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Plurality block voting is a non-proportional voting system for electing representatives in multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of seats to be filled.[1] The usual result when the candidates divide into parties is that the most popular party in the district sees its full slate of candidates elected in a seemingly landslide victory.
The term "plurality at-large" is in common usage in elections for representative members of a body who are elected or appointed to represent the whole membership of the body (for example, a city, state or province, nation, club or association). Where the system is used in a territory divided into multi-member electoral districts the system is commonly referred to as "block voting" or the "bloc vote". These systems are usually based on a single round of voting.
The party-list version of plurality block voting is party block voting (PBV), also called the general ticket, which also uses a simple plurality election in multi-member districts. In such a system, each party puts forward a slate of candidates, a voter casts just one vote, and the party winning a plurality of votes sees its whole slate elected, winning all the seats.
Casting and counting ballots
Block voting
In a block voting election, all candidates run against each other for m number of positions, where m is commonly called the district magnitude. Each voter selects up to m candidates on the ballot. Each of the voters have m votes, and are able to cast no more than one per candidate. They cannot vote for the same candidate more than once, as is permitted in cumulative voting.[2]
Voters are permitted to cast their votes across candidates of different parties (ticket splitting).[3]
The m candidates with the most votes (who may or may not obtain a majority of available votes or support from the majority of the voters) are declared elected and will fill the positions.
Due to multiple voting, when a party runs more than one candidate, it is impossible to know if the party had support of as many voters as the party tally of votes (up to number of voters participating in the election) or if it had support of just the number of voters equivalent to the votes received by the most popular candidate and the other candidates of that party merely received votes from subset of that group.
Example
Candidates are running in a three-member district; each of the 10,000 voters may cast three votes (but do not have to). Voters may not cast more than one vote for a single candidate.
Party A has about 35% support among the electorate, Party B around 25% and the remaining voters primarily support independent candidates.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Elected? | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate A1 | Party A | 3555 | 36% | 3. | Yes | |
| Candidate A2 | Party A | 3700 | 37% | 1. | Yes | |
| Candidate A3 | Party A | 3600 | 36% | 2. | Yes | |
| Candidate B1 | Party B | 2600 | 26% | 4. | ||
| Candidate B2 | Party B | 2500 | 25% | 5. | ||
| Candidate B3 | Party B | 2400 | 24% | 6. | ||
| Candidate I1 | Independent | 2300 | 23% | 8. | ||
| Candidate I2 | Independent | 2395 | 20% | 7. | ||
| Candidate I3 | Independent | 1900 | 19% | 9. | ||
| Candidate I4 | Independent | 1800 | 15% | 10 | ||
| Candidate I5 | Independent | 650 | 7% | 11. | ||
| Candidate I6 | Independent | 600 | 6% | 12. | ||
| TOTAL | 28,000 | |||||
| TOTAL possible votes (3 per voter) | 30,000 | |||||
| Voters | 10,000 | 100% | ||||
Candidates of Party A won in a landslide, even though they only received a plurality (35–37%) among the voters (10,000). This is because most parties run as many candidates as there are open seats and voters of a party usually do not split their ticket, but vote for all candidates of that party.
By contrast, a single transferable vote system would likely elect 1 candidate from party A, 1 candidate from party B and 1 independent candidate in this scenario.
Effects of block voting
The block voting system has a number of features which can make it unrepresentative of the voters' intentions. Block voting regularly produces complete landslide majorities for the group of candidates with the highest level of support. Additionally, like first past the post methods, if there are many parties running and voters do not engage in tactical voting, a small cohesive group of voters, making up only a minority of the voters, can elect all the open seats by merely constituting a plurality.
Landslide victories
Under block voting, a slate of clones of the top-place candidate may win every available seat. A voter does have the option to vote for candidates of different political parties if they wish, but if the largest group of voters have strong party loyalty, there is nothing the other voters or parties can do to prevent a landslide.
While many criticize block voting's tendency to create landslide victories, some cite it as a strength. Since the winners of a block voting election generally represent the same slate or group of voters, there is greater agreement amongst those elected, potentially leading to a reduction in political gridlock.
Tactical voting and strategic nomination
Plurality block voting, like single-winner plurality voting, is particularly vulnerable to tactical voting. Supporters of relatively unpopular third parties have a substantial incentive to avoid wasted votes by casting all of their votes for a slate of candidates from a major party.
Parties in block voting systems can also benefit from strategic nomination. Coalitions are actively hurt when they have more candidates than there are seats to fill, as vote-splitting will occur. Similarly, a coalition has a substantial incentive to nominate a full slate of candidates, as otherwise supporting voters may cast some of their remaining votes for opposing candidates.
Bullet voting is a strategy in which a voter only votes for a single candidate in an attempt to stop them being beaten by additional choices. Because the voter is essentially wasting a portion of their vote, bullet voting is only a good strategy when the voter has a strong preference for their favourite and is unsure of, and/or indifferent to, the other candidates' relative chances of winning, for example, if the voter supports an independent candidate or a minor party which has only nominated one candidate.
