post to a majority system, the two-round system , where usually the top two candidates in the first ballot progress to the second round, also called the runoff. A runoff is by default not held, if a candidate already received an absolute majority in the first ballot (more than half of votes), and in
1232-455: A majority of seats will often not have the support of an absolute majority of voters across the nation. In smaller elections, such as those in assemblies or private organizations, it is sometimes possible to conduct both rounds in quick succession. More commonly, however, large-scale public elections the two rounds of runoff voting are held on separate days, and so involve voters going to the polls twice and governments conducting two elections. As
1320-409: A method, because the voters are not forced to vote according to a single ordinal preference in both rounds. If the voters determine their preferences before the election and always vote directly consistent to them, they will emulate the contingent vote and get the same results as if they were to use that method. Therefore, in that model of voting behavior, the two-round system passes all criteria that
1408-645: A multi-seat district is known as single non-transferable voting . Plurality voting is widely used throughout the English-speaking world as a result of its spread by the British Empire , including in most of the United States. Outside of the English-speaking world, it is less popular than its close relatives in the runoff family of methods . Overall, more countries in the world use a form of proportional representation than use plurality or
1496-399: A result, one of the most common criticisms against the two-round system is that the cost and difficulty of casting a ballot is effectively doubled. However, the system may sometimes still be cheaper than holding a ranked-choice runoff (RCV) , as the counting of votes in each round is simple. By contrast, ranked-choice runoff voting involves a longer and more complex count that often requires
1584-504: A second-round election "when none of the candidates obtains an absolute majority". The rule has since gained substantial popularity in South America , Eastern Europe , and Africa , where it is now the dominant system. Some variants of the two-round system use slightly different rules for eliminating candidates in the first round, allowing more than two candidates to proceed to the second round in some cases. Under such systems, it
1672-454: A separate vote in each round, under instant-runoff, voters vote only once. This is possible because, rather than voting for only a single candidate, the voter ranks all of the candidates in order of preference. These preferences are then used to transfer the votes of those whose first preference has been eliminated during the course of the count. Because the two-round system and the exhaustive ballot involve separate rounds of voting, voters can use
1760-468: A single candidate, even if they have multiple votes to cast. Party A has about 35% support among the electorate (with one particularly well-liked candidate), Party B around 25% (with two well-liked candidates) and the remaining voters primarily support independent candidates, but mostly lean towards party B if they have to choose between the two parties. All voters vote sincerely ; there is no tactical voting. (Percentage of votes under MNTV and Limited Voting
1848-615: A single round such as ranked-choice voting. Research by social choice theorists has long identified all three rules as vulnerable to center squeeze , a kind of spoiler effect favoring extremists in crowded elections. The French system of ballotage was first established as part of the reforms of the July Monarchy , with the term appearing in the Organic Decree of 2 February 1832 of the French government, which mandated
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#17327721011521936-411: A strong showing in the final head-to-head competition. Condorcet methods can allow candidates to win who have minimal first-choice support and can win largely on the compromise appeal of being ranked second or third by more voters. Runoff voting encourages candidates to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters. This is because, in order to win an absolute majority in the second round, it is necessary for
2024-517: A two-round system, if no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the first round, the two candidates with the most votes in the first round proceed to a second round where all other candidates are excluded. Both rounds are held under choose-one voting , where the voter marks a single favored candidate. The two-round system first emerged in France , and has since become the most common single-winner electoral system worldwide. The two-round system
2112-470: A very different political agenda, so that these smaller parties end up weakening their own agenda. The intention of runoff voting is that the winning candidate will have the support of an absolute majority of voters. Under the first past the post method the candidate with most votes (a plurality) wins, even if they do not have an absolute majority (more than half) of votes. The two-round system tries to overcome this problem by permitting only two candidates in
2200-411: A very low chance of winning their constituency vote for their lesser preferred candidate who has a higher chance of winning. The minority party will then simply take votes away from one of the major parties, which could change the outcome and gain nothing for the voters. Any other party will typically need to build up its votes and credibility over a series of elections before it is seen as electable. In
