Is India's way of electing its government the best in the world? Dhruv Rathee looks at what other countries do and helps answer that question.
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00:00Friends, in 2014, Modi became the Prime Minister with just 31% of the vote share in our country.
00:06That is, 69% of the population voted against him.
00:10What was the logic behind this?
00:12On the other hand, in the 2016 US presidential elections,
00:16Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes than Donald Trump.
00:21But still, Donald Trump became the President of the USA.
00:23So, what kind of a democracy is this?
00:25How can a person, whose majority votes against him, become the leader of the country?
00:30Friends, this is what I would like to teach you in this video.
00:33How do voting systems work in all the democracies of the world?
00:36And after watching this video, you will be forced to think
00:39which voting system will actually be the best voting system for democracy.
00:44Let's see.
00:51Let's look at an example.
00:52Assume that there are 4 candidates in your constituency.
00:55Akshay, Salman, Ranveer, Hrithik.
00:58Now, you all vote.
01:00And after voting, we see that Akshay got 35% votes,
01:03Salman got 39%,
01:05and Ranveer and Hrithik got 16% and 15% votes.
01:08Now, what happens in our country is
01:10the candidate who gets the most votes wins the constituency.
01:14This is called the first-past-the-post voting system.
01:18In this case, if Salman gets the most votes, 39%,
01:22then the leader of our constituency will be Salman with 39% votes.
01:26This first-past-the-post voting system is used in 58 different democratic countries around the world.
01:32But it clearly has some disadvantages.
01:35For example, in the case of our example,
01:37let's assume that Hrithik's fans hate Akshay a lot.
01:41They hate Akshay so much that they don't want him to win.
01:44That's why a lot of Hrithik's fans voted for Salman.
01:48Because they knew that Salman is a top candidate.
01:51The media was constantly talking about Akshay and Salman,
01:54not Hrithik and Ranveer.
01:56So, people voted for Salman out of helplessness.
02:00What kind of democracy is this that people are not voting for their first-preference candidate,
02:04but are voting for another candidate out of fear and helplessness
02:08so that the third candidate doesn't win?
02:10Some people will say that we're voting for the lesser of two evils.
02:14So, you can see that this is a huge disadvantage of this voting system.
02:17On the other hand, if this example was realistic in our country,
02:20it's possible that Salman's voters would've called Hrithik a vote-cutting candidate.
02:25Because from their perspective, Hrithik is just cutting votes.
02:28The people voting for Hrithik would've voted for Salman.
02:32So, this vote-cutting is another huge disadvantage.
02:36The third disadvantage is that a lot of people vote for candidates based on their winnability.
02:42There are so many chances that they can win realistically.
02:45If the media is constantly talking about the top two candidates,
02:49then a lot of people won't vote for the rest of the candidates.
02:52Because they'll think that what's the point of voting for them if they're not going to win anyway.
02:57This is called a wasted vote.
02:59There's a voting system to counter all these disadvantages, friends.
03:03Instant run-off voting.
03:05In this, instead of voting for one candidate,
03:08you arrange all the candidates in the order of preferences.
03:12You rank the candidates that this is my first preference,
03:15this is my second preference, and this is my third preference.
03:18Instant run-off voting is used in the elections in Australia.
03:21So, let's come back to our example to see how the winners are decided in this type of voting system.
03:27If our four candidates have the same voting percentages in the first preference,
03:32then the lowest voting percentage in the first preference will be eliminated
03:37and the votes will be transferred.
03:39The 15% votes of Hrithik,
03:42the second preference of these 15% people will be seen
03:45and in that second preference, 15% votes will be transferred.
03:49If we assume that the second preference of Hrithik's voters,
03:53the second preference of all 15% people was Akshay,
03:56then these 15% votes will be transferred to Akshay
03:59and Akshay will have 50% votes in total.
04:01And Akshay will be declared the winner here.
04:03Normally, in instant run-off voting, the majority has to pass.
04:08That is, every candidate has to get more than 50% voting.
04:12If a candidate gets more than 50% in the first preference,
04:16then we will not see this second preference thing.
04:19You can clearly see, friends, what advantages you have as a voter here.
04:23You don't have to vote out of helplessness.
04:26You don't have to vote lesser of the two evils.
04:29In this case, friends, you will generally vote for your first preference.
04:32And if you feel that you have to defeat the third one,
04:35then you will put your second candidate in the second preference.
04:38This eliminates a lot of the disadvantages of the first pass the post.