This system sometimes fosters the creation of an electoral alliance between political parties or groups as opposed to a coalition. This has been the case in the National Assembly of Mauritius; the New Hampshire House of Representatives, with the election of multiple Free State Project as well as New Hampshire Liberty Alliance members; and in the Vermont Senate, with the elections of Vermont Progressive Party members Tim Ashe and Anthony Pollina.[4] Historically, similar situations arose within the multi-member constituencies in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Compared to preferential block voting
Block voting, or plurality block voting, is often compared with preferential block voting as both systems tend to produce landslide victories for similar candidates. Instead of a series of checkboxes, preferential block voting uses a preferential ballot. A slate of clones of the top preferred candidate will win every seat under both systems, however in preferential block voting this is instead the instant-runoff winner.
Vacancies
In Brazil, where Senatorial elections alternate between FPTP and block voting, each main candidate is registered along with two substitutes. Votes in either election are cast and counted based on these three-candidate slates; when a Senator leaves office before their eight-year term ends, the first substitute takes their place, and then the second if needed.
On the other hand, in political systems with a culture of by-elections, filling vacancies under Block Voting can be harder than in other voting methods. This is because by-elections to fill a single seat in a multi-member district can be expensive.
There are alternative ways of selecting a replacement in such systems: one way is to fill any seat that becomes empty by appointing the most popular unsuccessful candidate in the last election, i.e. a countback. This was used in the City of Edmonton (Canada) following the 1905 Edmonton municipal election.[5]
Use of block voting
| This section needs additional citations for verification. (May 2020) |
National elections
| Block voting used for electing national legislatures |
|---|
|
Block voting (BV) or mixed FPTP and BV Block voting (BV) or mixed FPTP and BV only for upper house of legislature Parallel voting mixed BV and party-list PR
|
The Philippines is the country with the most extensive experience in plurality-at-large voting. Positions where there are multiple winners usually use plurality-at-large voting, the exception is the election for sectoral representatives in the House of Representatives. The members of the Senate and all local legislatures are elected via this method. The members of the Interim Batasang Pambansa (the parliament) were also elected under this method in 1978.
The following countries use plurality block voting (not including party block voting using plurality) in their national electoral systems:
| Country | Legislative body | Latest election (year) | Type of system | Seats per constituency | Electoral system | Total seats | Constituencies | Governmental system | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Brazil
|
Senate | 2022 | block voting via multi-winner districts | 1 or 2 (alternates each election) | Plurality block voting (BV) and First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) | 81 | States and the Federal district | Presidential system | |
 Islamic Republic of Iran
|
Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) | 2020 | block voting via multi-winner districts | 1–30[citation needed] | Modified two-round block voting (BV) in multi-member districts, modified two-round system (TRS) in single-member districts (25% of votes required to win in 1st round in every constituency) | 290 (285 directly elected) | electoral districts[citation needed] | Presidential system | |
| Assembly of Experts | block voting via multi-winner districts | 1–16 | Plurality block voting (BV) | Presidential system | |||||
 Kiribati
|
House of Assembly | 2020 | block voting via multi-winner districts | 1–3 | Two-round block voting (BV) in multi-member districts, two-round system (TRS) in single-member districts (50% of votes required to win in 1st round in every constituency) | 46 (44 directly elected + 1 delegate from Banaba Island and 1 ex officio) | electoral districts[citation needed] | [citation needed] | |
 Laos
|
National Assembly | 2021 | block voting via multi-winner districts | 5–19 | Plurality block voting (BV) | 164 (149 directly elected)[citation needed] | provinces | ||
 Mali
|
National Assembly | 2020 | block voting via multi-winner districts | Two-round block voting (BV) in multi-member districts, two-round system (TRS) in single-member districts (50% of votes required to win in 1st round in every constituency) | 147[citation needed] | electoral districts[citation needed] | |||
 Marshall Islands
|
Legislature | 2019 | block voting via multi-winner districts | 1–5 | First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) in single-member constituencies (19 seats) and Plurality block voting (BV) in multi-member constituencies (14 seats) | 33 | electoral districts[citation needed] | [citation needed] | |
 Mauritania
|
National Assembly | 2018 | mixed-member majoritarian | 1–3 (local districts), 40 (nationwide constituency) | Coexistence+superposition (parallel) supermixed/hybrid:
Two-round system (TRS) in single-member districts, two-round block voting (BV) in dual-member districts, and List PR (simple quota largest remainder; closed-list) in larger districts + twice 20 nationally List PR (one set of 20 reserved for women) |
157 | electoral districts[citation needed] | Semi-presidential system | |
 Mauritius
|
National Assembly | 2019 | block voting via multi-winner districts | 3 (for 20 constituencies) and 2 (for the constituency of Rodrigues) | Plurality block voting (BV) | 70 (62 directly elected + a maximum of 8 Best Losers appointed) | electoral districts[citation needed] | Parliamentary system | |
 Monaco
|
Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Plurality-at-large_voting