ABSTRACT
One of the most important ways in which systems for electing representatives may differ relates to what, in Chapter 3, we called 'constituency structure'. Perhaps the most fundamental distinction to be drawn in connection with this concerns whether an entire electorate votes in the same electoral unit or whether the voters are divided up into separate 'units'. To illuminate the point consider the difference between the French and American presidential elections. In French presidential elections there is one national constituency - voters in Marseille who voted for Francois Mitterand in the 1988 election had their vote added to those of all other voters for Mitterrand, whether those voters lived in Paris, Rennes or anywhere else in France. But in the United States voters in each state elect a delegation to the Electoral College, and it is then the members of this College who choose the President. Consequently someone in New York who voted for George Bush in 1988 would not have had their vote added to that of a Bush voter in California; it was added only to the votes cast for Bush in the state of New York. Because in the United States smaller 'units', in this case the states, come between the voter and the election result, it is possible that the winning candidate may receive fewer votes from the mass electorate than the defeated opponent. Indeed, this has happened in US presidential elections - the election of 1888 being the most recent undisputed instance. 1
