Two-round System - Voting and Counting

Voting and Counting

In both rounds of an election conducted using runoff voting, the voter simply marks an "X" beside his/her favorite candidate. If no candidate has an absolute majority of votes (i.e. more than half) in the first round, then the two candidates with the most votes proceed to a second round, from which all others are excluded. In the second round, because there are only two candidates, one candidate will achieve an absolute majority. In the second round each voter is entirely free to change the candidate he votes for, even if his preferred candidate has not yet been eliminated but he has merely changed his mind.

Some variants of the two round system use a different rule for choosing candidates for the second round, and allow more than two candidates to proceed to the second round. Under these systems it is sufficient for a candidate to receive a plurality of votes (i.e. more votes than anyone else) to be elected in the second round. In elections for the French National Assembly any candidate with fewer than 12.5% of the total vote is eliminated in the first round, and all remaining candidates are permitted to stand in the second round, in which a plurality is sufficient to be elected. Under some variants of runoff voting there is no formal rule for eliminating candidates, but, rather, candidates who receive few votes in the first round are expected to withdraw voluntarily. Historically, the President of Weimar Germany was popularly elected in 1925 and 1932 by a two-round system that in the second round allowed any candidate to run and did not require an absolute majority. In both elections the Communist candidate Ernst Thälmann did not withdraw and ran in the second round; in 1925 this probably ensured the election of Paul von Hindenburg (with only 48.3% of the vote) rather that Wilhelm Marx the candidate of the centre parties.