Week 11 Quiz

A student club of 30 members elects a president. The three candidates receive 12, 10, and 8 votes (illustrative). Which statement describes the winner's result?

Select one.

• A majority, because 12 is the largest number of votes
• A plurality but not a majority, because 12 is the most votes but fewer than 16
• A majority, because 12 is more than half of the votes the other two received
• Neither a plurality nor a majority, because 18 members voted for someone else

During a campaign in a made-up country, a party's volunteers drive older neighbors to the polls and help first-time voters register. Which party job is this?

Select one.

• Aggregation
• Accountability
• Judicial review
• Mobilization

In Halvenor, a made-up country, the president needs more than 50 percent of the vote. The first round splits 41, 35, and 24 percent, so the top two candidates meet in a second round. Which electoral-system family is this?

Select one.

• First-past-the-post
• Proportional representation
• Majority-runoff
• Mixed-member proportional

Four parties share 100,000 votes in one eight-seat district (illustrative): Party A 48,000; Party B 30,000; Party C 14,000; Party D 8,000. Under the D'Hondt method, how many seats does Party B win?

Select one.

• 3
• 2
• 4
• 1

Using the same 100,000 votes as the illustrative D'Hondt table, split into eight single-member districts with Party A leading in every one, first-past-the-post gives Party A all 8 of the 8 seats.

True or false.

• True
• False

Which statement describes Duverger's law, from Duverger (1951), Political Parties, as this course teaches it?

Select one.

• Single-member plurality rules tend to produce two-party competition through a mechanical and a psychological effect, with named exceptions
• Single-member plurality rules always produce exactly two parties, so a third party with seats disproves the law
• Proportional representation guarantees a single-party majority government in every country that adopts it
• Voters choose two-party systems because two parties represent the public better than several parties do

In the 2024 UK general election, according to the House of Commons Library, which statement reports Labour's result correctly?

Select one.

• 63.2 percent of the vote and 33.7 percent of the seats
• 33.7 percent of the vote and 411 of 650 seats, more than half the chamber
• 33.7 percent of the vote and 33.7 percent of the seats, because plurality rules match seats to votes
• 63.2 percent of the vote and 411 of 650 seats

Select every statement about the 2024 UK general election that is an empirical claim, checkable against the official result.

Select every option that applies.

• Reform UK won 14.3 percent of the vote and 5 seats.
• The Liberal Democrats won 12.2 percent of the vote and 72 seats.
• The result was unfair to Reform UK's voters.
• Labour's seat majority gave it a mandate for every promise.

In the debate over first-past-the-post and proportional representation, which claim do proponents of proportional representation make?

Select one.

• One party should usually govern alone so voters know exactly whom to remove
• Seats should match votes, so no large group of voters elects no one
• Every place should have one local member who answers for it
• A plurality winner in each district is the fairest possible result

A commentator writes: "Labour won 411 seats, so voters gave it a mandate for every promise." Which description fits the part after the word "so"?

Select one.

• Empirical, on the design layer, because it describes the electoral rules
• Empirical, on the practice layer, because the official count can check it
• A correlation, because seats and mandates rise together
• Normative, on the verdict layer, because it argues what the result authorizes