Cumulative voting facts for kids

Cumulative voting is a special way to vote in an election. Imagine you're choosing people for a team or a club. Instead of just one vote for one person, you get several votes or "points" you can use. You can give all your points to one person, or spread them out among a few different people you like. This system lets you show how much you really want someone to be elected.

What is Cumulative Voting?

Cumulative voting is an election system where voters get more than one vote. These votes can be spread out among different candidates, or all given to just one candidate. This system is often used when several positions are being elected at the same time, like choosing multiple members for a school board or a company's leadership team.

How Does Cumulative Voting Work?

Let's say there are five open spots on a committee, and you get five votes. Here's how you could use them:

• You could give one vote to five different people.
• You could give all five votes to just one person you really want to see elected.
• You could give two votes to one person and three votes to another.

When a voter gives all their votes to only one candidate, it's called bullet voting. This can be a powerful way to support a specific person.

Why Use Cumulative Voting?

This voting method helps make sure that different groups of people, even smaller ones, can get their chosen representatives elected. It helps create a more proportional representation. This means the number of seats a group wins is more similar to the percentage of votes they received. For example, if 20% of voters support a certain viewpoint, cumulative voting makes it easier for them to elect about 20% of the representatives.

Where is Cumulative Voting Used?

Cumulative voting is used in many places around the world.

• Many companies use it to elect their board of directors. This helps make sure that different shareholders (people who own parts of the company) have a say.
• Some governments also use it for certain elections. For example, countries like Switzerland and Germany use cumulative voting for some of their local or regional elections. It helps ensure that different political views are represented.

Images for kids

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  In an equal and even cumulative ballot, as in Peoria, an individual's vote is fractionally divided evenly among all candidates for whom he or she indicates support. As the number of candidates increases, this can result in the need for computing sums of multiple fractions.

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  Fractional vote ballot