Part of the Politics and Economics series |
Electoral systems |
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The general ticket, also known as party block voting (PBV),[1] is a type of block voting in which voters opt for a party, or a team's set list of candidates, and the highest-polling party/team becomes the winner. The system results in the victorious political party receiving 100% of the seats. Rarely used today, the general ticket is usually applied in more than one multi-member district, which theoretically allows regionally strong minority parties to win some seats.
This system is largely seen as outdated and undemocratic due to its extreme winner-take-all nature, and has mostly been replaced by methods based on proportional representation or single-member districts. When used together with multi-member geographic districts, it is highly vulnerable to gerrymandering and majority reversals. An example of the latter can be seen in the US Electoral College, where all but four members are elected using the general ticket.
The system is occasionally used in superposition with party-list proportional representation, in which case the combined method is called a majority bonus system. The system is used in Italy for one-fifth of their regional councillors.