The Electoral System Definition and Its Role

An electoral system represents all customs, laws, procedures, and institutions used to elect representatives in a political system, political group, or another entity. The electoral system of any country is of prime importance for the outcome of elections. For example, in Canada, elections are conducted under the rule of federal authorities, while in the USA, state law and local policies determine the mechanics of presidential elections.

The single-member plurality also affects the process and outcomes of the elections: “The single-member district/simple-plurality electoral system is the easiest to understand and the most widely utilized among the democratic nation-states of the world. It is used extensively in a diminishing number of states. This is an effort to reduce the number of parties that compete and to produce a strong national government capable of handling widespread corruption”.

As it is widely known, the principle of the single-member district is to choose 75% of the Parliament from the winning party and distribute the remaining 25% among all other parties. The introduction of one more election tool, the proportional representation, would nonetheless seriously alter the outcome of Canadian elections due to the varying size of Canadian provinces and disproportionate distribution of power in the Parliament in case of PR adoption. It seems that surely some changes should be introduced, especially with the proper regard to the fact that the US and Canadian electoral systems are almost always unable to produce an effective, aligned government.