Send to a Friend  PhiNotPi's avatar  How large of an impact
would an "alternative voting system" have on US politics?  Asked
by PhiNotPi (12355 points ) April 15th, 2014  The overwhelming
majority of elections in the US use the plurality voting system
(also called first-past-the-post). Each voter casts a vote for a
single candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins.
Despite its simplicity and ease of use, plurality voting is not
ideal. One major problem is the spoiler effect, which can cause
undesirable candidates to win because third parties split the
vote. For those interested in the specifics, here is a table of
many voting systems and their properties.  It has also been
theorized that plurality voting favors a two-party system of
government.  There are a few countries which have implemented
alternative voting systems, which attempt to eliminate the
problems with plurality voting. Australia and India use instant-
runoff voting, which eliminates the spoiler effect. Some
organizations have used mor