An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
(a
country
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...
,
administrative region
Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...
, or other
polity
A polity is an identifiable Politics, political entity – a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of Institutionalisation, institutionalized social relation, social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize ...
) created to provide its population with representation in the larger state's
legislative body
A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government.
Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as p ...
. That body, or the state's constitution or a body established for that purpose, determines each district's boundaries and whether each will be represented by a
single member or multiple members. Generally, only
voters
Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holde ...
(''constituents'') who
reside within the district are permitted to vote in an
election
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 opera ...
held there. District representatives may be elected by a
first-past-the-post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...
system, a
proportional representative system, or another
voting method
Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holde ...
. They may be selected by a
direct election
Direct election is a system of choosing political officeholders in which the voters directly cast ballots for the persons or political party that they desire to see elected. The method by which the winner or winners of a direct election are cho ...
under
universal suffrage
Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stanc ...
, an
indirect election
An indirect election or ''hierarchical voting'' is an election in which voters do not choose directly among candidates or parties for an office (direct voting system), but elect people who in turn choose candidates or parties. It is one of the old ...
, or another form of
suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...
.
Terminology
The names for electoral districts vary across countries and, occasionally, for the office being elected. The term ''constituency'' is commonly used to refer to an electoral district, especially in British English, but it can also refer to the body of eligible voters or all the residents of the represented area or only those who voted for a certain candidate.
The terms ''(election) precinct'' and ''election district'' are more common in American English.
In Australia and New Zealand, electoral districts are called ''electorates'', however elsewhere the term ''electorate'' generally refers specifically to the body of voters.
In
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
electoral districts are referred to as "''Nirvācan Kṣetra''" ( hi, निर्वाचन क्षेत्र) in
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
, which can be literally translated to English as "electoral area" though the official English translation for the term is "constituency". The term "Nirvācan Kṣetra" is used while referring to an electoral district in general irrespective of the legislature. When referring to a particular legislative constituency, it is simply referred to as "Kṣetra" along with the name of the legislature, in Hindi (e.g. 'Lok Sabha Kshetra' for a
Lok Sabha
The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...
constituency). Electoral districts for municipal or other local bodies are called "wards".
In Canada, districts are colloquially called in English ''
ridings'' (stemming from an earlier British geographical subdivision). In some parts of Canada, "constituencies" is used for provincial districts and "ridings" for federal districts. In colloquial
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, they are called ''comtés'', "counties" (''circonscriptions'' is the legal term).
Local electoral districts are sometimes called ''
ward
Ward may refer to:
Division or unit
* Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward
* Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...
s'', a term also used for administrative subdivisions of a municipality. However, in
the Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...
, voting districts are called
local electoral area
A local electoral area (LEA; ga, Toghlimistéir Áitiúil) is an electoral area for elections to local authorities in Ireland. All elections use the single transferable vote. The Republic of Ireland is divided into 166 LEAs, with an average po ...
s.
District magnitude
''District magnitude'' is a term invented by the American political scientist
Douglas W. Rae in his 1967
dissertation ''The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws''. It refers to the number of seats assigned to each district, and thus the easiness to be elected, as the threshold ''de facto'' decreases in proportion.
The concept of magnitude explains
Duverger's observation that
plurality voting
Plurality voting refers to electoral systems in which a candidate, or candidates, who poll more than any other counterpart (that is, receive a plurality), are elected. In systems based on single-member districts, it elects just one member per ...
tends to produce
two-party systems, and
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
(PR) methods tend to produce
multi-party systems.
District magnitude is minimal (exactly 1):
* in plurality voting in ''
single-member district
A single-member district is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. Single-member districts are also sometimes called single-winner vo ...
s'' (as in most cases)
*
general ticket
The general ticket, also known as party block voting (PBV) or ticket voting, is a type of block voting in which voters opt for a party, or a team's set list of candidates, and the highest-polling party/team becomes the winner. Unless specifically ...
