General ticket

The general ticket, also known as party block voting (PBV) is a type of block voting in which voters opt for a party, or a team's set list of candidates, and the highest-polling one becomes the winner. It, unless tempered to apply to a specific proportion, arrives at a 100% return for one party's list who become representatives for the membership or representative positions which are the purpose of the election.

At (top-tier) national level it was used for as many as seven of the states, for any given regularly convened US Congress, in the US House of Representatives before 1967 but mainly before 1847; and in France, in the pre-World War I decades of the Third Republic which began in 1870. It is in use in the Parliament of Singapore as to its dominant type of constituencies, those being multi-member, however moderated by the inclusion of at least one person of a different race than the others in any "team" (which is not necessarily a party team) which is selected by voters.

As to the regional councils within countries it is used in France and Italy for a third and fifth of their councillors respectively, generally who then serve the region at-large.

In modern proportional systems, a full or partial return by the party-list system is common. The partial return is referred to as a return of additional members, who may serve regionally or cross-country at-large. Such modern systems award winners among more than the highest-polling party, if a low vote threshold is reached by a minority party, and often are counterweighted to do justice to the overall votes cast for smaller parties. This tempers a simple preference system as to smaller electoral districts used for the same chamber, body or assembly.

Usage[]

Country	Legislative body	Latest election (year)	Type of majoritarian system	(Seats per constituency)		Total seats	Constituencies	Governmental system	Notes
Andorra	General Council	2018	mixed-member majoritarian	2 (local districts) / 14 (nationwide constituency)	Parallel voting / superposition (MMM): Party block voting (PBV) locally + list PR nationwide	28	7 parishes, 1 nationwide constituency	Parliamentary system
Cameroon	National Assembly	2020	block voting via multi-winner districts	1-7	+conditional supermixed/hybrid: First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) in single-member constituencies, party with over 50% of vote gets all seats in multi-member constituencies (party block voting), otherwise highest party gets half, rest distributed by largest remainder (Hare quota)	180	electoral districts^{[citation needed]}
Chad	National Assembly	2011	block voting via multi-winner districts	?^{[citation needed]}	+conditional supermixed/hybrid: First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) party with over 50% of vote gets all seats in multi-member constituencies (party block voting), otherwise List PR (largest remainder, closed list)^[1]	188	electoral districts^{[citation needed]}
Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)	National Assembly	2021	block voting via multi-winner districts		First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) in single-member districts and party block voting (PBV) in multi-member districts	255	electoral districts^{[citation needed]}	Presidential system
Djibouti	National Assembly	2018	mixed-member majoritarian	3-28	Fusion / majority jackpot (MBS): 80% of seats (rounded to the nearest integer) in each constituency are awarded to the party receiving the most votes (party block voting), remaining seats are allocated proportionally to other parties receiving over 10% (closed list, D'Hondt method)	65	regions	Presidential system
Egypt	House of Representatives	2020	mixed-member majoritarian	1 (local districts), 42-100 (list districts)	Two-round system (TRS) and party block voting (PBV/General ticket)^{[citation needed]}	596 (568 directly elected + 28 appointed)	electoral districts^{[citation needed]}	Semi-presidential system
Egypt	Senate		mixed-member majoritarian					Semi-presidential system
Greece			mixed-member majoritarian		Majority bonus system (MBS)
San Marino			mixed-member majoritarian		Majority bonus system (MBS)
Singapore		2020	block voting via multi-winner districts		First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) and party block voting (PBV)	104 (93 directly elected)
United States	Electoral College	2020	varies by state	1-55	General ticket in 48 states based on the results of the first-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) and 2 states (Alaska and Maine) based on the results of the Instant-runoff (IRV/RCV) election(s) Maine and Nebraska use the same method for 2 statewide electors, the remaining electors are chosen in congressional districts	538	states and Washington D.C (except Maine and Nebraska, where the congressional districts also work as constituencies)	Presidential system	Alaska has used FPTP in the 2020 election, IRV/IRV will be used first in the next (2024) presidential election.

France[]

The scrutin de liste (Fr. scrutin, voting by ballot, and liste, a list) was, before World War I, a system of election of national representatives in France by which the electors of a department voted for a party-homogenous slate of deputies to be elected to serve it nationally. It was distinguished from the scrutin d'arrondissement, also called scrutin uninominal, under which the electors in each arrondissement returned one deputy.^[2] It has been abolished since, as to the French Parliament.

It is used on two-round basis to elect 1⁄3 of the regional councillors, and favours the largest party of that council's election.

Italy[]

In Italy, this system applies to 1⁄5 of the regional councillors since 1995. As in the French version, its goal is to ensure that the assembly is controlled by the leading coalition of parties. There is one round of voting.

Singapore[]

In Singapore, the general ticket system, locally known as the party block vote, elects by far most members of the Parliament of Singapore from multi-member districts known as group representation constituencies (GRCs), on a plurality basis. This operates in parallel to elections from single-member district and nominations. It is moderated by the inclusion of at least one person of a different race than the others in any "team" (which is not necessarily a party team) which is selected by voters.

