Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of
electoral system
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections ma ...
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 divisions (
political parties) of the electorate. The essence of such systems is that all votes cast - or almost all votes cast - contribute to the result and are actually used to help elect someone—not just a
plurality, or a bare
majority—and that the system produces mixed, balanced representation reflecting how votes are cast.
"Proportional" electoral systems mean proportional to ''vote share'' and ''not'' proportional to population size. For example, the
US 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 chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
has 435 districts which are drawn so roughly equal or "proportional" numbers of people live within each district, yet members of the House are elected in first-past-the-post elections: first-past-the-post is ''not'' proportional by vote share.
The most prevalent forms such methods require either a more general pooling of votes (as most party-list systems use and MMP systems use in conjunction with single-member or multi-member districts) or the use of multiple-member
voting districts as is used in
Single transferable voting
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 ...
.
MMP in New Zealand uses country-wide party vote tallies to assess how many additional members parties will get.
PR systems that achieve the highest levels of proportionality tend to use as general pooling as possible (often country-wide) or districts with large numbers of seats. A pooling of votes to elect more than a hundred members is used in Angola, for example. STV though has never been used to elect more than 21 in a single contest to this point in history.
Under STV, districts usually have 5 to 9 seats. With nine seats, any voting block with at least ten percent of the vote in the district takes at least one seat.
STV works with districts having more than ten seats as well - a district with 42 seats (21 filled in any one election) is in use today (NSW, Australia) covering a whole state. In such a case any voting group in NSW with about five percent of the vote takes one seat or more.
The most widely used families of PR electoral systems are
''party-list PR'', used in 85 countries,
''mixed-member PR'' (MMP), used in 7 countries,
and ''
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 ...
'' (STV), used in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
,
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
and
Australian Senate.
Due to factors such as
electoral threshold
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...
s and the use of small constituencies, as well as manipulation tactics such as
party splitting and
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 ...
, perfect proportionality is rarely achieved under these systems. Nonetheless, they approximate proportionality much better than other systems.
Some jurisdictions use
leveling seats (top-up) to compensate for the dis-proportional results produced in single-member districts (such as New Zealand's MMP) or to polish the fairness produced in multi-member districts (such as in Denmark's MMP). Other jurisdictions use additional seats to produce specific results - such as the election of women (to address the gender proportionality) and to ensure that the party with more than half the votes has more than half the seats.
Basics
Proportional electoral systems always have to allow for multiple winners. To achieve their intended effect, there (usually) needs to be more than one seat in each district. Elections for a single president cannot be based on proportional representation, but a legislative body (assembly, parliament) may be elected proportionally. In the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
for instance, each member state has a number of seats that is (roughly) proportional to its population, enabling geographical proportional representation. Almost all European countries also have political proportional representation (ideological proportional representation to the degree that parties honestly describe their goals): When ''n''% of the electorate support a particular
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
or set of candidates as their favorite, then roughly ''n''% of seats are allotted to that party or those candidates.
All proportional systems aim to provide some form of equal representation for votes, but may differ in their approaches on how they achieve this.
How party-list PR works
Party list PR, the most commonly used version of proportional representation, involves parties in the election process. Voters do not primarily vote for candidates (persons), but for
''electoral lists'' (or ''party lists''), which are lists of candidates that parties put forward. The mechanism that allocates seats to the parties/lists is how these systems achieve proportionality. Once this is done, the candidates who take the seats are based on the order in which they appear on the list. This is the basic,
closed list version of list PR.
An example election where the assembly has 200 seats to be filled is presented below. Every voter votes for the list created by their favourite party and the results of the election are as follows (popular vote). Under party-list PR, every party gets a number of seats proportional to their share of the popular vote.
This is done by a proportional formula/method, for example the
D'Hondt method
The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest ...
(also called the Jefferson method). Votes and seats often cannot be mathematically perfectly allocated, so some amount of rounding has to be done. The various methods deal with this in different ways, although the difference is reduced if there are many seats ― for example, if the whole country is one district. Party list PR is also more complicated in reality than in the example, as countries often use more than one district, multiple tiers (e.g. local, regional and national),
open list
Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, which allows only active members, par ...
s or an
electoral threshold
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...
.
How the single transferable vote (STV) works
The single transferable vote is an older method than party-list PR, and it does not need to formally involve parties in the election process. Instead of parties putting forward ordered lists of candidates, it is the voters themselves who rank the candidates. This is done using a
preferential ballot
The term ranked voting (also known as preferential voting or ranked choice voting) refers to any voting system in which voters rank their candidates (or options) in a sequence of first or second (or third, etc.) on their respective ballots. Ran ...
. STV can be used for nonpartisan elections such as the city council of
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
.