,
plurality block voting
Plurality block voting, also known as plurality-at-large voting, block vote or block voting (BV) is a non- proportional voting system for electing representatives in multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of sea ...
in
plural district
The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...
s, and certain pro-landslide
party-list system A party-list system is a type of electoral system that formally involves political parties in the electoral process, usually to facilitate multi-winner elections. In party-list systems, parties put forward a list of candidates, the party-list who s ...
s in ''multi-member districts'' (rarely used nationwide nowadays)
District magnitude is larger than 1 where multiple members are elected, such as
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 ...
elections. They normally range from 2 to 10 members in a district.
District magnitude is maximized where:
* jurisdictions with a single electoral district for the whole elected body. This includes the legislatures of:
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
(1 district for 26.7 million registered people and 400 seats),
the Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
(1 district for 13 million and 150 seats),
Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
(13 million, 250 seats),
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...
(6.584 million, 250 seats),
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
(6.578 million, 120 seats),
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
(4.4 million, 150 seats), and
Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
(3 million, 101 seats). In each of these cases, it only takes a fraction of the nation's electorate to capture one seat.
* systems use
mixed-member proportional representation
Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...
, using both local multi-member constituencies (of various district magnitudes and seat-to-vote disproportions), and national
leveling seats
Leveling seats ( da, tillægsmandat, sv, utjämningsmandat, no, utjevningsmandater, is, jöfnunarsæti, german: Ausgleichsmandat), commonly known also as adjustment seats, are an election mechanism employed for many years by all Nordic countrie ...
, when the nationwide results have priority. That is the case in Scandinavia:
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
(6.53 million, 349 seats, see
national apportionment of MP seats in the Riksdag
The electoral system in Sweden is proportional. Of the 349 seats in the national diet, the unicameral Riksdag, 310 are fixed constituency seats ( sv, valkretsmandat) allocated to constituencies in relation to the number of people entitled to vote ...
article),
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark
...
(4.2 million, 179 seats),
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
(3.7 million, 169 seats), and
Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...
(0.2 million, 63 seats). Since 2017, Germany's
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...
is also made up of
additional members meant to make up for imbalances in the number of MPs (members of parliament) by state due to the
overhang seat
Overhang seats are constituency seats won in an election under the traditional mixed member proportional (MMP) system (as it originated in Germany), when a party's share of the nationwide votes would entitle it to fewer seats than the number of ...
s.
District magnitude may be set at an equal number of seats. Examples include: all districts of the
Northern Ireland Assembly
sco-ulster, Norlin Airlan Assemblie
, legislature = 7th Northern Ireland Assembly, Seventh Assembly
, coa_pic = File:NI_Assembly.svg
, coa_res = 250px
, house_type = Unicameralism, Unicameral
, hou ...
elected 6 members (5 members since 2017); all those of the
Parliament of Malta
The Parliament of Malta ( mt, Il-Parlament ta' Malta) is the constitutional legislative body in Malta, located in Valletta. The parliament is unicameral, with a democratically elected House of Representatives and the President of Malta. By const ...
send 5 MPs, whereas Chile, between 1989 and 2013, used a method called
binomial voting
The binomial system ( es, Sistema binominal) is a voting system that was used in the legislative elections of Chile between 1989 and 2013.
From an electoral system point of view, the binomial system is in effect the D'Hondt method with an open ...
which assigned 2 MPs to each district.
In many cases, however, multi-member constituencies correspond to already existing jurisdictions (region, district, ward), which creates differences in district magnitude:
*
Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...
for the
Dáil Éireann
Dáil Éireann ( , ; ) is the lower house, and principal chamber, of the Oireachtas (Irish legislature), which also includes the President of Ireland and Seanad Éireann (the upper house).Article 15.1.2º of the Constitution of Ireland read ...
: 3-, 4-, and 5- member districts.
*
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
for half of the
Legislative Council of Hong Kong
The Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (LegCo) is the unicameral legislature of Hong Kong. It sits under China's " one country, two systems" constitutional arrangement, and is the power centre of Hong Kong ...
: 5- to 9- member districts.
*The
New Hampshire House of Representatives
The New Hampshire House of Representatives is the lower house in the New Hampshire General Court, the bicameral legislature of the state of New Hampshire. The House of Representatives consists of 400 members coming from 204 legislative district ...
