정치적 양극화와 순위선택투표제에 관한 헌법적 검토

This study starts from the perspective that increasing political polarization, as a crisis phenomenon in modern democracy, is a key factor that hinders the realization of constitutional community cohesion and democracy. It then proposes the need for electoral system reform to mitigate political polarization and examines the constitutional legitimacy and functionality of ranked choice voting system, one of the specific alternatives. South Korea's electoral system is a mix of several types of electoral systems, but it is dominated by the first-past-the-post electoral system. The first-past-the-post electoral system has been criticized for causing negative consequences such as electoral disproportionality and political polarization, and it can be said that the current political outcomes in Korea are also showing the same pattern. In particular, political polarization shapes the entire political process into a confrontational structure, and extreme political tendencies are overrepresented, which hinders the political autonomy of the people and causes stalemate and confusion in the national agenda setting and legislative process. Ranked Choice Voting is being discussed as one of the reforms to the election system to resolve this political polarization, and it is spreading widely in the United States. Ranked choice voting can be said to have the effect of reducing political polarization, and at the same time, it is a system that enables more accurate and free expression of people's will in elections, thereby strengthening the realization of people's fundamental political rights. In this regard, it is necessary to continue to study the specific use of ranked-choice voting and its constitutional function.