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Tom Monto

The Uruguayan way to have multiple candidates of one party run in a single-winner election without suffering from vote spitting

Updated: Oct 22

In Uruguay we used to see the use of a single-winner election where each party could run multiple candidates and not suffer from vote splitting.


This is described in Ring's thesis (available online):

He describes how when multi-member distrists are used and proportional formulae are used, a party presenting a list of candidates would not be splitting its vote since votes are aggregated at the party level and then the seats won are allocated to popular candidates of popular parties.


"Likewise, a similar arrangement can even work in single-member districts: parties could present more tthan one candidate or a list of candidates, voters indicate their preferred candidate(s), and party votes would be aggregated: the seat would go to the most-popular candidate within the most popular party (Shugart 2005, 39-40).


Matthew Shugart explains such a rare case:

For many years, Uruguay was the one national-level example of the use of [a preferential-vote list PR] system in a single-seat district. Presidential elections were conducted by competing party slates, which usually contained more than one candidate. Voters voted for a candidate, but the winner was defined as the candidate with the most votes within the party with the most votes. In this way, uniquely among single-seat district systems, a party could present multiple candidates without fear of dividing its vote and throwing the seat to another party” (Shugart 2005, 39-40).


Although the situation he describes is a presidential contest, it shows that it is possible for parties to offer more than one candidate in single-seat districts without splitting the party’s vote, as long as votes are pooled at the party level. The party winning a plurality would win the seat; the candidate of that party with a plurality of votes would occupy the party’s seat. This way it is possible for parties to offer a choice of candidates in single-seat districts." (Ring, Proportional first past the post (thesis))


However such a practice is not in use anywhere at present.

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The Uruguayan system of "Proportional first past the post" (actually majoritarian FPTP) is known as ley de lemas.


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