: 1- to 11-member districts.
The concept of district magnitude helps explains why Duverger's speculated correlation between proportional representation and party system fragmentation has many counter-examples, as PR methods combined with small-sized multi-member constituencies may produce a low
effective number of parties The effective number of parties is a concept introduced by Laakso and Taagepera (1979) which provides for an adjusted number of political parties in a country's party system. The idea behind this measure is to count parties and, at the same time, ...
.
The inverse of the district magnitude plus one is the
Droop quota
The Droop quota is the quota most commonly used in elections held under the single transferable vote (STV) system. It is also sometimes used in elections held under the largest remainder method of party-list proportional representation (list PR). ...
which provides the mathematical threshold to ensure election (probabilistic threshold should include the likely number of votes wasted to minor lists). For instance, a 10%-polling party will not win a seat in a 5-member district (Droop quota of 1/6=16.67%) but will do so in a 9-member district as this is the minimum to exceed a Droop quota (1/10=10%).
Larger district magnitudes annihilate the need and practice of
gerrymandering
In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...
, which is the practice of partisan redistricting by means of creating imbalances in the make-up of the district map. A higher magnitude means less wasted votes, and less room for such maneuvers.
Multiple-member contests sometimes use plurality block voting, which allows a single group to take all the district seats. Single voting such as
single non-transferable vote
Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an electoral system used to elect multiple winners. It is a generalization of first-past-the-post, applied to multi-member districts with each voter casting just one vote. Unlike FPTP, which is a single-winn ...
or single transferable vote prevents such a landslide.
Minorities
Magnitude is a major factor in the inclusion of
minorities.
Plurality (and other elections with lower district magnitudes) are known to limit the representation of minorities.
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...
had first proposed
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
(PR) in the mid-19th century precisely to respond to this shortcoming.
With lower district magnitudes, the only way to include demographic minorities scattered across the country is to force parties to include them:
* women: some
gender quota
A gender quota is a tool used by countries and parties to increase women's representation in legislature. Women are largely underrepresented in parliaments and account for a 25.8% average in parliaments globally. As of November 2021, gender quotas ...
s may compel registered parties to a certain sex ratio between the candidates they put forward in
single-seat districts. This can also be an internal policy, as the one used by the
Labour Party since 1995 (see
all-women shortlist
All-women shortlists (AWS) is an affirmative action practice intended to increase the proportion of female Members of Parliament (MPs) in the United Kingdom, allowing only women to stand in particular constituencies for a particular political p ...
).
* ethnic groups:
** such a system is in use in
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
which requires one team member (at least) to be of a different race from the others. This is the system of the numerically dominant
group representation constituencies.
** in the United States, the Supreme Court ruled that districts should be drawn to create a number of
minority-majority district A majority-minority district is an electoral district, such as a List of United States congressional districts, United States congressional district, in which the majority of the Electoral district, constituents in the single-member district, distri ...
s proportional to the minority population of the area (see
majority minority in the United States
In the United States of America, majority-minority area or minority-majority area is a term describing a U.S. state or jurisdiction whose population is composed of less than 50% non-Hispanic whites. Racial data is derived from self-identification ...
). This is an implicit, not explicit requirement, based on
zoning
Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones, each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a si ...
.
** in New Zealand, the
Māori electorate
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...
s have been in use for over a century so that voters of Māori extraction can elect their own MPs ; contrary to the US' solution, the Māori electorates overlap the generic electorates. And unlike the US, the distinction between ethnicities is explicit.
Greater magnitudes increase the chance for diverse walks of life and minority groups to be elected. However, it is not synonymous with proportional representation. A
closed list
Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some inf ...
PR method, for instance, gives the party machine the power to rank the candidates on the party list. In this case, greater magnitudes help minorities only if the party machines choose to include them.
Apportionment and redistricting
''Apportionment'' is the process of allocating a number of representatives to different regions, such as states or provinces. Apportionment changes are often accompanied by ''redistricting'', the redrawing of electoral district boundaries to accommodate the new number of representatives. This redrawing is necessary under single-member district systems, as each new representative requires their own district. Multi-member systems, however, vary depending on other rules. Ireland, for example, redraws its electoral districts after every
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...
