In France, with a Presidential election being watched around the world for the chance a right-wing nationalist or a far-left populist could win, the only certain outcome of the vote Sunday is that there will be no winner: The top two finishers will meet in a decisive runoff two weeks later.
Then there’s Great Britain, which will have a general parliamentary election years earlier than expected—on June 7, to be exact—because Prime Minister Theresa May exercised her power to call a “snap” election. The entire campaign season will run about six weeks from start to finish—a length unimaginable here, where prospective 2020 presidential candidates are already checking flight schedules to Des Moines and Manchester.
Either one of those systems would lead to radically different outcomes in US presidential elections – where a winner can (and often does) become president without a majority of the popular vote, and where the length of the campaign puts huge emphasis on finances, backing, media campaigns, and pure stamina.
The French system is based on a simple premise: no one should lead the nation unless he or she commands an absolute majority of voters. If nobody achieves a majority in the first round, the two winners face off one-on-one. In the U.S., many of our elections—for mayor, governor, House and Senate seats—are held under the same standard. But our Presidential campaigns aren’t: they require a majority of the electoral college, which isn’t the same as the popular vote. While the champions of Al Gore and Hillary Clinton are painfully aware of the results this system can produce, the full story of how “absolute majority” voting would change American politics is nothing less than eye-opening....