2288-402: Is a perfect-information equilibrium and so only strictly holds in idealized conditions where every voter knows every other voter's preference. Thus it provides an upper bound on what can be achieved with rational (self-interested) coordination or knowledge of others' preferences. Since the voters almost surely will not have perfect information, it may not apply to real elections. In that matter, it
2376-418: Is a single winner voting method . It is sometimes called plurality-runoff , although this term can also be used for other, closely-related systems such as instant-runoff (or ranked-choice) voting or the exhaustive ballot (which typically produce similar results). It falls under the class of plurality-based voting rules, together with instant-runoff (or ranked-choice) and first-past-the-post (FPP) . In
2464-414: Is elected. There are several versions of plurality voting for multi-member district. The system that elects multiple winners at once with the plurality rule and where each voter casts multiple X votes in a multi-seat district is referred to as plurality block voting . A semi-proportional system that elects multiple winners elected at once with the plurality rule and where each voter casts just one vote in
2552-414: Is in practice similar in plurality block voting. They both operate under the "winner-takes-all" principle, which means that the party of the losing candidates in each district receive no representation, regardless of the number of votes they receive. Even the single non-transferable vote can result in very inefficient results if many candidates with small support compete or the most-popular candidates receive
2640-624: Is known as the single transferable vote (STV) and is used for presidential elections and parliamentary elections. However, STV as applied in multi-member districts is a proportional voting system, not a majoritarian one; and candidates need only achieve a quota (or the highest remaining fraction of a quota), to be elected. STV is used in Northern Ireland, Malta, the Australian senate and various other jurisdictions in Australia. It
2728-532: Is often used for municipal elections in lieu of more party-based forms of proportional representation. The contingent or supplementary vote is a variant of instant-runoff voting that has been used in Queensland and was previously used in the United Kingdom to elect some mayors; it was ultimately abandoned as a result of its complex election administration . Under the contingent vote, voters rank
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2816-549: Is practically unavoidable, but plurality systems suffer from large numbers of wasted votes. For example, in the UK general election of 2005 , 52% of votes were cast for losing candidates and 18% were excess votes, a total of 70% wasted votes. That is perhaps the most fundamental criticism of FPTP, the single-member plurality system, since at least half the votes are always wasted in a district, either as being placed on un-elected candidates or being surplus to what could be needed to win. SMP
2904-426: Is similar to the perfect competition model sometimes used in economics. To the extent that real elections approach this upper bound, large elections would do so less so than small ones, because it is less likely that a large electorate has information about all the other voters than that a small electorate has. Runoff voting is intended to reduce the potential for eliminating "wasted" votes by tactical voting . Under
2992-530: Is sufficient for a candidate to receive a plurality of votes (more votes than anyone else) to be elected in the second round. In the 2002 French presidential election , the two contenders described by the media as possible winners were Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin , who represented the largest two political parties in France at the time. However, 16 candidates were on the ballot, including Jean-Pierre Chevènement (5.33%) and Christiane Taubira (2.32%) from
3080-435: Is the percentage of voters who voted for the candidate, not the percentage of votes cast.) Under all three versions of multi-winner plurality voting, the three most popular candidates according to voters' first preferences are elected, regardless of party affiliation, but with three different results. Wasted votes are those cast for candidates or parties who did not get elected. Some number of wasted votes by this definition
3168-426: Is this weak candidate, rather than a stronger rival, who survives to challenge one's preferred candidate in the second round. But in practice, such a tactic may prove counter-productive. If so many voters give their first preferences to the "weak" candidate that it ends up winning the first round, it is highly likely they will gain enough campaign momentum to have a strong chance of winning the runoff, too, and with it,
3256-636: Is used in French departmental elections . In Italy , it is used to elect mayors, but also to decide which party or coalition receives a majority bonus in city councils. Plurality voting Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results Plurality voting refers to electoral systems in which
3344-417: Is vulnerable to strategic nomination for the same reasons that it is open to the voting tactic of compromising. This is because a candidate who knows they are unlikely to win can ensure that another candidate they support makes it to the second round by withdrawing from the race before the first round occurs, or by never choosing to stand in the first place. By withdrawing candidates a political faction can avoid
3432-514: Is widely used in the election of legislative bodies and directly elected presidents. Despite this, the rule has received substantial criticism from social choice theorists , leading to the rise of electoral reform movements seeking to abolish it in France and elsewhere. In the United States, the system is used to elect most public officials in Louisiana (though parties do not put forward just one candidate, which allows multiple candidates from
