Which Country's Voting System Is Best?

Brut India

Is India's way of electing its government the best in the world? Dhruv Rathee looks at what other countries do and helps answer that question.

Transcript

00:00Friends, in 2014, Modi became the Prime Minister with just 31% of the vote share in our country.

00:06That is, 69% of the population voted against him.

00:10What was the logic behind this?

00:12On the other hand, in the 2016 US presidential elections,

00:16Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes than Donald Trump.

00:21But still, Donald Trump became the President of the USA.

00:23So, what kind of a democracy is this?

00:25How can a person, whose majority votes against him, become the leader of the country?

00:30Friends, this is what I would like to teach you in this video.

00:33How do voting systems work in all the democracies of the world?

00:36And after watching this video, you will be forced to think

00:39which voting system will actually be the best voting system for democracy.

00:44Let's see.

00:51Let's look at an example.

00:52Assume that there are 4 candidates in your constituency.

00:55Akshay, Salman, Ranveer, Hrithik.

00:58Now, you all vote.

01:00And after voting, we see that Akshay got 35% votes,

01:03Salman got 39%,

01:05and Ranveer and Hrithik got 16% and 15% votes.

01:08Now, what happens in our country is

01:10the candidate who gets the most votes wins the constituency.

01:14This is called the first-past-the-post voting system.

01:18In this case, if Salman gets the most votes, 39%,

01:22then the leader of our constituency will be Salman with 39% votes.

01:26This first-past-the-post voting system is used in 58 different democratic countries around the world.

01:32But it clearly has some disadvantages.

01:35For example, in the case of our example,

01:37let's assume that Hrithik's fans hate Akshay a lot.

01:41They hate Akshay so much that they don't want him to win.

01:44That's why a lot of Hrithik's fans voted for Salman.

01:48Because they knew that Salman is a top candidate.

01:51The media was constantly talking about Akshay and Salman,

01:54not Hrithik and Ranveer.

01:56So, people voted for Salman out of helplessness.

02:00What kind of democracy is this that people are not voting for their first-preference candidate,

02:04but are voting for another candidate out of fear and helplessness

02:08so that the third candidate doesn't win?

02:10Some people will say that we're voting for the lesser of two evils.

02:14So, you can see that this is a huge disadvantage of this voting system.

02:17On the other hand, if this example was realistic in our country,

02:20it's possible that Salman's voters would've called Hrithik a vote-cutting candidate.

02:25Because from their perspective, Hrithik is just cutting votes.

02:28The people voting for Hrithik would've voted for Salman.

02:32So, this vote-cutting is another huge disadvantage.

02:36The third disadvantage is that a lot of people vote for candidates based on their winnability.

02:42There are so many chances that they can win realistically.

02:45If the media is constantly talking about the top two candidates,

02:49then a lot of people won't vote for the rest of the candidates.

02:52Because they'll think that what's the point of voting for them if they're not going to win anyway.

02:57This is called a wasted vote.

02:59There's a voting system to counter all these disadvantages, friends.

03:03Instant run-off voting.

03:05In this, instead of voting for one candidate,

03:08you arrange all the candidates in the order of preferences.

03:12You rank the candidates that this is my first preference,

03:15this is my second preference, and this is my third preference.

03:18Instant run-off voting is used in the elections in Australia.

03:21So, let's come back to our example to see how the winners are decided in this type of voting system.

03:27If our four candidates have the same voting percentages in the first preference,

03:32then the lowest voting percentage in the first preference will be eliminated

03:37and the votes will be transferred.

03:39The 15% votes of Hrithik,

03:42the second preference of these 15% people will be seen

03:45and in that second preference, 15% votes will be transferred.

03:49If we assume that the second preference of Hrithik's voters,

03:53the second preference of all 15% people was Akshay,

03:56then these 15% votes will be transferred to Akshay

03:59and Akshay will have 50% votes in total.

04:01And Akshay will be declared the winner here.

04:03Normally, in instant run-off voting, the majority has to pass.

04:08That is, every candidate has to get more than 50% voting.

04:12If a candidate gets more than 50% in the first preference,

04:16then we will not see this second preference thing.

04:19You can clearly see, friends, what advantages you have as a voter here.

04:23You don't have to vote out of helplessness.

04:26You don't have to vote lesser of the two evils.

04:29In this case, friends, you will generally vote for your first preference.

04:32And if you feel that you have to defeat the third one,

04:35then you will put your second candidate in the second preference.

04:38This eliminates a lot of the disadvantages of the first pass the post.