United States[]

For an at-large one-party return, many states adopted a general ticket. The state voted for and returned an at-large delegation to the House of Representatives. As in the Electoral College for Presidential elections this negates (outside of campaigning) the existence of any votes for any non-overall winning party's candidates. In terms of paper practices, these varied between issue of:

a single ballot, listing all candidates and party affiliations (by means of bloc voting)
separate ballots for each seat

This was quite common until reserved to special use by the 1842 Apportionment Bill and locally implementing legislation which took effect after the 1845–47 Congress. ^[3] Until the Congress ending in 1967 it took effect in rare instances, save for a two cases of ex-Confederate States – for one term – these had tiny delegations, were for top-up members to be at-large allocated pending redistricting, or were added to the union since the last census.

The following is a table of every instance of the use of the general ticket in the United States Congress.

Congress	Dates	State and number of representatives
1st	1789–1791	Connecticut (5), New Jersey (4), New Hampshire (3), Pennsylvania (8)
2nd	1791–1793	Connecticut (5), New Jersey (4), New Hampshire (3)
3rd	1793–1795	Connecticut (7), Georgia (2), New Jersey (5), New Hampshire (4), Pennsylvania (13), Rhode Island (2)
4th and 5th	1795–1799	Connecticut (7), Georgia (2), New Jersey (5), New Hampshire (4), Rhode Island (2)
6th	1799–1801	Connecticut (7), Georgia (2), New Hampshire (4), Rhode Island (2)
7th	1801–1803	Connecticut (7), Georgia (2), New Jersey (5), New Hampshire (4), Rhode Island (2)
8th	1803–1805	Connecticut (7), Georgia (4), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (5), Rhode Island (2), Tennessee (3)
9th to 12th	1805–1813	Connecticut (7), Georgia (4), New Jersey (6), New Jersey (5), Rhode Island (2)
13th	1813–1815	Connecticut (7), Delaware (2), Georgia (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2), Vermont (6)
14th to 16th	1815–1821	Connecticut (7), Delaware (2), Georgia (6), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2), Vermont (6)
17th	1821–1823	Connecticut (7), Delaware (2), Georgia (6), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2)
18th	1823–1825	Connecticut (6), Georgia (7), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2), Vermont (5)
19th	1825–1827	Connecticut (6), Georgia (7), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2)
20th	1827–1829	Connecticut (6), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2)
21st and 22nd	1829–1833	Connecticut (6), Georgia (7), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (6), Rhode Island (2)
23rd and 24th	1833–1837	Connecticut (6), Georgia (9), Missouri (2), Mississippi (2), New Jersey (6), New Hampshire (5), Rhode Island (2)
25th and 26th	1837–1841	New Hampshire (5), Georgia (9), Missouri (2), Mississippi (2), New Jersey (6), Rhode Island (2)
27th	1841–1843	Alabama (5), Georgia (9), Missouri (2), Mississippi (2), New Hampshire (5), New Jersey (6), Rhode Island (2)
28th	1843–1845	New Hampshire (4), Georgia (8), Missouri (5), Mississippi (4)
29th	1845–1847	Iowa (2), New Hampshire (4), Missouri (5), Mississippi (4)
30th	1847–1849	Wisconsin (2)
31st to 34th	1849–1857	California (2)
35th to 37th	1857–1863	California (2), Minnesota (2)
38th to 42nd	1863–1873	California (3)
43rd to 47th	1873–1883	Florida (2), Kansas (3)
48th	1883–1885	Maine (4)
51st and 52nd	1889–1893	South Dakota (2)
53rd to 57th	1893–1903	South Dakota (2), Washington (2)
58th to 60th	1903–1909	North Dakota (2), South Dakota (2), Washington (3)
61st	1909–1911	North Dakota (2), South Dakota (2)
62nd	1911–1913	North Dakota (2), New Mexico (2), South Dakota (2)
63rd	1913–1915	Idaho (2), Montana (2), Utah (2)
64th	1915–1917	Idaho (2), Montana (2)
65th to 72nd	1917–1933	Idaho (2), Montana (2)
73rd	1933–1935	Kentucky (9), Minnesota (9), Missouri (13), North Dakota (2), Virginia (9)
74th to 77th	1935–1943	North Dakota (2)
78th to 80th	1943–1949	Arizona (2), New Mexico (2), North Dakota (2)
81st to 87th	1949–1963	New Mexico (2), North Dakota (2)
88th	1963–1965	Alabama (8), Hawaii (2), New Mexico (2)
89th and 90th	1965–1969	Hawaii (2), New Mexico (2)
91st	1969–1971	Hawaii (2)

References[]

^ "Le système électoral au Tchad - Comité de Suivi de l'Appel à la Paix et à la Réconciliation" (in French). 23 September 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Scrutin de Liste". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 487.
^ Public Law 90-196, 2 U.S.C. § 2c)

Sources[]

Martis, Kenneth C. (1982). The Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

External links[]

U.S. House of Representatives: House History

[1] "Le système électoral au Tchad - Comité de Suivi de l'Appel à la Paix et à la Réconciliation" (in French). 23 September 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 25 September 2020.

[2] One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Scrutin de Liste". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 487.

[3] Public Law 90-196, 2 U.S.C. § 2c)

[1]

[2]

[3]