Apparentment is the name given to the system, sometimes provided for in

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...

conducted according to the

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be us ...

system, which allows parties to specify electoral alliances. The system has been used in Switzerland since 1919 and is now used in Israel. Under list proportional representation, seats are awarded for each quota of votes obtained. Any votes excess to the quota are lost. Under apparentment, parties combine their vote excess, which may yield an additional full quota and candidate elected. For example, if there are 100 seats in the legislature, the quota per seat will be around 1%. If two parties poll 1.4 and 1.3 quotas respectively, they will probably only win one seat each if their votes are counted separately (assuming there is no further threshold, such as Germany's 5% barrier) but if they can combine their votes, they will have 2.7 quotas in total and a good chance of winning 3 seats overall. Usually the third seat would go to the party with 1.4% as it has more votes within the alliance. There are two possible types of apparentment: different parties within a single electoral district combining their results, or the same party competing in different electoral districts combining these results. The system introduces an element of ordinality. It is akin to a prespecified ranking in a preferential voting system like

alternative vote Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of Ranked voting, ranked preferential Electoral system, voting method. It uses a Majority rule, majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referr ...

single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

, as is used with the above-the-line system in Australian elections.

References

Proportional representation electoral systems {{Election-stub

See also

References