3520-588: The Conservative Party use EB to elect their prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs). Exhaustive ballot is also used by FIFA and the International Olympic Committee to select hosts. Instant-runoff voting (IRV), like the exhaustive ballot, involves multiple reiterative counts in which the candidate with fewest votes is eliminated each time. Whilst the exhaustive ballot and the two-round system both involve voters casting
3608-870: The Green Party , who, exit polls indicated, would have preferred Gore at 45% to Bush at 27%, with the rest not voting in Nader's absence. That thinking is illustrated by elections in Puerto Rico and its three principal voter groups: the Independentistas (pro-independence), the Populares (pro- commonwealth ), and the Estadistas (pro- statehood ). Historically, there has been a tendency for Independentista voters to elect Popular candidates and policies. This results in more Popular victories even though
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3696-465: The Plural Left coalition of Jospin, who refused by excess of confidence to dissuade them. With the left vote divided among a number of candidates, a third contender, Jean-Marie Le Pen , unexpectedly obtained slightly more than Jospin in the first round: The other candidates received smaller percentages on the first round. Because no candidate had obtained an absolute majority of the votes in
3784-497: The Tennessee example , if all the voters for Chattanooga and Knoxville had instead voted for Nashville, Nashville would have won (with 58% of the vote). That would have only been the third choice for those voters, but voting for their respective first choices (their own cities) actually results in their fourth choice (Memphis) being elected. The difficulty is sometimes summed up in an extreme form, as "All votes for anyone other than
3872-446: The plurality voting system (also known as first past the post), voters are encouraged to vote tactically, by voting for only one of the two leading candidates, because a vote for any other candidate will not affect the result. Under runoff voting, this tactic, known as "compromising", it is sometimes unnecessary because even if a voter's favorite candidate is eliminated in the first round, they will still have an opportunity to influence
3960-444: The single non-transferable vote . While seemingly most similar to first-past-the-post , in effect it is a semi-proportional system allowing for mixed representation in one district, and representation of both majority parties and electoral minorities within a district. When voters can vote for one or more candidates, but in total less than the number of winners, it is called limited voting . The multi-winner version considered to be
4048-431: The spoiler effect , whereby a candidate "splits the vote" of its supporters. A famous example of this spoiler effect occurred in the 2002 French presidential election , when so many left-wing candidates stood in the first round that all of them were eliminated and two right-wing candidates advanced to the second round. Conversely, an important faction may have an interest in helping fund the campaign of smaller factions with
4136-561: The two-party-preferred vote (TPP or 2PP) is the result of the final round of an election or opinion poll after preferences have been distributed to the highest two candidates, who in some cases can be independents. For the purposes of TPP, the Liberal/National Coalition is usually considered a single party, with Labor being the other major party. Typically the TPP is expressed as the percentages of votes attracted by each of
4224-685: The Estadistas have the most voters on the island. It is so widely recognised that the Puerto Ricans sometimes call the Independentistas who vote for the Populares "melons" in reference to the party colours, because the fruit is green on the outside but red on the inside. Such tactical voting can cause significant perturbation to the system: Proponents of other single-winner electoral systems argue that their proposals would reduce
4312-455: The United States, the two-round system is used in Louisiana in place of traditional primary elections to choose each party's candidate. In this state, the first round is held on Election Day with runoffs occurring soon after. Georgia also uses the system for special elections. Washington adopted a minor variant on the two-round system in a 2008 referendum , called the nonpartisan blanket primary or top-two primary. California approved
4400-430: The ballot (Memphis voters select Memphis, Nashville voters select Nashville, and so on), Memphis will be selected, as it has the most votes 42%. The system does not require that the winner have a majority , only a plurality. Memphis wins because it has the most votes even though 58% of the voters in the example preferred Memphis least. The opposite result would occur in instant-runoff , where Knoxville (the city furthest to
4488-401: The candidate with the most votes) is also used in approval voting , however with very different effects, as voters can choose to support as many or few candidates as they choose, not just one. For this reason, approval voting is usually distinguished from plurality voting, while technically being a sub-type of it. Multi-member plurality elections are only slightly more complicated. Where n is
