“Winner takes all” principle regarding popular election of people’s representatives is in national and international discussions for some time. Explain the term with relevant examples from India and United States of America (USA).

By Srirangam Sriram, Sriram's IAS, New Delhi.

The reason for the term ‘winner takes all’ being in news for some time now is because American Presidential elections were held last week in which each state has certain members of the electoral college assigned to it. If the members from a state are divided between two parties, the party that gets more members carries all the members with it. It is also called plurality voting. It is prevalent in India also for elections to Lok Sabha and Legislative assembly. In this electoral system each voter is allowed to vote for only one candidate, and the candidate who polls more than any other counterpart (a plurality) is elected. It is called first-past-the- post (FPTP) in India.

Plurality voting is distinguished from a majoritarian electoral system in which a winning candidate must receive an absolute majority of votes- 50% plus one.

It is criticised in India as the seats a party has in the legislature has little relation to the vote it has gained from people. Different ways are devised for correction of the gap like runoff election, additional vote, semi-proportional system etc.

Even in the USA, it created such a distortion in 2016 US Presidential outcome when Hillary Clinton got more popular vote but Donald Trump won the election.

Published date : 16 Nov 2020 11:49AM