Two-round system

Two-round system

The two-round system is used around the world for the election of legislative bodies and directly elected presidents. If no candidate receives enough of the vote in the first round, then a second round of voting is held with either just the top two candidates or all candidates who received a certain proportion of the votes. In both rounds of an election conducted using runoff voting, the voter simply marks hisher favorite candidate.

About Two-round system in brief

Summary Two-round systemThe two-round system is used around the world for the election of legislative bodies and directly elected presidents. If no candidate receives enough of the vote in the first round, then a second round of voting is held with either just the top two candidates or all candidates who received a certain proportion of the votes. In both rounds of an election conducted using runoff voting, the voter simply marks hisher favorite candidate. In the second round, each voter is entirely free to change the candidate he or she votes for, even if hisher preferred candidate has not yet been eliminated. In 1925, Ernst Thälmann, the communist candidate, did not withdraw and ran in second round. The President of Germany was popularly elected in 1925 and 1932 by a two- round system; the candidate could run even if they had not done so in first round. There are 25 people having dessert and four candidates are used to find the winner. Imagine an election to choose which food to eat for dessert: Ice cream, Apple pie, Celery Fruit and Fruit and Celery. Round 1: Runoff voting is used to choose the winner of the 1st round of the election: Paul von Hindenburg, rather than Wilhelm Marx, centrist candidate. Round 2: The winner is decided by a vote for the 2nd place candidate, with all other candidates eliminated. Round 3: The winners of the first and 2nd rounds are decided by the 3rd and 4th votes, with the winner chosen by the 5th and 6th votes. Round 5: The 3rd round is the final round, and the winner is chosen by a ballot of the 6th, 7th and 8th voters.

The winner of this round is then decided by an 11th, 8th and 9th vote, and so on until the winner has been decided. In Canada, for example, when there are more than two candidates for political party leadership they use an exhaustive ballot system where one candidate must win a simple majority. In Czech and Kenyan presidential elections, the candidates in first and second places are permitted to stand in the secondround, withall other candidates eliminating, thus providing the contingency for a first- or second-place tie; a plurality is then sufficient to be elected. However, in Ghana, which also employs this contingency method, the majority requirement still holds in the2nd round and a third round would be held if it isn’t obtained, etc.. Under some variants of runoff voting,. there is no formal rule for eliminating candidates, but candidates who receive fewer votes in the1st round are expected to withdraw. In Ghana, even if the candidate who received the fewest votes is expected to win, a second-round would still be held. In Israel to elect the Prime Minister in the 1996, 1999 and 2001 elections, and in New Zealand in the 1908 and 1911 elections, it is known as a runoff election. It is also used also to elect presidents of Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Djibouti, Dominican Republic.