Runoff voting

BBC headline: DR Congo run-off could be best result

Nationally, neither man managed to gain the 50% needed for victory in the first round and so the two best-placed candidates will face a run-off in October.

BBC writer Joseph Winter gives two reasons why having a runoff may be good:

Some observers thought the delay in announcing the results would serve to cool hot tempers and possibly avoid the feared post-election violence. The same argument is now being used about a second round.

Furthermore, a run-off means the two remaining candidates will have to try to broaden their appeal beyond their core supporters--no bad thing in such a vast, fractured country trying to put an end to years of conflict.

The idea that it is just more fair, that giving those who voted for other candidates a say in chosing between the two frontrunners, never seems to occur to Winter. I'm pretty sure that there is no perfect system of democracy, but systems which fail to have runoff elections when there is no majority winner, like ours, aren't even trying.

American democracy--worse than Congo's!