> So in theory you could get (50+epsilon)% of the votes in each of 51 seats, and 0 votes in any of the other 49 seats and hold power, despite only getting ~25% of the overall vote
Ah ok, got it. However, probably an unlikely scenario even in a "segregated" (republicans vs democrats) country as the US. But yeah - the reality right now that 40, 45% of the votes are enough for - in the case of the US - the republicans to win is pretty bad already.
> Depending on the electoral system you might not need to win a majority of the votes in any constituency,
In Germany we have two ways to get into the Bundestag (national parliament) - the one is a "Direktmandat" (the candidate with the most votes in one county county gets the seat), the other is via the party ticket. The parties have lists of candidates, and depending on their percentage of the total vote, the first X candidates get a seat.
That system tries to balance between each county getting the representative in they favor, but also representing the relative votes via the party ticket.
Ah ok, got it. However, probably an unlikely scenario even in a "segregated" (republicans vs democrats) country as the US. But yeah - the reality right now that 40, 45% of the votes are enough for - in the case of the US - the republicans to win is pretty bad already.
> Depending on the electoral system you might not need to win a majority of the votes in any constituency,
In Germany we have two ways to get into the Bundestag (national parliament) - the one is a "Direktmandat" (the candidate with the most votes in one county county gets the seat), the other is via the party ticket. The parties have lists of candidates, and depending on their percentage of the total vote, the first X candidates get a seat.
That system tries to balance between each county getting the representative in they favor, but also representing the relative votes via the party ticket.