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#17327721011524576-410: The candidates in an electoral district who poll more than any other (that is, receive a plurality ) are elected. Under single-winner plurality voting, and in systems based on single-member districts , plurality voting is called single member [district] plurality (SMP), which is widely known as " first-past-the-post ". In SMP/FPTP the leading candidate, whether or not they have a majority of votes,
4664-426: The candidates who are competing to represent that district. Under the plurality system, the winner of the election then becomes the representative of the whole electoral district and serves with representatives of other electoral districts. That makes plurality voting among the simplest of all electoral systems for voters and vote counting officials; however, the drawing of district boundary lines can be contentious in
4752-563: The contingent vote passes, and fails all criteria the contingent vote fails. Since the voters in the two-round system do not have to choose their second round votes while voting in the first round, they are able to adjust their votes as players in a game . More complex models consider voter behavior when the voters reach a game-theoretical equilibrium from which they have no incentive, as defined by their internal preferences, to further change their behavior. However, because these equilibria are complex, only partial results are known. With respect to
4840-527: The council are Democrats Under the 1954 Charter, council members are elected to four-year terms that begin on the first Monday in May following the election, except that a councilmember elected to fill a vacancy serves only for the remainder of the unexpired term. Vacancies that occur less than one year before the end of the term may be filled by appointment; vacancies of a year or longer are filled by special election, and that vacancy may be filled by appointment for
4928-432: The east, and the "second-worst" choice) would accumulate a majority from vote transfers from voter who initially voted for Chattanooga and Nashville. Nashville is the majority-preferred winner , and as a result would be elected by any Condorcet method . Candidates are running in a 3-member district of 10 000 voters. Under non-transferable (and non-cumulative) plurality voting, each voter may cast no more than one vote for
5016-420: The election was not spoiled . French legislative elections allow more than two candidates to advance to the second round, leading to many triangular elections , such as in the 2024 French legislative election . It is common for all but two candidates to withdraw from the second round (so they don't spoil the chances of another similar candidate) which makes the result similar to top-two two-round systems. In
5104-436: The election. At the very least, their opponent would have to start taking the so-called weak candidate seriously, particularly if the runoff follows quickly after the first round. Runoff voting can be influenced by strategic nomination ; this is where candidates and political factions influence the result of an election by either nominating extra candidates or withdrawing a candidate who would otherwise have stood. Runoff voting
5192-415: The extension of first-past-the-post to multi-winner cases is plurality block voting . Here voters may vote for as many candidates as there are seats to fill, which means usually candidates from the largest party will fill all the seats in the district. The party-list version of plurality voting in multi-member districts is called party block voting . Here the party receiving a plurality of votes wins all of
5280-430: The first round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. This continues until one candidate has an absolute majority. Because voters may have to cast votes several times, EB is not used in large-scale public elections. Instead it is used in smaller contests such as the election of the presiding officer of an assembly; one long-standing example of its use is in the United Kingdom , where local associations (LCAs) of
5368-415: The first round, the top two candidates went into the second round. Most supporters of the parties which did not get through to the second round (and Chirac's supporters) voted for Chirac, who won with a very large majority: Despite the controversy over Jospin's early elimination, polls showed Chirac was preferred to Jospin by a majority of voters and that Chirac was the majority-preferred candidate , meaning
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#17327721011525456-500: The need for tactical voting and reduce the spoiler effect . Other systems include the commonly used two-round system of runoffs and instant-runoff voting , along with less-tested and perhaps less-understood systems such as approval voting , score voting and Condorcet methods . This is when a voter decides to vote in a way that does not represent their true preference or choice, motivated by an intent to influence election outcomes. Strategic behaviour by voters can and does influence
5544-515: The next election, it can create a number of constituencies in each of which O has an overwhelming majority of votes. O will win these seats, but many of its voters will waste their votes. Then, the rest of the constituencies are designed to have small majorities for G. Few G votes are wasted, and G will win many seats by small margins. As a result of the gerrymander, O's seats have cost it more votes than G's seats. Efficiency gap : The efficiency gap measures gerrymandering and has been scrutinized in
5632-404: The number of seats in the district, the n candidates who get more votes than the others are elected; the winners are the n candidates with the highest numbers of votes. The rules may allow the voter to vote for one candidate, for a number of candidates more than one but less than n , for as many as n candidates, or some other number. When voters may vote for only one candidate, it is called
