🗳️ How Elections Work Around the World

What you’ll learn

1. The Rules Are Not NeutralEstablish the course's through-line: the method used to count votes shapes outcomes and the whole party landscape as powerfully as voters' preferences do.An election is not just voters expressing a will; it is that will run through a set of counting rules, and different rules turn the identical votes into very different governments. The voting system is a hidden actor in every democracy — deciding how many parties survive, whose votes 'count,' and who ends up in power.
2. First-Past-the-PostUnderstand plurality voting in single-member districts — how it works, why it feels simple, and the 'wasted vote' problem it creates.Under first-past-the-post (FPTP), a country is divided into districts; in each, the candidate with the most votes wins the single seat, even without a majority. It is simple and produces a clear local representative, but every vote for a loser — and every vote beyond what the winner needed — elects no one, concentrating power and distorting the national picture.
3. The Disproportion MachineSee FPTP's distortion quantitatively using the 2015 UK general election, where similar national vote shares produced wildly different seat counts.The 2015 UK general election is a textbook case of FPTP distortion. UKIP won 12.6% of the national vote but only 1 of 650 seats, because its support was spread thinly. The SNP won just 4.7% nationally but 56 seats, because its support was concentrated in Scotland. Geography, not just popularity, decided who got power.
4. Duverger's LawUnderstand why FPTP tends to produce two dominant parties, via the mechanical and psychological effects Maurice Duverger described — and note it is a tendency with exceptions.The French sociologist Maurice Duverger observed that first-past-the-post systems tend toward two major parties. Two forces drive this: a mechanical effect (small parties win few seats relative to votes) and a psychological effect (voters abandon parties they think can't win, to avoid 'wasting' their vote). It is a strong tendency, not an iron law — countries with strong regional parties, like India and Canada, show exceptions.
5. Proportional RepresentationUnderstand proportional representation — seats allocated in proportion to votes — its multiparty consequences, thresholds, and the coalition governments it produces.Proportional representation (PR) aims to make a legislature mirror the electorate: a party with 20% of the vote gets roughly 20% of the seats. This lets smaller parties survive and represents more voters, but usually yields many parties and coalition governments that must negotiate to rule. Most systems set a threshold (often around 5%) to keep out tiny fringe parties.
6. Ranked-Choice VotingUnderstand ranked-choice / instant-runoff voting: ranking candidates in order, eliminating the lowest, and transferring votes until a majority winner emerges.Ranked-choice voting (also called instant-runoff) lets voters rank candidates by preference. If no one has a majority of first choices, the last-place candidate is eliminated and their ballots transfer to each voter's next choice; this repeats until a candidate has a majority. It aims to ensure majority support and reduce the 'wasted vote' fear, at the cost of a more complex count. Australia uses it for its House; Ireland uses a proportional cousin, STV.
7. Drawing the LinesUnderstand how district boundaries themselves shape outcomes in single-member systems, and how gerrymandering (packing and cracking) manipulates them — with the neutral note that both parties do it and independent commissions are an alternative.In any system with single-member districts, someone must draw the boundaries — and where the lines fall changes who wins. Gerrymandering is drawing them to favor one side, using two tactics: 'packing' opponents into a few districts and 'cracking' them across many so they can't win any. It is practiced by parties across the spectrum; many democracies limit it with independent redistricting commissions.
8. Turnout: Who Actually VotesUnderstand that who turns out is itself part of the outcome, and compare voluntary vs compulsory voting using real turnout figures.An electoral system only measures the preferences of people who actually vote, and turnout varies enormously with the rules. Compulsory-voting Australia recorded 89.82% turnout in 2022, while the voluntary US saw 66.8% of eligible voters cast ballots in 2020. Making voting easier or mandatory changes not just how many vote but, often, which groups are represented.
9. No System Is the FairestSynthesize the course: each electoral system optimizes for a different legitimate value, so 'fairest' depends on what you want an election to do.FPTP, PR, and ranked-choice each buy one virtue at the price of another: FPTP delivers accountability and strong single-party government but distorts vote-to-seat proportionality; PR delivers faithful representation but coalition governance; ranked-choice delivers majority winners but a more complex count. There is no neutral 'best' — only a choice about which values an election should serve.

Questions this course answers

Grounded in trusted sources

• Wikipedia, '2015 United Kingdom general election' (vote shares and seat counts)
• House of Commons Library, 'General Election 2015: full results and analysis'
• The Australia Institute, 2022 federal election voter turnout (89.82%)
• US Census Bureau / Wikipedia, 2020 US presidential election turnout (66.8% of eligible)
• Maurice Duverger, 'Political Parties' (Duverger's law)
• ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, electoral system families
• Arend Lijphart, 'Patterns of Democracy'

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

Related History courses