Two-round System - Majoritarianism

Majoritarianism

The intention of runoff voting is that the winning candidate will have the support of an absolute majority of voters. Under the "first past the post" system the candidate with most votes (a plurality) wins, even if they do not have an absolute majority (more than half) of votes. The two rounds system tries to overcome this problem by permitting only two candidates in the second round, so that one must receive an absolute majority of votes.

Critics argue that the absolute majority obtained by the winner of runoff voting is an artificial one. As seen above, instant-runoff voting and the exhaustive ballot are two other voting systems that create an absolute majority for one candidate by eliminating weaker candidates over multiple rounds. However, as noted above in cases where there are 3 or more strong candidates, runoff voting will sometimes produce an absolute majority for a different winner than the candidate elected by the other two.

Advocates of Condorcet methods argue that a candidate can claim to have majority support only if they are the "Condorcet winner" – that is, the candidate who would beat every other candidate in a series of one-on-one elections. In runoff voting the winning candidate is only matched, one-on-one, with one of the other candidates. When a Condorcet winner exists, he does not necessarily win a runoff election due to insufficient support in the first round.

Runoff advocates counter that voters first preference is more important than lower preferences because that's where voters are putting the most effort of decision and that, unlike Condorcet methods, runoffs require a high showing among the full field of choices in addition to a strong showing in the final head-to-head competition. Condorcet methods can allow candidates to win who have minimal first-choice support and can win largely on the compromise appeal of being ranked second or third by more voters.