Which Voting Rule Will Fix French Politics?
Which Voting Rule Will Fix French Politics? By Haris Aziz The issue The French political system is based on electing a president via the plurality with runoff rule. The rule requires that each voter votes for the most preferred candidate and the two candidates with the highest number of voters are shortlisted for a second round. In the second round, the candidate that is preferred by a majority of voters is selected. Just like the first past the vote, plurality with runoff is a hugely flawed voting rule that is highly susceptible to the spoiler effect. In simple words, the vote bank of a sizeable group of voters can be easily split up among similar candidates. The following is a simple example that shows how the rule used in France is flawed. The voters express preferences in decreasing order of preference from left to right. 20%: Y>X1>X2>X3>X4>Z 20% Z>X1>X2>X3>X4>X 15%: X1>X2>X3>X4>Y>Z 15%: X2>X1>X2>X4...