General ticket

The general ticket, also known as party block voting (PBV) or ticket voting,^[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. Unless specifically altered, this electoral system (at-large voting) 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, but the strongest party nationally still typically wins with a landslide.

This system is largely seen as outdated and undemocratic due to its extreme majoritarian results, and has mostly been replaced by party-list proportional (allowing fair representation to all parties) or first-past-the-post voting (allowing voters to vote for individual candidates in single-member districts). Similarly to first-past-the-post and other non-proportional district based methods it is highly vulnerable to gerrymandering and majority reversal (when the party getting the most votes does not win the most seats). An example for the latter is the US Electoral College, the members of which are (overwhelmingly) elected using the general ticket.

In modern party-list systems, a full or partial return by the party-list proportional system is common. The partial return is referred to as a majority bonus or majority jackpot system, such modern systems award winners among more than the highest-polling party, if a low vote threshold is reached by a minority party, and often are counterweighted to do justice to the overall votes cast for smaller parties. This is used in France and Italy for a third and fifth of their regional councillors respectively, generally who then serve the region at-large.

Usage

At the national level it was used for as many as seven of the states, for any given regularly convened US Congress, in the US House of Representatives before 1967 but mainly before 1847; and in France, in the pre-World War I decades of the Third Republic which began in 1870. It is in use in the Parliament of Singapore as to its dominant type of constituencies, those being multi-member, however moderated by the inclusion of at least one person of a different race than the others in any "team" (which is not necessarily a party team) which is selected by voters.

Fully majoritarian systems

Countries using only party block voting or party block voting (in multi-member districts) mixed with a single-winner methods in single-member districts.

Country	Legislative body	Latest election (year)	(Seats per constituency)		Total seats	Constituencies	Governmental system	Notes
Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)	National Assembly	2021		First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) in single-member districts and party block voting (PBV) in multi-member districts	255	electoral districts^{[citation needed]}	Presidential system
Egypt	House of Representatives	2020	1 (local districts), 42-100 (list districts)	Two-round system (TRS) and party block voting (PBV/General ticket)^{[citation needed]}	59	electoral districts^{[citation needed]}	Semi-presidential system
Singapore	Parliament	2020		First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) and party block voting (PBV)	104 (93 directly elected)
United States	Electoral College	2020	1-54	The electors of the Electoral College (who have opportunity to elect the President of the United States) are elected by General ticket in 48 states based on state-wide party vote tallies. Nebraska and Maine use the general ticket method for 2 statewide electors each, with the other electors chosen based on the plurality of presidential vote tallies, one per congressional district.	538	states and Washington D.C (except Maine and Nebraska, where the congressional districts also work as constituencies)	Presidential system	Alaska used FPTP in the 2020 election, IRV/IRV will be used first in the next (2024) presidential election.

Mixed systems

Countries using party block voting as part of a mixed system (combined with proportional representation)

Country	Legislative body	Latest election (year)	(Seats per constituency)		Total seats	Share of seats elected by PBV	Constituencies	Governmental system
Andorra	General Council	2019	2 (local districts) / 14 (nationwide constituency)	Parallel voting / superposition (MMM): Party block voting (PBV) locally + list PR nationwide	28	50%	7 parishes, 1 nationwide constituency	Parliamentary system
Cameroon	National Assembly	2020	1-7	Coexistence+conditional supermixed/hybrid: First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) in single-member constituencies, party with over 50% of vote gets all seats in multi-member constituencies (party block voting), otherwise highest party gets half, rest distributed by largest remainder (Hare quota)	180	(50%/100%)	electoral districts^{[citation needed]}
Chad	National Assembly	2011	?^{[citation needed]}	Coexistence+conditional supermixed/hybrid: First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) party with over 50% of vote gets all seats in multi-member constituencies (party block voting), otherwise List PR (largest remainder, closed list)^[2]	188	(50%/100%)	electoral districts^{[citation needed]}
Djibouti	National Assembly	2018	3-28	Fusion / majority jackpot (MBS): 80% of seats (rounded to the nearest integer) in each constituency are awarded to the party receiving the most votes (party block voting), remaining seats are allocated proportionally to other parties receiving over 10% (closed list, D'Hondt method)	65	80%	regions	Presidential system
Greece	Hellenic Parliament	2019		Majority bonus system (MBS)	?	?
San Marino	Grand and General Council	2019		Majority bonus system (MBS)	?	?

France

The scrutin de liste (Fr. scrutin, voting by ballot, and liste, a list) was, before World War I, a system of election of national representatives in France by which the electors of a department voted for a party-homogeneous slate of deputies to be elected to serve it nationally. It was distinguished from the scrutin d'arrondissement, also called scrutin uninominal, under which the electors in each arrondissement returned one deputy.^[3] It has been abolished since, as to the French Parliament.

It is used on two-round basis to elect 1⁄3 of the regional councillors, and favours the largest party of that council's election.

Italy

In Italy, this system applies to 1⁄5 of the regional councillors since 1995. As in the French version, its goal is to ensure that the assembly is controlled by the leading coalition of parties. There is one round of voting.

Singapore

In Singapore, the general ticket system, locally known as the party block vote, elects by far most members of the Parliament of Singapore from multi-member districts known as group representation constituencies (GRCs), on a plurality basis. This operates in parallel to elections from single-member district and nominations. It is moderated by the inclusion of at least one person of a different race than the others in any "team" (which is not necessarily a party team) which is selected by voters.

