Talk:Two-round system

This article was nominated for merging with Nonpartisan blanket primary and Louisiana primary on June 12, 2022. The result of the discussion was Not merged — no consensus.

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Merger discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Not merged — no consensus. Most editors acknowledge the similarities between the two systems, but no agreement was reached on whether or not to merge. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 10:44, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So what exactly is the difference between a Louisiana primary and a two-round system? To me it seems it should be a section under this article Rankedchoicevoter (talk) 05:43, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, the difference is that in a two-round system, if a candidate receives a majority in the first round, no second round is done. It would be too confusing to merge those two when those processes are different. However, I do support in merging the Louisiana jungle primary with the two-round system. @Rankedchoicevoter: @Spitzak: Bbraxtonlee (talk) 05:58, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That seems like a really trivial difference. It's just a shortcut to avoid the second election if it is obvious who would win it. If A gets more than 50% of the vote when running against B,C,D, and E, then it seems pretty certain A will get more than 50% of the vote when the only opponent is B.Spitzak (talk) 17:56, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Spitzak:

That is true. At this time I think there is enough consensus to merge Lousiana primary and two-round system (the discussion has been out for almost 5 months) but I don't know about the nonpartisan blanket primary. Your call.

Bbraxtonlee (talk) 04:31, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm probably not the person to make a final decision on this... Spitzak (talk) 21:56, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree on merging louisiana primary but also nonpartisan blanket primary should be merged as well. This article seems much better written than either of those and there is lots of redundancy. The differences between them are trivial (what dates the two elections are on, whether a majority in first election negates need for second one, and some weird rules about saying what party you belong to for the first election to avoid some nitpick legal challenge).Spitzak (talk) 18:46, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose a complete merger. There are differences between these.

One key difference:

A two round system often means that a second round is only held contingent upon there being no candidate obtaining a majority in the first round. For example, :Chicago and Atlanta mayoral elections, or French and Russian presidential elections.

In a jungle primary system, there is a second round REGARDLESS of whether someone obtains an outright majority.

Jungle primaries are also distinct in that party labels are included on the ballot. Not all two-round systems allow for this.

Louisiana and jungle should merge together, but be left separate from this article.

SecretName101 (talk) 00:19, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like that difference is minor as said above. You need to find an actual example where somebody getting 51% in the first round loses the second round, otherwise these schemes are identical in all real situations. Even if there is an example it still seems like the difference is trivial.Spitzak (talk) 00:43, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Spitzak: This does happen. See 2020 Wisconsin elections § State Supreme Court. Elli (talk | contribs) 06:33, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support merge as initially proposed; the differences are subtle (whether or not the second round is held) and can be explained on one page. Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, so we don't need separate pages for synonymous terms; formal merge reasons are overlap and context. Klbrain (talk) 09:20, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose; looking at this again, a merge would unbalance Two-round system, and the current structure seems to work for readers, having a WP:SUMMARY at Two-round system#Louisiana and nonpartisan blanket primary systems linking to the Nonpartisan blanket primary for more details. The topic is large enough and important enough to have discussion the Nonpartisan blanket primary that is focussed on the experience of some US states. Klbrain (talk) 10:36, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

American system

A persistent editor keeps inserting the false information that American party primaries make all elections in the US a two round system. This is FALSE. Those primaries are per-party, do not pit all the candidates against each other, and are simply an independent fpp election to pick the candidate who goes into the final fpp election, which can have any number of candidates, not just 2. In addition since 90% of the arguing about this system is whether it should be used in the US, it means that it is NOT used in the US otherwise there would not be any arguments! He has a quote which actually says what is done in the US is different, though it does call it "an unusual form of two-round system", but it then goes on to say it produces undesirable results compared to real two-round systems. Spitzak (talk) 01:54, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Spitzak, thanks for your comments.

A persistent editor keeps inserting the false information that American party primaries make all elections in the US a two round system. This is FALSE.

First, I'd like to note WP:TRUTH here; what matters is what the sources say. However, the additions I've made haven't made the claim that American party primaries make all elections in the US into a two-round system (or at least they certainly weren't intended to!). The point of them was to point out the structural similarities between the two systems, and how they can produce similar outcomes. Still, I've tweaked the two to .

though it does call it "an unusual form of two-round system", but it then goes on to say it produces undesirable results compared to real two-round systems.

I'll set aside the normative claims associated with this, which shouldn't go on Wikipedia, by WP:NPOV (nonpartisan primaries have both costs and benefits). Small variants on the two-round system can have their own advantages and disadvantages, while still being a kind of two-round system: The 12.5% clause in French election laws allows >2 candidates into the runoff and has disadvantages (more vote-splitting in the second round), as do two-round systems where a candidate can win with <50% of the vote in the first round.

However, the sources I cited, so far as I can tell, do not discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a partisan vs. nonpartisan two-round system in depth. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:41, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You reverted a lot of changes by me and other editors. I will try to fix it so it only adds the text you want. I still very much object to the implication that the systems are at all "similar" or that they produce "similar results" which is absolutely false. If they did produce similar results then there would not be any fight over whether to use the system or not. Spitzak (talk) 20:57, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure why that would be true. Politicians fight about dumb things that make no difference all the time. (I'd argue that's their job!)

Sorry about the intervening edits, I hit those by mistake. I'm happy to help out with restoring those! Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:08, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think I may have gotten them, but you might want to check the references that are in the intro section, as they were next to the text you changed so I thought maybe you changed them for a good reason. Spitzak (talk) 23:35, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nigerian System

First-past-the-post voting

In Nigeria, the First-past-the-post system is used both for Presidential and Legislative elections. The attached link further confirms this.

To say otherwise is incorrect as this article lists Nigeria amongst the countries that make use of the Two-round system. Otarutestimony (talk) 13:42, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, according to 2023 Nigerian presidential election they have per-party primaries, which is not a two round system. Spitzak (talk) 18:14, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]