One way of trying to ensure that a president has the support of a broad cross-section of the electorate is to introduce a distribution requirement, which acts as another hurdle to be cleared before a candidate can be declared duly elected. In Nigeria in 1993, presidential candidates had to not only win a plurality of the vote, but also secure at least one-third of the votes in at least two-thirds of the thirty-one provinces. In Kenya, to be elected president, a candidate had to receive at least twenty-five percent of the vote in at least five out of the eight provinces. In spite of this, in 1992 a divided opposition allowed Daniel Arap Moi to become President with only thirty-five percent of the vote.

Distribution requirements have the benefit of encouraging presidential candidates to make appeals outside their own regional or ethnic base, and if appropriately applied can work very well. However, too stringent requirements can result in no one candidate being elected, creating a vacuum of power fraught with the dangers of instability. And if no single candidate fulfils all the requirements at the first time of asking, none is likely to do so in a re-run.