United States

For an at-large one-party return, many states adopted a general ticket. The state voted for and returned an at-large delegation to the House of Representatives.

Ticket voting is used to elect Electoral College for presidential elections, except for EC members in Maine and Nebraska, and Alaska (starting in 2024), where most of the EC members are elected by first-past-the-post in congressional districts.

Under ticket voting, votes for any non-overall winning party's candidates do not receive any representation by elected members.

In terms of paper practices, the systems used varied between issue of:

a single ballot, listing all candidates and party affiliations (by means of bloc voting)
separate ballots for each seat

This was quite common until reserved to special use by the 1842 Apportionment Bill and locally implementing legislation which took effect after the 1845–47 Congress.^[4] Until the Congress ending in 1967 it took effect in rare instances, save for a two cases of ex-Confederate States – for one term – these had tiny delegations, were for top-up members to be at-large allocated pending redistricting, or were added to the union since the last census.

The following is a table of every instance of the use of the general ticket in the United States Congress.

Congress	Dates	State and number of representatives
1st	1789–1791	Connecticut (5), New Jersey (4), New Hampshire (3), Pennsylvania (8)
2nd	1791–1793	Connecticut (5), New Jersey (4), New Hampshire (3)
3rd	1793–1795	Connecticut (7), Georgia (2), New Jersey (5), New Hampshire (4), Pennsylvania (13), Rhode Island (2)
4th and 5th	1795–1799	Connecticut (7), Georgia (2), New Jersey (5), New Hampshire (4), Rhode Island (2)
6th	1799–1801	Connecticut (7), Georgia (2), New Hampshire (4), Rhode Island (2)
7th	1801–1803	Connecticut (7), Georgia (2), New Jersey (5), New Hampshire (4), Rhode Island (2)
8th	1803–1805	Connecticut (7), Georgia (4), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (5), Rhode Island (2), Tennessee (3)
9th to 12th	1805–1813	Connecticut (7), Georgia (4), New Jersey (6), New Jersey (5), Rhode Island (2)
13th	1813–1815	Connecticut (7), Delaware (2), Georgia (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2), Vermont (6)
14th to 16th	1815–1821	Connecticut (7), Delaware (2), Georgia (6), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2), Vermont (6)
17th	1821–1823	Connecticut (7), Delaware (2), Georgia (6), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2)
18th	1823–1825	Connecticut (6), Georgia (7), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2), Vermont (5)
19th	1825–1827	Connecticut (6), Georgia (7), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2)
20th	1827–1829	Connecticut (6), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2)
21st and 22nd	1829–1833	Connecticut (6), Georgia (7), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2)
23rd and 24th	1833–1837	Connecticut (6), Georgia (9), Missouri (2), Mississippi (2), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (5), Rhode Island (2)
25th and 26th	1837–1841	New Hampshire (5), Georgia (9), Missouri (2), Mississippi (2), New Jersey (6), Rhode Island (2)
27th	1841–1843	Alabama (5), Georgia (9), Missouri (2), Mississippi (2), New Hampshire (5), New Jersey (6), Rhode Island (2)
28th	1843–1845	New Hampshire (4), Georgia (8), Missouri (5), Mississippi (4)
29th	1845–1847	Iowa (2), New Hampshire (4), Missouri (5), Mississippi (4)
30th	1847–1849	Wisconsin (2)
31st to 34th	1849–1857	California (2)
35th to 37th	1857–1863	California (2), Minnesota (2)
38th to 42nd	1863–1873	California (3)
43rd to 47th	1873–1883	Florida (2), Kansas (3)
48th	1883–1885	Maine (4)
51st and 52nd	1889–1893	South Dakota (2)
53rd to 57th	1893–1903	South Dakota (2), Washington (2)
58th to 60th	1903–1909	North Dakota (2), South Dakota (2), Washington (3)
61st	1909–1911	North Dakota (2), South Dakota (2)
62nd	1911–1913	North Dakota (2), New Mexico (2), South Dakota (2)
63rd	1913–1915	Idaho (2), Montana (2), Utah (2)
64th	1915–1917	Idaho (2), Montana (2)
65th to 72nd	1917–1933	Idaho (2), Montana (2)
73rd	1933–1935	Kentucky (9), Minnesota (9), Missouri (13), North Dakota (2), Virginia (9)
74th to 77th	1935–1943	North Dakota (2)
78th to 80th	1943–1949	Arizona (2), New Mexico (2), North Dakota (2)
81st to 87th	1949–1963	New Mexico (2), North Dakota (2)
88th	1963–1965	Alabama (8), Hawaii (2), New Mexico (2)
89th and 90th	1965–1969	Hawaii (2), New Mexico (2)
91st	1969–1971	Hawaii (2)

References

^ The Australian Electoral System, p. 61
^ "Le système électoral au Tchad - Comité de Suivi de l'Appel à la Paix et à la Réconciliation" (in French). 23 September 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Scrutin de Liste". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 487.
^ Public Law 90-196, 2 U.S.C. § 2c

Sources

Martis, Kenneth C. (1982). The Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

External links

U.S. House of Representatives: House History

[1] The Australian Electoral System, p. 61

[2] "Le système électoral au Tchad - Comité de Suivi de l'Appel à la Paix et à la Réconciliation" (in French). 23 September 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 25 September 2020.

[3] One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Scrutin de Liste". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 487.

[4] Public Law 90-196, 2 U.S.C. § 2c

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