A winner-take-all or (winner-takes-all) system is a type of voting system where representation in a governing body or electoral district is only awarded to the candidate or party that receives the most votes. Although such systems are sometimes called "majoritarian representation" or "majorizing" systems, winners do not always have the support of an absolute majority, as it is possible for a plurality (most votes, but less than an absolute majority) to select winners. Winner-take-all systems are contrasted with proportional representation systems, wherein control of the body or district is divided proportionally to the number of votes.
Winner-take-all systems are criticized by economists, political scientists, and citizen activist groups for allowing potentially disproportionate and undemocratic results, as small pluralities can obtain complete power over a governing body, leaving the majority of voters unrepresented. Furthermore, political scientist Maurice Duverger argued that winner-take-all systems lead to two-party systems, a theory termed Duverger's Law.
A voting system is winner-take-all if representation is only awarded to the candidate with the largest vote share. Since single-winner voting systems can only select one winner to represent all voters in a given body or district, all such systems are by definition winner-take-all. This includes both first-past-the-post and single-winner ranked voting methods.
A multi-winner voting system can still be winner-take-all if a plurality of voters can coordinate to only elect representation for themselves. This includes plurality block voting, where voters can select as many candidates as there are open positions, and can win all seats by simply selecting all the candidates of their preferred party. In addition, although single non-transferable voting systems can produce results where a plurality elects every seat, this requires poor coordination of minority factions, so it is not strictly winner-take-all.
If the members of a body of representatives are each elected from a winner-take-all electoral district, the system as a whole may not reflect the winner-take-all principle wherein the party with the most votes, whether plurality or majority, receives all or even most of the seats. If a sufficient number of votes from the plurality or majority are wasted in each district (see gerrymandering) a minority of voters can win a majority of seats in the governing body. (see also electoral inversion)
The principle of majoritarian democracy does not necessarily imply that a winner-take-all electoral system needs to be used, in fact, using proportional systems to elect legislature usually better serve this principle as such aims to ensures that the legislature accurately reflects the whole population, not just the winners of the election and the majority rule is then used within the legislature. The most widely accepted modern views of representative democracy no longer consider winner-take-all representation to be democratic. For this reason, nowadays winner-take-all representation is most often used in single-winner districts, which allows nationwide minorities to gain representation if they make up a plurality or majority in at least one district, but some also consider this anti-democratic because of the possibility of an electoral inversion (like in the case of some US presidential elections: 2000, 2016).
Winner-take-all and proportional systems are the most commonly used voting system worldwide, followed by mixed electoral systems, which usually combine winner-take-all and proportional representation, although there are mixed system that combine two winner-take-all systems as well. Winner-take-all representation is also contrasted with proportional representation, which provides for representation of political minorities according to their share of the popular vote and semi-proportional representation, which inherently provides for some representation of minorities (at least above a certain threshold). Within mixed systems, mixed-member majoritarian representation (also known as parallel voting) provides semi-proportional representation, as opposed to mixed-member proportional systems.
Historically the first multi-winner electoral systems were winner-take-all elections held at-large, or more generally the multiple non-transferable vote.
Until the first half of the 19th century, the classic winner-take-all system of block voting began to be more and more criticized. This introduced in two senses:
The version of block voting using electoral lists instead of individual candidates (general ticket or party block voting) was almost completely replaced by party-list proportional voting systems, which fully abandon the winner-take-all ideal in favor of equal representation. However, with the majority bonus or majority jackpot types of mixed system, this type of winner-take-most system has partially reappeared in certain electoral systems.
Winner-take-all representation using single-winner districts is the most common form of pure winner-take-all systems today, with the most common being single-member plurality (SMP).
However, due to high disproportionalities, it is also considered undemocratic by many. In Europe only Belarus and the United Kingdom use FPTP/SMP to elect the primary (lower) chamber of their legislature and France uses a two-round system (TRS). All other European countries either use proportional representation or use winner-take-all representation as part of a mixed-member winner-take-all system (Andorra, Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine) or a mixed-member proportional system (Germany). However, other European countries also occasionally use winner-take-all systems (apart from single-winner elections, like presidential or mayoral elections) for elections to the secondary chamber (upper house) of their legislature (Poland) and sub-national (local and regional) elections.
Winner-take-all system are much more common outside Europe, particularly in the countries of the former British Empire, like Australia (IRV), Bangladesh, Canada, Egypt, India, Pakistan and the United States (FPTP/SMP).
Nowadays, at-large winner-take-all representation is used for national elections only in the Senate of the Philippines, while it is sometimes still used for local elections organised on non-partisan bases. Residual usage in several multi-member constituencies is reduced to the election of the Electoral college of the President of the United States. Block voting is also used to elect a part of the assemblies in the regional elections in Italy and France.
Below is a table of winner-take-all systems currently used on a national level. Single-winner elections (presidential elections) and mixed systems are not included, see List of electoral systems by country for full list of electoral systems.
Key:
Countries that replaced winner-take-all representation before 1990 are not (yet) included.