Electoral Systems Flashcards

Flashcards for reviewing lecture notes on electoral systems.

Constituency

Term meaning 'district' in American English, used in most places to describe electoral divisions.

First Past the Post Electoral System

Also called single-member district plurality, a system where a candidate can win with just more votes than anyone else, even a relatively small minority.

Plurality

Having more votes than anyone else, but not necessarily a majority.

Majority

More than 50% of the votes.

Duverger's Law

The observation that electoral systems using majority rule tend to result in fewer major political parties.

Strategic Voting

Voting for a candidate that has a chance to win that is closest to their issue positions, rather than voting sincerely for their preferred candidate.

Sincere Voting

Voting for the candidate that you truly want to win.

Gerrymandering and Malapportionment

The manipulation of district boundaries to favor a particular political party or group.

Casework

Assistance provided by a member of congress to constituents with problems involving the federal government.

Nunavut

A territory in Canada with a small population that is wildly overrepresented in the Canadian House of Commons.

Inuk

The correct term for the indigenous people of the Arctic regions of Canada, Greenland, and parts of Russia and Alaska.

Majority Runoff

An electoral system where if no candidate wins a majority in the first round, the top two vote-getters run in a second round.

Le Monde

A major newspaper in France, equivalent to both the New York Times and the BBC.