§5: Establishment of Constituency Commission; Electoral Act, 1997
Irish Statute Book while Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
uses its existing administrative boundaries for electoral districts and instead modifies the number of representatives allotted to each. Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and the Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
are among the few countries that avoid the need for apportionment entirely by electing legislators at-large
At large (''before a noun'': at-large) is a description for members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent a whole membership or population (notably a city, county, state, province, nation, club or association), rather than ...
.
Apportionment is generally done on the basis of population
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...
. Seats in the United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...
, for instance, are reapportioned to individual states every 10 years following a census, with some states that have grown in population gaining seats. By contrast, seats in the Cantonal Council of Zürich
The Cantonal Council of Zürich (german: Zürcher Kantonsrat) is the legislature of the canton of Zürich, in Switzerland. Zürich has a unicameral legislature. The Cantonal Council has 180 seats, with members elected every four years.
Election ...
are reapportioned in every election based on the number of votes cast in each district, which is only made possible by use of multi-member districts, and the House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=/, Dom naroda Bosne i Hercegovine, Дом народа Босне и Херцеговине) is one of the two chambers of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzeg ...
, by contrast, is apportioned without regard to population; the three major ethnic groups - Bosniaks
The Bosniaks ( bs, Bošnjaci, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia, which is today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who share a common Bosnian ancestry ...
, Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
, and Croats
The Croats (; hr, Hrvati ) are a South Slavic ethnic group who share a common Croatian ancestry, culture, history and language. They are also a recognized minority in a number of neighboring countries, namely Austria, the Czech Republic, G ...
- each get exactly five members. ''Malapportionment
Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionmen ...
'' occurs when voters are under- or over-represented due to variation in district population.
In some places, geographical area is allowed to affect apportionment, with rural areas with sparse populations allocated more seats per elector: for example in Iceland, the Falkland Islands, Scottish islands, and (partly) in US Senate elections.
Gerrymandering
''Gerrymandering'' is the manipulation of electoral district boundaries for political gain. By creating a few "forfeit" districts where opposing candidates win overwhelmingly, gerrymandering politicians can manufacture more, but narrower, wins for themselves and their party. Gerrymandering relies on the wasted-vote effect, effectively concentrating wasted votes among opponents while minimizing wasted votes among supporters. Consequently, gerrymandering is typically done under voting systems using single-member districts, which have more wasted votes.
While much more difficult, gerrymandering can also be done under proportional-voting systems when districts elect very few seats. By making three-member districts in regions where a particular group has a slight majority, for instance, gerrymandering politicians can obtain 2/3 of that district's seats. Similarly, by making four-member districts in regions where the same group has slightly less than a majority, gerrymandering politicians can still secure exactly half of the seats.
However, any possible gerrymandering that theoretically could occur would be much less effective because minority groups can still elect at least one representative if they make up a significant percentage of the population (e.g. 20-25%), compared to single-member districts where 40-49% of the voters can be essentially shut out from any representation.
Swing seats and safe seats
Sometimes, particularly under non-proportional winner-take-all voting systems, electoral districts can be prone to landslide victories
A landslide victory is an election result in which the victorious candidate or party wins by an overwhelming margin. The term became popular in the 1800s to describe a victory in which the opposition is "buried", similar to the way in which a geol ...
. A ''safe seat'' is one that is very unlikely to be won by a rival politician due to the makeup of its constituency
An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger State (polity), state (a country, administrative region, ...
. Conversely, a ''swing seat'' is one that could easily ''swing'' either way. In United Kingdom general elections
This is a list of United Kingdom general elections (elections for the UK House of Commons) since the first in 1802. The members of the 1801–1802 Parliament had been elected to the former Parliament of Great Britain and Parliament of Ireland, ...
and United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
presidential and congressional elections, the voting in a relatively small number of swing seats usually determines the outcome of the entire election. Many politicians aspire to have safe seats.
In large multi-party systems like India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, swing seats can lead to a hung assembly
A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisla ...
like situation if a significant number of seats go for regional parties instead of the larger national parties who are the main competitors at the national or state level, as was the situation in the Lok Sabha
The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...
