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The Analysis of Winner Take it All Electoral System

Introduction

Winner takes it all electoral system refers to an election where the democratic country

such as the United States divides country territories into electoral districts. Every electoral

district is often entitled to a single legislative seat. The legislative seat is usually won by the

electoral candidate who receives most of the votes cast. The electoral system typically tends to

favor larger states over less dominant ones in the country. Indeed, Winner-takes-it-all electoral

systems seemed to have failed in representing every American Citizen because the election

Winner only represents plurality votes rather than the entire country. Florey (317) argues that the

Winner-takes-it-all election has affected the bargaining power of most politicians, thus, causing

considerable harm to third parties through the creation of incentives that promotes fraud, voter

suspension, and other undesirable political or campaign tactics. Scholars further support the

societal imbalance where dominant voters' preferences prevail over those with fewer votes

(Okwara, Np). Hacker&Pierson (159) talks about the rise of inequality in the United States due

to the Winner takes it all electoral system. The research shows how this kind of electoral system

affected and brought tensions and worries among the United States Economists and politicians

within different party organizations, especially third parties. Another scholar supports the facts

by presenting the influence of fraudulent elections on citizens' trust concerning the public
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political institutions and election process in the United States (Wellman et al., 335). According to

Fisher et al. (410), Winner takes it all electoral system has led to negative and positive electoral

integrity in some national parties. The scholar further emphasized the evaluation variance of

electoral integrity. As a result, much of the effects seemed to have been localized rather than

spreading all over. Consequently, impacts associated with the winner/lose electoral system and

integrity majorly emanate from the electoral district's urban-related features (Fisher et al., 415).

The Winner-takes-it-all electoral system has led to severe underrepresentation of women,

communities of color, third parties, and young people within the United States (Crane, Np). This

could only mean that the Third parties in the country do not have a voice over the current issues

affecting the government or American society. Current researchers argue that countries

practicing democracies seem to be historically disrupted, leading to confusion among the people,

institutions, and their leaders. These institutions include press, civil, society organizations,

electoral bodies, and parties. According to Bennett et al. (1660), the interaction between citizens

and institutions is essential for the country because it operates as a democratic interface that

guides the administrative authority and quality of every Citizen's life. For instance, the electoral

dimension is a critical interface affecting every Citizen and even regular government operation.

Jurado (71) conducted supporting research on the ever-growing left-right inequalities concerning

the electoral process between government, election processes, citizens, and parties. (According

to Jurado, Np) research findings, moral, social rules, racial and nationalist policies are related to

hierarchical leader centered parties often have the upper hand in every election process in the

country. The research shows that the idea of plurality and demand for deliberate democracy

seemed to have affected the chances of the Third parties winning the elections. The Third parties

came up with the technological approach of connecting parties to work on core organizational
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principles (Gibson et al. 90). However, to some extent, the policy did not succeed. As the parties

tried to share authority processes, they were outdone by more established and organized ruling

parties.

In Countries that practice Winner-takes-it-all elections, two parties usually dominate

through a principle of a single political viewpoint over the Third parties and their members, thus,

rendering the small parties powerless. The result is no choice of elections. According to

Huneeus&Tomás (100), in a Winner-takes-it-all election system, one convectional party tends to

have monopoly power. The results of the polls are often predetermined even before the voting

process. For instance, in the United States, some electoral seats during the electoral vote usually

remained uncontested. In most cases, more than 95% of the legislative and congressional

incumbents typically win the election by a significant gap. Sorin (80) argues that there is a

substantial relationship between Winner-takes-it-all elections policy and a two-party state

system. Sorin further defines a Two-party state as a political system that involves only two major

political parties, like democratic and republican parties, that dominate the political atmosphere in

the United States. Over the years, most of the elections conducted in the United States are

usually dominated by Democratic and Republican parties. These two parties predominantly hold

almost all legislative offices in the country. The overwhelming power of the majority party

makes the minority party gets less while Third parties come out with no seat during the electoral

process. Therefore, in the United States, Third-party winning an election is usually reduced to

minimal. The majority and minority parties dominated almost every legislative and congressional

seat in the country. With Contrasting ideas, Plener Cover argues that the policy of the Two-party

state could be eradicated by applying Two-party state structural countermanding proven to be

effective and performative. The Contermandering approach seems to be effectively used to curb
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partisan gerrymandering through judicial review and mapmaker neutrality (Plener Cover, Np).

However, the strategy had limited success because of the judicial and institutional difficulties.

The Third parties usually suffer from a high percentage of waste votes; as a result, these

parties often find it challenging to win the election. During the electoral process of Winner-

takes-it-all, more than 50% of all ballot casts frequently turn to be wasted. According to Brams et

al. (10), a wasted vote refers to a vote that can not be used to elect a candidate or the votes that

belongs to a losing candidate. Ryan argues that wasted votes are based on the efficiency gap or

gerrymandering, where the electoral votes are classified into electoral districts purposefully to

increase votes for the winning side. At the same time, reduce wasted votes of the losing side.

According to (Kroeber et al. 400) social characteristics of voters can be used to reduce wastage

of vote. Scholars ascertain that the likelihood of vote wastage depends on education, income,

age, and gender levels. (Kroeber et al. 400) asserts that voters should be motivated and given a

conducive environment to examine political candidate viability correctly. Research findings

indicated that individual cognitive capacity does not influence voters' viability to review

candidates' viability. The wasted votes came from young and male voters who supported

candidates regardless of their political position. Decisively, the research indicated that gender

and age could politically reinforce existing social imbalance during the electoral process.

However, Clark (80) proposed a local electoral reform to enable political leaders and the

electoral body to understand the essentials of the reforms on political and Citizen behavior.

According to the research finding for Scotland administrative authority to encourage competition

between political parties, either large or small, they introduced single transferable vote (STV)

around 2007. Consequently, the policy affected how parties competed with each, how citizens
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used the preferential ballot. Unfortunately, the research did not highlight the limitation of local

electoral reform policy and its effects on majority and minority leadership in Scotland.

The winner-takes-it-all elections system encouraged monopoly and lousy governance in

most of the countries that practice this kind of electoral policy. As a result, most citizens would

feel reluctant to practice their right to cast their votes. Additionally, they might feel

underrepresented because of the lack of enough leaders to choose from during elections. These

political issues might lead to undervoting, which is deemed inappropriate and discourages other

parties or third parties in the country from fully participating during an election year. Indeed such

nations usually experience a decreased voter turnout because most of the Citizen feels that less

represented, they do not range of leaders to choose from, and the fact that they have little or no

chance of influencing an election or country leadership. Because of these political reasons, some

citizens might decide not to participate in the election. In conjunction with the one discussed in

the paper, these political factors do not favor the Third parties' political ambitions. The new

world order is all about democracy, and every party, either majority, minority, or third party,

should create a conducive environment where all citizens will fit. Additionally, the citizens of the

democratic country should develop and abide by the moral codes, and they can only acquire

these through civic education. Civic education and knowledge enable citizens to understand the

latent power existing in their respective counties. Lastly, the political and corporates should

develop groups that adhere to the moral standard of society to affect the change in the country.
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Work Cited

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