National elections 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 block plurality voting (not including
party block voting using plurality) in their national electoral systems:
Sub-national elections Other countries using block voting: •
Canada, in many local government elections, and in
Senate nominee elections in Alberta •
China for the
National People's Congress and
local people's congresses in provincial, municipal and regional levels with
combined approval voting •
Ecuador in 1998 •
Hungary, for local elections in municipalities under 10,000 residents. The system is officially called "individualized list electoral system" or "electoral system using personalized lists" (Hungarian: ), which can be loosely interpreted as meaning personalized block voting, as opposed to party list systems, such as party block voting (
general ticket) or
party list PR. •
Iran, for the
city and village councils •
Lebanon •
New Zealand, for some local elections which use a first past the post system for multi-member wards •
Philippines, for provincial boards, and city, municipal and village councils •
Russia, in some local elections, e.g. in
Moscow district councils elections •
Syria •
Tonga, for noble elections •
United Kingdom, in some local elections in
England and
Wales. •
United States, in some state and local elections. In
France, the election of municipal councilors takes place by majority vote plurinominal, in two rounds with
panachage: • In the first round, candidates are elected if they receive an absolute majority of votes cast and the vote of a
quorum of at least a quarter of registered voters; • In the second round, a simple majority suffices. If multiple candidates receive the same number of votes, the election is won by the older of the candidates when no one can be elected based on the number of seats In
British Columbia, Canada, all local governments are elected using bloc voting for city councils and for other multi-member bodies (there called "at-large" voting). In other Canadian provinces, smaller cities are generally elected under plurality-at-large, while larger cities are generally elected under the "ward system" which is a municipal adaptation of single member plurality. The sole exception is London, Ontario which has recently changed to the
Alternative Vote. When Toronto was amalgamated in 1997, the new entity's
first election used a similar rule. From 1871 to 1988, British Columbia had some multi-member ridings using plurality-at-large, and others elected under
single member plurality, with the number of each varying from one election to the next. Other Canadian provincial legislatures have in the past used plurality-at-large or
single transferable vote, but now all members of provincial legislatures are exclusively elected under single-member plurality. In
Hong Kong, block voting is used for a tiny proportion of the territory's population to elect the members of the
Election Committee, which is responsible for selecting the territory's Chief Executive.
Former use Block voting was used in the
Australian Senate from 1901 to 1948 (from 1918, this was preferential block voting). Block voting was also once used in
South Australia. It was used for multi-member constituencies in
parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom until their abolition, and remains in use throughout
England and Wales for some
local elections. It is also used in
Jersey,
Guernsey, the
Isle of Man, the
Cayman Islands (until 2013, FPTP since 2017), the
Falkland Islands and
Saint Helena. Block plurality voting is or was also used in the election of the
Senate of Poland (until 2011), the
Argentine Chamber of Deputies (between 1854 and 1902, and between 1906 and 1910), of the
Parliament of Lebanon, the plurality seats in the
Palestinian Legislative Council and for the
National Assembly of Mauritius. In some Lebanese and Palestinian constituencies, there is only one seat to be filled; in the
Palestinian election of 1996 there were only plurality seats, but in
2006 half the seats were elected by plurality (two by first past the post; the others by block voting, in districts that ranged in size from two to nine seats); half by proportional representation nationwide. (The usual one-party sweep produced by block voting is seen in Hebron in the 2006 election where one party took all the district's nine seats.) A form of block plurality voting was used for the elections of both houses of Parliament in
Belgium before proportional representation was implemented in 1900. The system, however, was combined with a system similar to a
runoff election; when not enough candidates had the majority of the votes in the first round to fill the seats, a second round was held between the highest ranked candidates of the first round (with two times as many candidates as seats to be filled). In some constituencies there was only one seat to be filled. A similar system to elect part of the
Mongolian parliament. 48 Representatives are elected from districts with 1–3 members, the representatives are required to achieve at least 28% of the vote in a district to be elected, if there are unfilled seats after the first round of voting, a second round similar to the Belgian system is held to fill the remaining seat. The remaining representatives are elected separately using party list proportional representation on the national level. Block voting was used in some constituencies for the
House of Representatives of Japan in the first six general elections between 1890 and 1898: while the majority of seats was elected by plurality in 214 single-member districts, there were 43 two-member districts that elected their representatives by block voting. == See also ==