(Lower house of the Parliament of India
The Parliament of India (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameralism, bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the R ...
) during the 1990s.
Constituency work
Elected representatives may spend much of the time serving the needs or demands of individual ''constituents'', meaning either voters or residents of their district. This is more common in assemblies with many single-member or small districts than those with fewer, larger districts. In a looser sense, corporations and other such organizations can be referred to as constituents, if they have a significant presence in an area.
Many assemblies allow free postage (through franking privilege
Franking comprises all devices, markings, or combinations thereof ("franks") applied to mails of any class which qualifies them to be postally serviced. Types of franks include uncanceled and precanceled postage stamps (both adhesive and printed o ...
or prepaid envelopes) from a representative to a constituent, and often free telecommunications. Caseworkers may be employed by representatives to assist constituents with problems. Members of the U.S. Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...
(both Representatives and Senators) working in Washington, D.C. have a governmentally staffed district office to aid in constituent services. Many state legislatures have followed suit. Likewise, British MPs
In the United Kingdom, a member of Parliament (MP) is an individual elected to serve in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Electoral system
All 650 members of the UK House of Commons are elected using the first-past- ...
use their Parliamentary staffing allowance to appoint staff for constituency casework. Client politics
Client(s) or The Client may refer to:
* Client (business)
* Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer
* Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuable ...
and pork barrel
''Pork barrel'', or simply ''pork'', is a metaphor for the appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative's district.
The usage originated in American English, and i ...
politics are associated with constituency work.
Special constituencies with additional membership requirements
In some elected assemblies, some or all constituencies may group voters based on some criterion other than, or in addition to, the location they live. Examples include:
* By ethnic groups: Communal constituencies
{{Politics of Fiji
Communal constituencies were the most durable feature of the Fijian electoral system. In communal constituencies, electors enrolled as ethnic Fijians, Indo-Fijians, Rotuman Islanders, or General electors (Europeans, Chinese ...
in Fiji; reserved seats in India for Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indian people fall into two different groups: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The ''Oxford English ...
s and scheduled castes and scheduled tribes
The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designa ...
; Māori electorates
In New Zealand politics, Māori electorates, colloquially known as the Māori seats, are a special category of electorate that give reserved positions to representatives of Māori in the New Zealand Parliament. Every area in New Zealand is ...
in New Zealand.
* By qualification: University constituency
A university constituency is a constituency, used in elections to a legislature, that represents the members of one or more universities rather than residents of a geographical area. These may or may not involve plural voting, in which voters ar ...
in Ireland and formerly the United Kingdom, functional constituency
A functional constituency is an electoral device (a non-geographical constituency) used within the political systems of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China:
* Functional constituency (Hong Kong)
* Functional cons ...
in Hong Kong.
* By residence outside the country: Overseas constituencies An overseas constituency or overseas electoral district is any electoral district located outside of a nation-state's borders but which is recognized by the state's government as a district for the representation of its expatriate (and, technicall ...
in France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
.
Voting without constituencies
Not all democratic political systems use separate districts or other electoral subdivisions to conduct elections. Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, for instance, conducts parliamentary elections as a single district. The 26 electoral districts in Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
and the 20 in the Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
have a role in the actual election, but no role whatsoever in the division of the seats. Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
elected half of the Verkhovna Rada
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ( uk, Верхо́вна Ра́да Украї́ни, translit=, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy, translation=Supreme Council of Ukraine, Ukrainian abbreviation ''ВРУ''), often simply Verkhovna Rada or just Rada, is the ...
(the Ukrainian Parliament) in this way in the elections in October 2012.["Parliament Passes Law on Parliamentary Elections"]
''Kyiv Post
The ''Kyiv Post'' is the oldest English-language newspaper in Ukraine, founded in October 1995 by Jed Sunden.
History
American Jed Sunden founded the ''Kyiv Post'' weekly newspaper on Oct. 18, 1995 and later created KP Media for his holdings. ...
'', 17 November 2011.
References
{{Authority control
Elections
Electoral systems
Types of administrative division