Counting votes under STV in a realistic election scenario is complicated, but a simplified example can show how proportionality is achieved in a district with 4 seats. In reality, districts need to be larger to truly achieve proportionality, but not so large that there are too many candidates for voters to rank. In this example each candidate belongs to a party and for a candidate to be elected, they need to earn more than 25% of the votes (this is called a ''quota'', more specifically the
Droop quota. Note that it is impossible for 4 candidates to all get more than 25% of the votes. In the first step, the first preferences (favourite candidates) of all the voters are counted and all candidates who pass the quota are elected.
![Preferential_ballot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Preferential_ballot.svg)
Next, the votes the candidates received above the quota (surplus votes that they did not need to get elected) are transferred to the next preferences of the voters who voted for them. For the example we suppose that all voters of Joe Smith prefer John Citizen as their second choice (as he is also from Party A) and all voters of Fred Rubble prefer Mary Hill as their second choice (as she is also from Party B). Based on this we reallocate the votes and find that John Citizen has passed the quota and so got elected to the 3rd and last seat that we had to fill.
How mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) works
Mixed Member Proportional Representation combines election of district members with election of additional members as compensatory top-up.
Often MMDP systems use single-member districts to elect district members. (Denmark uses multi-member districts in its MMP system). MMP with SMDs is described here.
The mixed-member proportional system combines single member plurality voting (SMP), also known as
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 thei ...
(FPTP), with party-list PR in a way that the overall result of the election is supposed to be proportional. The voter may vote for a district candidate as well as a party. The main idea behind MMP is ''compensation'', meaning that the list-PR seat allocation is not independent of the results of the district level voting. First-past-the-post is a single winner system and cannot be proportional (winner-takes-all), so these disproportionalities are compensated by the party-list component.
A simple, yet common version of MMP has as many list-PR seats as there are single-member districts. In the example it can be seen, as is often the case in reality, that the results of the districts elections are highly disproportional: large parties typically win more seats than they would under a simple list-PR system, but a party that won more votes than another party might not win more seats.
MMP gives only as many compensatory seats to a party as they need to have the number of seats of each party be proportional. Another way to say this is that MMP focuses on making the final outcome proportional.
Compare this to
parallel voting
Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most often first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) with party-list proportional representation (PR). It ...
, which is a
mixed-member ''majoritarian'' system: here the party-list PR seat allocation is ''independent'' of the district results, meaning that there is ''no compensation''. The popular vote, the number of districts won by each party, and the number of districts and party-list PR seats are all the same, yet the total number of seats is different.
The overall results are not proportional, but
semi-proportional. This shows that for a
mixed system to be proportional, it has to be compensatory. There are many versions of MMP in use. Some use only a
single vote, some allocate compensatory seats to best losers, and some use levelling seats to compensate for potential
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.
Advantages and disadvantages
The case for a Single Transferrable Vote system, a form of proportional representation, was made by
John Stuart Mill in his 1861 essay ''
Considerations on Representative Government
''Considerations on Representative Government'' is a book by John Stuart Mill published in 1861.
Summary
Mill argues for representative government, the ideal form of government in his opinion. One of the more notable ideas Mill puts forth in t ...
'':
Mill's essay does not support Party-based Proportional Representation and may indicate a distaste for the ills of Party-based systems in saying:
Of all modes in which a national representation can possibly be constituted, this one affords the best security for the intellectual qualifications desirable in the representatives. At present, by universal admission, it is becoming more and more difficult for any one who has only talents and character to gain admission into the House of Commons. The only persons who can get elected are those who possess local influence, or make their way by lavish expenditure, or who, on the invitation of three or four tradesmen or attorneys, are sent down by one of the two great parties from their London clubs, as men whose votes the party can depend on under all circumstances.
Many political theorists agree with Mill
that in a
representative democracy
Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represe ...
the representatives should represent all substantial segments of society but want reform rather than abolition of direct local community representation in the legislature.
STV and the Additional-Member system both produce local area representation and overall PR through mixed, balanced representation at the district level.
Fairness
![Canada-election-2015](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Canada-election-2015.jpg)
PR tries to resolve the unfairness of
majoritarian
Majoritarianism is a traditional political philosophy or agenda that asserts that a majority (sometimes categorized by religion, language, social class, or some other identifying factor) of the population is entitled to a certain degree of prim ...
and
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 pe ...
systems where the largest parties receive an "unfair" seat bonus and smaller parties are disadvantaged, always under-represented, and on occasion win no representation at all (
Duverger's law).
An established party in UK elections can win majority control of the House of Commons with as little as 35% of votes (
2005 UK general election). In certain Canadian elections, majority governments have been formed by parties with the support of under 40% of votes cast (
2011 Canadian election,
2015 Canadian election). If turnout levels in the electorate are less than 60%, such outcomes allow a party to form a majority government by convincing as few as one quarter of the electorate to vote for it. In the
2005 UK election, for example, the
Labour Party under
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
won a comfortable parliamentary majority with the votes of only 21.6% of the total electorate. Such misrepresentation has been criticized as "no longer a question of 'fairness' but of elementary rights of citizens".
