ABSTRACT
Yet, the majoritarian approach contains a serious flaw: majorities are rare. In elections that are unconstrained and offer multiple alternatives, voters almost never settle on a single party or candidate. Legislative votes are divided among multiple parties. If the executive is directly elected, she will often face legislative opposition. Even in countries using single-member district election rules, which depress the number of candidates because of the desire to avoid wasting votes or campaign resources, very few elections result in single-party voter majorities. (The U.S. is extremely unusual in this regard.) Most of the world’s single-party legislative majorities emerge from various kinds of distortions in the vote-seat connection. Putting unfettered policymaking power in the hands of governments created through these processes means turning it over to representatives of a minority of voters. At best a plurality of voters elects a government; sometimes (in perhaps 10 percent of elections across a variety of countries) the winning minority is not even a plurality.