04:43This type of voting system is used in a lot of countries.

04:47And friends, in our country, the election of the President of India

04:50is also done through instant run-off voting.

04:52Now, in some countries, this is used in different ways.

04:55It is possible that instead of arranging all the candidates in a preference order,

04:59you can only arrange the top 4 or top 3.

05:02This is called contingent voting.

05:05This is what happens in the present elections of Sri Lanka, friends.

05:08Voters choose their top 3 choices.

05:11They rank 3 people based on which the winner is decided later.

05:15Interestingly, friends, the winners of the Oscars are also decided through instant run-off voting.

05:20Now, some people will say that if Hrithik has won 15% votes here,

05:24then in a true democracy, Hrithik's party should get 15% seats.

05:29Only then can it be a true democracy.

05:32Because the percentage of votes that a candidate gets,

05:34the party should get the same percentage of seats.

05:37Now, this system is called proportional representation.

05:41And in fact, it is the most common system used in national legislatures all over the world.

05:46It is used in more than 80 countries.

05:49Belgium, friends, was the first country to use the proportional representation system

05:54in the general elections of 1900.

05:56Now, there can be many different ways to implement this type of voting system.

06:01In some countries, like Israel and Netherlands,

06:05the whole country is one constituency.

06:07It is not divided into different constituencies.

06:09So, the people of the country vote based on the parties.

06:12And according to the voting percentage of the parties, they are allotted seats.

06:17This is called pure proportional representation.

06:20What are the other ways in other countries?

06:23Parties list the candidates.

06:25And the voters vote based on the list of the candidates.

06:28This is called closed list system.

06:31In some countries, the list that the parties list,

06:33the candidates can vote on that too.

06:35They can also rank on how the list is being drawn.

06:39And which candidate will be given the percentage of seats,

06:42the percentage of votes that we are giving here.

06:44This is called open list system.

06:46So, if in the general elections of 2014,

06:48the proportional representation system was used in our country,

06:52then according to the 31% vote share, BJP should have got 169 seats out of 545.

06:59In fact, all the parties should have got their seats according to their percentage.

07:03But it is not that there are no disadvantages of the proportional representation system.

07:08Those who criticize it say that

07:10the voters lose their connection with their leaders at a local level.

07:14Nationally, it looks fine that a party has won so many votes,

07:19so it should get so many seats.

07:21But the local constituency leaders lose their connection.

07:25Another thing that is said against it is that

07:27in the proportional representation system,

07:29it is very difficult for a party to get a majority.

07:32So, the chances are that the coalition governments will be formed.

07:36And it is said that coalition governments are not very stable.

07:39Maybe this is the reason that in countries like Germany,

07:42a mixture of voting systems is used.

07:44A mix of first-past-the-post and proportional representation is used.

07:48In their national legislature in Germany,

07:5150% seats work like first-past-the-post.

07:54People elect their constituency leaders.

07:57And the remaining 50% seats are taken out by the parties

08:00and proportionally represented by their voting percentage,

08:04they are given a seat.

08:06You can say that the advantages of both the types have been balanced.

08:10In most of the presidential countries of the world,

08:12like Russia, South America, France,

08:15a two-round voting system is used.

08:18In this, there is a voting round.

08:20If no one gets a majority,

08:22there will be a second round of voting.

08:24And generally, in the second round of voting,

08:26only the top two candidates are seen.

08:28The disadvantages of this system are the same

08:30as the disadvantages of the first-past-the-post system.

08:32In fact, it has more disadvantages.

08:34The disadvantages are that only two people are selected in some countries.

08:38So, the smaller parties are not given a chance to rise above.

08:43So, again, people vote for those candidates

08:46who have more chances of winning here.

08:48So, this was an overview of different types of voting systems.

08:52But in reality, voting systems can be very complicated.

08:55All the types I told you,

08:56there can be many sub-types in them.

08:59Many countries in the world modify it in their own way.

09:02And there can be many more things in them.

09:04For example, in Greece,

09:05the party that wins the majority

09:07is given a bonus of 50 seats.

09:09They get 50 seats extra in the parliament

09:12just because they won the majority.

09:14So, every country has modified such small things in its own way.

09:17The more you learn about them,

09:19the more you will get to know.

09:21And maybe then you will be able to answer the question

09:23that which voting system will actually be good.

09:25What do you think, friends, after watching this video?

09:27You can write in the comments and tell me

09:29which voting system will be good according to you.

09:32Let's meet in the next video, friends.

09:34Thank you!

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