5720-457: The outcome of an FPTP election. The presence of spoilers often gives rise to suspicions that manipulation of the slate has taken place. The spoiler may have received incentives to run. A spoiler may also drop out at the last moment, which induces charges that such an act was intended from the beginning. Voters who are uninformed do not have a comparable opportunity to manipulate their votes as voters who understand all opposing sides, understand
5808-556: The outcome of very close votes to be swayed for the wrong reason. This might have had an impact on the 2000 United States election that was essentially decided by fewer than 600 votes, with the winner being President Bush . When voters behave in a strategic way and expect others to do the same, they end up voting for one of the two leading candidates, making the Condorcet alternative more likely to be elected. The prevalence of strategic voting in an election makes it difficult to evaluate
5896-442: The outcome of voting in different plurality voting systems. Strategic behaviour is when a voter casts their vote for a different party or alternative district/constituency/riding in order to induce, in their opinion, a better outcome. An example of this is when a person really likes party A but votes for party B because they do not like party C or D or because they believe that party A has little to no chance of winning. This can cause
5984-513: The period before the special election. After the regular 1970 elections, a redistricting dispute delayed the next regular Council elections until 1976, and the following regular Council election was held in 1978. Effective in 1991, a council member who has served more than one and a half terms in two consecutive terms may not be elected to the office for the following term. Beginning in 2014 the at-large seats are voted on as separate offices, designated as Division 1 and Division 2. Effective June 1, 2018,
6072-413: The plurality method it is necessary to vote for one of the two leading candidates. Runoff voting is also vulnerable to another tactic called "push over". This is a tactic by which voters vote tactically for an unpopular "push over" candidate in the first round as a way of helping their true favorite candidate win in the second round. The purpose of voting for the push over, in theory, is to ensure that it
6160-417: The plurality system (see gerrymandering ). The system is also independent of parties; the party with the most votes overall may not win the most seats overall ( electoral inversion ). Note that issues arising from single-member districts are still in place with majority voting systems, like the two-round system and instant-runoff voting too. The same principle used in single-winner plurality voting (electing
6248-422: The pros and cons of voting for each party. Because FPTP permits a high level of wasted votes, an election under FPTP is easily gerrymandered unless safeguards are in place. In gerrymandering , a party in power deliberately manipulates constituency boundaries to increase the number of seats that it wins unfairly. In brief, if a governing party G wishes to reduce the seats that will be won by opposition party O in
6336-415: The result of the election by voting for a more popular candidate in the second round. However the tactic of compromising can still be used in runoff voting—it is sometimes necessary to compromise as a way of influencing which two candidates will survive to the second round. In order to do this it is necessary to vote for one of the three leading candidates in the first round, just as in an election held under
6424-410: The results of one round to decide how they will vote in the next, whereas this is not possible under IRV. Because it is necessary to vote only once, IRV is used for elections in many places. For such as Australian general and state elections (called preferential voting ). In the United States, it is known as ranked-choice voting and is used in a growing number of states and localities. In Ireland it
6512-525: The same party to run in the first round) and in Mississippi and Georgia , though these two states first hold a partisan primary to select each parties' nominees. The states of California , Washington , and Alaska use a similar system known as a nonpartisan blanket primary , where the second round takes place whether or not a candidate receives a majority of the vote in the first round. Alaska's system also differs by advancing four candidates with
6600-404: The seats available by default. Generally, plurality ballots can be categorized into two forms. The simplest form is a blank ballot in which the name of a candidate(s) is written in by hand. A more structured ballot will list all the candidates and allow a mark to be made next to the name of a single candidate (or more than one, in some cases); however, a structured ballot can also include space for
6688-399: The second ballot, where there are only two candidates, one of the candidates will (except for a tie) receive a majority. Under plurality rules, the candidates are not at any point in the election required to have majority support. In an election for a legislative body with single-member seats, each voter in a geographically defined electoral district may vote for one candidate from a list of
6776-399: The second place are votes for the winner". That is because by voting for other candidates, voters have denied those votes to the second-place candidate, who could have won had they received them. It is often claimed by United States Democrats that Democrat Al Gore lost the 2000 Presidential Election to Republican George W. Bush because some voters on the left voted for Ralph Nader of