04:43This type of voting system is used in a lot of countries.
04:47And friends, in our country, the election of the President of India
04:50is also done through instant run-off voting.
04:52Now, in some countries, this is used in different ways.
04:55It is possible that instead of arranging all the candidates in a preference order,
04:59you can only arrange the top 4 or top 3.
05:02This is called contingent voting.
05:05This is what happens in the present elections of Sri Lanka, friends.
05:08Voters choose their top 3 choices.
05:11They rank 3 people based on which the winner is decided later.
05:15Interestingly, friends, the winners of the Oscars are also decided through instant run-off voting.
05:20Now, some people will say that if Hrithik has won 15% votes here,
05:24then in a true democracy, Hrithik's party should get 15% seats.
05:29Only then can it be a true democracy.
05:32Because the percentage of votes that a candidate gets,
05:34the party should get the same percentage of seats.
05:37Now, this system is called proportional representation.
05:41And in fact, it is the most common system used in national legislatures all over the world.
05:46It is used in more than 80 countries.
05:49Belgium, friends, was the first country to use the proportional representation system
05:54in the general elections of 1900.
05:56Now, there can be many different ways to implement this type of voting system.
06:01In some countries, like Israel and Netherlands,
06:05the whole country is one constituency.
06:07It is not divided into different constituencies.
06:09So, the people of the country vote based on the parties.
06:12And according to the voting percentage of the parties, they are allotted seats.
06:17This is called pure proportional representation.
06:20What are the other ways in other countries?
06:23Parties list the candidates.
06:25And the voters vote based on the list of the candidates.
06:28This is called closed list system.
06:31In some countries, the list that the parties list,
06:33the candidates can vote on that too.
06:35They can also rank on how the list is being drawn.
06:39And which candidate will be given the percentage of seats,
06:42the percentage of votes that we are giving here.
06:44This is called open list system.
06:46So, if in the general elections of 2014,
06:48the proportional representation system was used in our country,
06:52then according to the 31% vote share, BJP should have got 169 seats out of 545.
06:59In fact, all the parties should have got their seats according to their percentage.
07:03But it is not that there are no disadvantages of the proportional representation system.
07:08Those who criticize it say that
07:10the voters lose their connection with their leaders at a local level.
07:14Nationally, it looks fine that a party has won so many votes,
07:19so it should get so many seats.
07:21But the local constituency leaders lose their connection.
07:25Another thing that is said against it is that
07:27in the proportional representation system,
07:29it is very difficult for a party to get a majority.
07:32So, the chances are that the coalition governments will be formed.
07:36And it is said that coalition governments are not very stable.
07:39Maybe this is the reason that in countries like Germany,
07:42a mixture of voting systems is used.
07:44A mix of first-past-the-post and proportional representation is used.
07:48In their national legislature in Germany,
07:5150% seats work like first-past-the-post.
07:54People elect their constituency leaders.
07:57And the remaining 50% seats are taken out by the parties
08:00and proportionally represented by their voting percentage,
08:04they are given a seat.
08:06You can say that the advantages of both the types have been balanced.
08:10In most of the presidential countries of the world,
08:12like Russia, South America, France,
08:15a two-round voting system is used.
08:18In this, there is a voting round.
08:20If no one gets a majority,
08:22there will be a second round of voting.
08:24And generally, in the second round of voting,
08:26only the top two candidates are seen.
08:28The disadvantages of this system are the same
08:30as the disadvantages of the first-past-the-post system.
08:32In fact, it has more disadvantages.
08:34The disadvantages are that only two people are selected in some countries.
08:38So, the smaller parties are not given a chance to rise above.
08:43So, again, people vote for those candidates
08:46who have more chances of winning here.
08:48So, this was an overview of different types of voting systems.
08:52But in reality, voting systems can be very complicated.
08:55All the types I told you,
08:56there can be many sub-types in them.
08:59Many countries in the world modify it in their own way.
09:02And there can be many more things in them.
09:04For example, in Greece,
09:05the party that wins the majority
09:07is given a bonus of 50 seats.
09:09They get 50 seats extra in the parliament
09:12just because they won the majority.
09:14So, every country has modified such small things in its own way.
09:17The more you learn about them,
09:19the more you will get to know.
09:21And maybe then you will be able to answer the question
09:23that which voting system will actually be good.
09:25What do you think, friends, after watching this video?
09:27You can write in the comments and tell me
09:29which voting system will be good according to you.
09:32Let's meet in the next video, friends.
09:34Thank you!