Winner-take-all system

A winner-take-all electoral system is one where a voting bloc can win all seats in a legislature or electoral district, denying representation to any political minorities. Such systems are used in many major democracies. Such systems are sometimes called "majoritarian representation", though this term is a misnomer, as most such systems do not always elect majority preferred candidates and can allow parties to take a majority of seats with a minority of the vote.

Any election with only a single seat is a winner-take-all system (as it is impossible for the winner to take less than one seat). As a result, legislatures elected by single-member districts are often described as using "winner-take-all". However, winner-take-all systems do not necessarily mean the majority of voters are represented properly. A minority of voters across the country may take all the seats; a minority of votes cast in a district may elect all the winners in a district. Conversely, a party with just a sliver of votes in a country-wide sense may have local dominance and take a seat in a particular constituency.

Definition and types
Formally, a voting system is called winner-take-all if a majority of voters, by coordinating, can force all seats up for election in their district, denying representation to all minorities. By definition, all single-winner voting systems are winner-take-all. For multi-winner elections, the electorate can be divided into constituencies, such as single-member districts (SMDs), or the election can be held using block voting with at-large or multi-member districts.

Majoritarian representation does not mean the party with a plurality or majority always receive a majority of seats, which is not always guaranteed (see hung parliament). Sometimes the party receiving the most votes gets fewer seats than the party with the second most votes (see electoral inversion). The principle of majoritarian democracy does not necessarily imply that a winner-take-all electoral system needs to be used, in fact, using proportional systems to elect legislature usually better serve this principle as such aims to ensures that the legislature accurately reflects the whole population, not just the winners of the election and the majority rule is then used within the legislature. The most widely accepted modern views of representative democracy no longer consider winner-take-all representation to be democratic. For this reason, nowadays winner-take-all representation is most often used in single-winner districts, which allows nationwide minorities to gain representation if they make up a plurality or majority in at least one district, but some also consider this anti-democratic because of the possibility of an electoral inversion (like in the case of some US presidential elections: 2000, 2016).

Winner-take-all and proportional systems are the most commonly used voting system worldwide, followed by mixed electoral systems, which usually combine winner-take-all and proportional representation, although there are mixed system that combine two winner-take-all systems as well. Winner-take-all representation is also contrasted with proportional representation, which provides for representation of political minorities according to their share of the popular vote and semi-proportional representation, which inherently provides for some representation of minorities (at least above a certain threshold). Within mixed systems, mixed-member majoritarian representation (also known as parallel voting) provides semi-proportional representation, as opposed to mixed-member proportional systems.

At-large winner-take-all representation
Historically the first multi-winner electoral systems were winner-take-all elections held at-large, or more generally the multiple non-transferable vote.

Decline
Until the first half of the 19th century, the classic winner-take-all system of block voting began to be more and more criticized. This introduced in two senses: The version of block voting using electoral lists instead of individual candidates (general ticket or party block voting) was almost completely replaced by party-list proportional voting systems, which fully abandon the winner-take-all ideal in favor of equal representation. However, with the majority bonus or majority jackpot types of mixed system, this type of winner-take-most system has partially reappeared in certain electoral systems.
 * a first possibility was to reduce the size of the constituencies, so to divide the election in many local contests, and consequently increase the possibility for the minority to win in some areas. At-large elections were substituted by many multi-member constituencies and, finally, by single-winner electoral districts.
 * Cumulative voting and the single non-transferable vote were introduced to allow minorities to have some representation, creating the first semiproportional systems. By allowing minority groups to concentrate their votes on a few candidates, such systems ended the winner-take-all nature of the
 * Eventually, proportional representation methods were developed in both Europe and separately (for apportionment) in the United States

Winner-take-all districts
Winner-take-all representation using single-winner districts is the most common form of pure winner-take-all systems today, with the most common being single-member plurality (SMP).

However, due to high disproportionalities, it is also considered undemocratic by many. In Europe only Belarus and the United Kingdom use FPTP/SMP to elect the primary (lower) chamber of their legislature and France uses a two-round system (TRS). All other European countries either use proportional representation or use winner-take-all representation as part of a mixed-member winner-take-all system (Andorra, Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine) or a mixed-member proportional system (Germany). However, other European countries also occasionally use winner-take-all systems (apart from single-winner elections, like presidential or mayoral elections) for elections to the secondary chamber (upper house) of their legislature (Poland) and sub-national (local and regional) elections.

Winner-take-all system are much more common outside Europe, particularly in the countries of the former British Empire, like Australia (IRV), Bangladesh, Canada, Egypt, India, Pakistan and the United States (FPTP/SMP).

Nowadays, at-large winner-take-all representation is used for national elections only in the Senate of the Philippines, while it is sometimes still used for local elections organised on non-partisan bases. Residual usage in several multi-member constituencies is reduced to the election of the Electoral college of the President of the United States. Block voting is also used to elect a part of the assemblies in the regional elections in Italy and France.

Countries using winner-take-all rules
Below is a table of winner-take-all systems currently used on a national level. Single-winner elections (presidential elections) and mixed systems are not included, see List of electoral systems by country for full list of electoral systems.

Key:
 * Legislative body
 * Light blue background indicates upper houses of bicameral legislatures, in countries where such a chamber exists, the (usually more important) lower house might be elected with a winner-take-all system as well (in which case it is also in the list) or in might be elected with a different system, in which case (the lower house) is not included in the list. See List of electoral systems by country for full list of electoral systems.
 * Light turquoise background indicates an electoral college elected by a winner-take-all system, instead of a chamber of legislature.
 * Latest election (year), in most cases this election was held under the electoral system indicated, however if the next election is already scheduled to be held under a different system, the new system is indicated and the former system is listed under Notes.
 * Type of winner-take-all system may be
 * block voting at-large
 * block voting via multi-member districts or coexistence of multi-member districts and single-winner districts
 * single-winner districts
 * or varies by state if different states may set their own system in federal countries
 * Constituencies indicates if the electoral districts are equivalent to or based on other administrative divisions of the country

Former use
Countries that replaced winner-take-all representation before 1990 are not (yet) included.