6864-490: The second round, so that one must receive an absolute majority of votes. Critics argue that the absolute majority obtained by the winner of runoff voting is an artificial one. Instant-runoff voting and the exhaustive ballot are two other voting methods that create an absolute majority for one candidate by eliminating weaker candidates over multiple rounds. However, in cases where there are three or more strong candidates, runoff voting will sometimes produce an absolute majority for
6952-400: The second round. Then, a second round is held using single-member districts with first-past-the-post . Most of the mathematical criteria by which voting methods are compared were formulated for voters with ordinal preferences. Some methods, like approval voting , request information than cannot be unambiguously inferred from a single set of ordinal preferences. The two-round system is such
7040-605: The system in 2010 , which was first used for the 36th congressional district special election in February 2011. The first election (the primary) is held before the general election in November and the top two candidates enter the general election. The general election is always held, even if a candidate gets over 50%. The exhaustive ballot (EB) is similar to the two-round system, but involves more rounds of voting rather than just two. If no candidate receives an absolute majority in
7128-2050: The terms of office begin on the second Monday in January following the election. Office holders for terms before 2022 and reference notes for those office holders are from the City Archives at the New Orleans Public Library. Office holders for the 2022-2026 term are from the Louisiana Secretary of State election results for the November 13, 2021, general election and the December 11, 2021, runoff election . 1954-1958 Glenn P. Clasen Victor H. Schiro A. Brown Moore Paul V. Burke James E. Fitzmorris Fred J. Cassibry Walter M. Duffourc 1958-1962 Glenn P. Clasen James A. Comiskey Victor H. Schiro Theodore Hickey Henry B. Curtis Fred J. Cassibry John J. Petre Theodore Hickey Walter M. Duffourc 1962-1966 James E. Fitzmorris Joseph V. DiRosa Walter F. Marcus Clarence O. Dupuy, Jr. John J. Petre Daniel Kelly 1966-1970 John J. Petre Moon Landrieu Eddie L. Sapir James A. Moreau Philip Ciaccio 1970-1976 Joseph V. DiRosa James A. Moreau Peter H. Beer Frank Friedler Eddie L. Sapir A.L. Davis John D. Lambert 1976-1978 Joseph I. Giarrusso Frank Friedler A.L. Davis Two-round system Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results The two-round system ( TRS or 2RS ), also called ballotage , top-two runoff , or two-round plurality (as originally termed in French ),
7216-471: The top-two candidates. However it involves only two rounds of counting and uses the same rule for eliminating candidates as the two-round system. After the first round all but the two candidates with most votes are eliminated. Therefore, one candidate always achieves an absolute majority in the second round. Because of these similarities, the contingent vote tends to elect the same winner as the two-round system and instant-runoff voting. In Australian politics ,
7304-522: The true political state of the population, as their true political ideologies are not reflected in their votes. The spoiler effect is especially severe in plurality voting, where candidates with similar ideologies are forced to split the vote with each other. One spoiler candidate's presence in the election draws votes from a major candidate with similar politics, which causes a strong opponent of both or several to win. Even extremely small parties with very little first-preference support can therefore affect
7392-403: The two candidates most likely to win, even if their true preference is neither of them; because a vote for any other candidate is unlikely to lead to the preferred candidate being elected. In single-member plurality, this will instead reduce support for one of the two major candidates whom the voter might prefer to the other. Electors who prefer not to waste their vote by voting for a candidate with
7480-487: The two major parties, e.g. "Coalition 45%, Labor 55%", where the values include both primary votes and preferences. The TPP is an indicator of how much swing has been attained/is required to change the result, taking into consideration later preferences. A two-party vote is used for elections to the Bhutanese National Assembly , where the first round selects two parties that are allowed to compete in
7568-473: The two remaining candidates and the parties and candidates who have been eliminated, sometimes resulting in the two successful candidates making policy concessions to the less successful ones. Because it encourages conciliation and negotiation in these ways, runoff voting is advocated, in various forms, by some supporters of deliberative democracy . Runoff voting is designed for single-seat constituencies. Therefore, like other single-seat methods, if used to elect
7656-415: The voters' internal preferences, the two-round system passes the majority criterion in this model, as a majority can always coordinate to elect their preferred candidate. Also, in the case of three candidates or less and a robust political equilibrium, the two-round system will pick the Condorcet winner whenever there is one, which is not the case in the contingent vote model. The equilibrium mentioned above
7744-422: The votes are effective in influencing the result and electing a representative, which minimizes vote wastage. Such systems decreases disproportionality in election results and are also credited for increasing voter turnout. To a much greater extent than many other electoral methods, plurality electoral systems encourage tactical voting techniques like "compromising". Voters are under pressure to vote for one of
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