Bloc voting

Bloc voting (or block voting) refers to a class of voting systems which can be used to elect several representatives from a single multimember constituency. There are several variations of bloc voting depending on the ballot type used, however they all produce similar results. Bloc voting using a series of check boxes similar to a plurality election is also referred to as plurality-at-large or at-large voting, while bloc voting using a preferential ballot is generally described as preferential bloc voting.

Generally, the term at-large is used to describe elections with multiple winners, however the term sometimes refers to an election running across multiple districts, such as a separate election for the mayor of a city with multiple city council districts.

Plurality-at-large voting and preferential bloc voting

There are two variations of bloc voting used, and both are counted differently: plurality-at-large, and preferential bloc voting.

In plurality-at-large voting, all candidates run against each other for n number of positions. Each voter selects up to n candidates on the ballot, and the n candidates with the most votes win the positions. Often, voters are said to have "n" votes, however they are unable to vote for the same candidate more than once like in cumulative voting.

In preferential bloc voting, each voter places the numbers 1, 2, ..., n on the ballot paper (where n is the number of candidates on the ballot paper). Candidates with the smallest tally of first preference votes are eliminated (and their votes transferred as in instant runoff voting) until a candidate has more than half the vote. The count is repeated with the elected candidates removed and all votes returning to full value until the required number of candidates are elected.

Effects of bloc voting

The bloc voting system has a number of features which can make it unrepresentative of the voters' intentions. Bloc voting regularly produces complete landslide majorities for the group of candidates with the highest level of support. Under bloc voting, a slate of clones of the top-place candidate is guaranteed to win every available seat. Although less representative, this does tend to lead to greater agreement among those elected. Like first past the post methods, small cohesive groups of voters can overpower larger numbers of disorganised voters who do not engage in tactical voting, sometimes resulting in a small minority of voters electing an entire slate of candidates by merely constituting a plurality.

Tactical voting

Plurality bloc voting, like single-winner plurality voting, is particularly vulnerable to tactical voting. Bullet voting is a strategy where a voter deliberately only makes a mark for a single candidate in an attempt to not accidentally cause him to be beaten by one of his other choices.

Usage of bloc voting

In English-speaking countries, block voting has its origins in common law. It was used in the Australian Senate from 1901 to 1948 (from 1918, this was preferential block voting). It was used for two member constituencies in Parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom until their abolition, and remains in use throughout England and Wales for local elections. It is also used for elections in Jersey and elections in Guernsey.

Plurality bloc voting is also used in the election of the Senate of Poland, of the Parliament of Lebanon and of the plurality seats in the Palestinian Legislative council. (In some Lebanese and Palestinian constituencies there was only one seat to be filled; in the Palestinian election of 1996 there were only plurality seats, in 2006, half the seats were elected by plurality, half by PR nationwide)

Plurality bloc voting was used for the elections of both houses of Parliament in Belgium before proportional representation was implemented in 1900. It was, more precisely majority bloc voting: when not enough candidates had the majority of the votes in the first round, a second round was held between the highest ranked candidates of the first round (with two times as much candidates as seats to be filled). In some constituencies there was only one seat to be filled.

Also, bloc voting is often used in corporate elections to elect the boards of directors of corporations including housing cooperatives, with each shareholder's vote being multiplied by the number of shares they own, but cumulative voting is also popular.

Partial bloc voting

Partial bloc voting, also called limited voting, functions similarly to plurality-at-large voting, however in partial bloc voting each voter receives fewer votes than the number of candidates to be elected. This in turn can enable reasonably sized minorities to achieve some representation, as it becomes impossible for a simple majority to sweep every seat. Partial block voting is used for elections in Gibraltar to the Gibraltar House of Assembly, where each voter has 8 votes and 15 seats are open for election; the usual result is that the most popular party wins 8 seats and forms the ruling administration, while the second most popular wins 7 seats and forms the opposition. Partial bloc voting is also used in the Spanish Senate, where there are 4 seats and each voter receives 3 votes. Historically, partial block voting was used in three- and four-member constituencies in the United Kingdom, where voters received two votes, until multimember constituencies were abolished.

Under partial bloc voting, the fewer votes each voter is granted the smaller the number of voters needed to win becomes and the more like proportional representation the results can be, provided that voters and candidates use proper strategy.^* At the extreme, if each voter is limited to only receiving one vote and the threshold for obtaining representation therefore reduces to the Droop Quota, then the voting system becomes equivalent to the Single Non-transferable Vote.

Voting as a bloc

The term bloc voting is also used to refer to the concept of voting as a bloc, a system of winner take all decision-making whereby the vote of an entire electoral unit is cast in line with the majority decision of that unit, discounting any contrary votes. The most prominent example of this is the system used by most states for the United States Electoral College - a candidate winning a narrow plurality of votes in a particular state gets every electoral vote for that state. This leads to a "triage" strategy of presidential candidates aggressively trying to win narrow majorities in close swing states while avoiding campaigning in ones with a more certain outcome.

This system of bloc voting is also used in the UK by the Trades Union Congress; in an irony of history, it was introduced in 1895 by supporters of the Liberal Party to prevent or delay the establishment of the Labour Party, and it took the Labour Party from 1900 until 1993 to remove it from its own structures. Combined with a local form of malapportionment, a system of mandatory voting blocs was also used within several states in the United States, especially Georgia in its County Unit system, to deny urban and minority populations the equal right to vote until such systems were ruled unconstitutional in the 1960s with the Supreme Court case of Gray v. Sanders.

The effect of electorally enforced voting blocs on the makeup of the winning slate of candidates produces a similar result to electing the candidates by first-past-the-post bloc voting.

References

Scrutin majoritaire plurinominal | Blockröstning

Non-proportional multi-winner electoral systems | Positional electoral systems

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