Classification of electoral systems

Introduction: the article analyzes classification of electoral systems. Purpose: to determine essential and minor features of various electoral systems. Methods: general scientific methods (dialectics, analysis and synthesis, abstraction and concretization) and specific scientific methods (formal legal, comparative law, technical legal) are used in the article, special attention being paid to the comparative law and system research methods. Results: the traditional approach to distinguishing between majority and proportional systems has lost its importance. As a result of the development of science and search for the fairest technique, many systems concurrently belong to both kinds. The modern world witnesses the emergence of a lot of hybrid systems possessing features of both majority and proportional systems. They include proportional systems with open lists and semi-proportional systems. Moreover, purely proportional systems are seldom applied. In many countries they are in fact disproportional because of various rules distorting representation of political parties (e.g. a threshold). Some majority systems prove to be minority ones. Conclusions: all electoral systems are subdivided into four groups. These are electoral systems in one-mandate territories, in multi-mandate territories, elections according to party lists and combined ones. The main criterion for their differentiation is a subject structure of elections. It is obvious that all electoral systems are subdivided depending on the person who fights for mandates: candidates individually; lists of candidates who are, as a rule, proposed by parties; candidates and de facto lists of candidates simultaneously; some techniques are used concurrently. Other criteria (mathematical criterion of defining a winner, maintenance of a voice) allow us to subdivide given systems into kinds, being evidence of their minor character.