Plurality-at-large voting, also known as block vote or multiple non-transferable vote (MNTV), is a non-proportional voting system for electing several representatives from a single multimember electoral district using a series of check boxes and tallying votes similar to a plurality election. Although multiple winners are elected simultaneously, block voting is not a system for obtaining proportional representation; instead, the usual result is that the largest single group wins every seat by electing a slate of candidates, resulting in a landslide.
Even if the term "at-large" describes elections for representative members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent the whole membership of the body, this system can be used by a country divided in some multi-member electoral districts, but in this last case the system is commonly referred to as block voting or the bloc vote.
This system is usually based on a single round of vote, but it can sometimes appear in a runoff (two-round) version, as in some local elections in France, where candidates who do not receive an absolute majority must compete in a second round. Here it can be better called as majority-at-large voting.
The term bloc voting sometimes means simple plurality election in multimember districts. In such a system, each party introduces a list of candidates and the party winning a plurality of votes wins all the seats. In contrast to such a system, the system described in this article can be called unlimited voting (contrary to limited voting, in which a voter has fewer votes than the number of seats contested).
Read more about Plurality-at-large Voting: Casting and Counting Ballots, Effects of Block Voting, Variations of Block Voting, Usage of Block Voting, See Also
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