On unfamiliar terms: what is cumulative voting?

Did you participate in the elections? And what? President, municipal? Then with the notion of "cumulative voting", most likely, you did not come across. The point is that the concept is special. This type of voting is used in special cases. Let's consider them at least for the purpose of raising the educational level.

Definition

Cumulative voting is a kind of meeting of opinions when it is necessary to choose not one person, but the whole group. Usually this way is formed by the council or other representative body of all sorts of societies. What is meant?

Imagine That a certain group of citizens faces a task: to determine the qualitative and quantitative composition of the group that will represent their interests. How here to act? If everyone speaks for a certain person from the "committee", the result may not suit many. The fact is that with personal voting the result is influenced by the personality characteristics. That is, a person respected, respectable, well-promoted, understandable, will gain more confidence than anyone who is not known. What's bad about it? And whose interests will he represent?

The meeting we are considering wants to have "representatives" of its own in the committee - those who will lobby for its interests. The goal of each person or group is precisely this. Pull into the "committee" of its lobby. That's where the cumulative vote was invented. It allows you to give a certain person (group) as many votes as her positions.

Example

Imagine that our group of people is not homogeneous. It consists of those who can influence the process to some extent. One has 10 percent, another has 15, and so on.

Cumulative voting allows each member of the community to be assigned to its "representative weight" by the number of votes. That is, one will have ten, another - fifteen votes, and so on. How will they take advantage of this? It is clear that everyone - in their own interests. But that is not all. Everyone speaks about the candidates. Then the process of counting will begin. Since the number of votes of each is also multiplied by the number of seats, a complex scheme is obtained. The winner is necessarily one who has the greatest "weight" in the community in question.

Why is everything so complicated?

Understanding what cumulative voting is, one must understand: the process is built in such a way as to balance the chances of the influence of all players. It is applied only in the event that the group body is elected. Thus, it turns out that the voter can choose how to dispose of his "influence". He can vote for one candidate or divide between all (certain). It turns out that cumulative voting is a process of multifaceted influence on the process. Any player chooses how to use his influence: to strengthen one person or to be sprayed for several persons. It is believed that this method more fairly takes into account the interests of all participants in the vote.

Where specifically used

Such an intricate method was invented for special cases. Namely: it is used when electing the Board of Directors of the OJSC. This is enshrined in legislation. There is a document regulating how the process itself is conducted, by what principle counting is carried out, and so on, up to the form of the bulletin. This is done to equalize the rights of shareholders, to make the voting more open and fair. Each newsletter is a document that contains the details of the organization and is signed by the manager. In addition, it provides an opportunity to make your choice in two ways: by a split or general vote. I must say that the voter has the right to refuse all applicants. Usually the procedure is prescribed in the statutory documents of the company. Each shareholder is aware of his rights and opportunities. This does not preclude the information of participants in the process before the procedure.

Count

The voting procedure is secret. Shareholders fill out their ballots and put them in a special urn. Then the votes are counted. It should be borne in mind that if the shareholder voted "against", it means that he did not support anyone. There are no options. You can not say no to only one candidate. In case of a positive vote, the number of positions scored by each candidate is entered in the list. The one who collected more wins. So it turns out that the meaning of the word "cumulative" (voting) is a collective opinion, that is, a multidirectional voice with "broad" possibilities. Great attention is paid to the audit of shareholders when processing ballots. A person can just get confused and mark more positions than he has the right. Such ballots, where the shareholder "overestimated" his forces, are considered invalid. They are not counted in the calculation. According to experts, this method of distribution of opinions makes it possible to protect those shareholders who have few assets from the pressure of the richer. Moreover, the board of directors can only be dismissed as a whole. This does not allow "knocking out" the "strangers" to make room for "their own".