However, intermediate PR systems with a high
electoral threshold
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...
, or other features that reduce proportionality, are not necessarily much fairer: in the
2002 Turkish general election
General elections were held in Turkey on 3 November 2002 following the collapse of the Democratic Left Party–Nationalist Movement Party– Motherland Party coalition led by Bülent Ecevit. All 550 members of the Grand National Assembly wer ...
, using an open list system with a 10% threshold, 46% of votes were wasted.
Plurality/majoritarian systems also benefit regional parties that win many seats in the region where they have a strong following but have little support nationally, while other parties with national support that is not concentrated in specific districts, like the
Greens, win few or no seats. An example is the
Bloc Québécois in Canada that won 52 seats in the
1993 federal election, all in
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, on 13.5% of the national vote, while the
Progressive Conservatives collapsed to two seats on 16% spread nationally. The Conservative party although strong nationally had had very strong regional support in the West but in this election its supporters in the West turned to the Reform party, which won most of its seats west of Saskatchewan and none east of Manitoba.
Similarly, in the
2015 UK General Election
The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first and only general election held at the end of a Parliament under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Local ...
, the
Scottish National Party gained 56 seats, all in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
, with a 4.7% share of the national vote while the
UK Independence Party
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...
, with 12.6%, gained only a single seat.
Representation of minor parties
The use of multiple-member districts enables a greater variety of candidates to be elected. Having more representatives per district and lowering the
percentage of votes required for election allows more minor parties to gain representation. It has been argued that in emerging democracies, inclusion of minorities in the legislature can be essential for social stability and to consolidate the democratic process.
Critics, on the other hand, claim this can give extreme parties a foothold in parliament, sometimes cited as a cause for the
collapse of the Weimar government. With very low thresholds, very small parties can act as "king-makers", holding larger parties to ransom during
coalition discussions. The example of
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 ...
is often quoted,
but these problems can be limited, as in the modern German
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 Common ...
, by the introduction of higher threshold limits for a party to gain parliamentary representation (which in turn increases the number of wasted votes).
Another criticism is that the dominant parties in plurality/majoritarian systems, often looked on as "coalitions" or as "
broad churches", can fragment under PR as the election of candidates from smaller groups becomes possible. Israel, Brazil, and Italy (until
1993
File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefu ...
) are examples.
However, research shows, in general, there is only a small increase in the number of parties in parliament (although small parties have larger representation) under PR.
Open list systems and STV, the only prominent PR system which does not require political parties, enable
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
candidates to be elected. In Ireland, on average, about six independent candidates have been elected each parliament.
This can lead to a situation where forming a Parliamentary majority requires support of one or more of these independent representatives. In some cases these independents have positions that are closely aligned with the governing party and it hardly matters. The Irish Government formed after the
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...
election even included independent representatives in the cabinet of a minority government. In others, the electoral platform is entirely local and addressing this is a price for support.
Coalitions
The election of smaller parties gives rise to one of the principal objections to PR systems, that they almost always result in
coalition governments.
Supporters of PR see coalitions as an advantage, forcing compromise between parties to form a coalition at the centre of the
political spectrum
A political spectrum is a system to characterize and classify different political positions in relation to one another. These positions sit upon one or more geometric axes that represent independent political dimensions. The expressions politi ...
, and so leading to continuity and stability. Opponents counter that with many policies compromise is not possible. Neither can many policies be easily positioned on the left-right spectrum (for example, the environment). So policies are
horse-traded during coalition formation, with the consequence that voters have no way of knowing which policies will be pursued by the government they elect; voters have less influence on governments. Also, coalitions do not necessarily form at the centre, and small parties can have excessive influence, supplying a coalition with a majority only on condition that a policy or policies favoured by few voters is/are adopted. Most importantly, the ability of voters to vote a party in disfavour out of power is curtailed.
![Number of elections by country](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Number_of_elections_by_country.jpg)
All these disadvantages, the PR opponents contend, are avoided by two-party plurality systems. Coalitions are rare; the two dominant parties necessarily compete at the centre for votes, so that governments are more reliably moderate; the strong opposition necessary for proper scrutiny of government is assured; and governments remain sensitive to public sentiment because they can be, and are, regularly voted out of power.
However, this is not necessarily so; a two-party system can result in a "drift to extremes", hollowing out the centre, or, at least, in one party drifting to an extreme. The opponents of PR also contend that coalition governments created under PR are less stable, and elections are more frequent. Italy is an often-cited example with many governments composed of many different coalition partners. However, Italy is unusual in that both its houses can make a government fall, whereas other PR nations have either just one house or have one of their two houses be the core body supporting a government. Italy's current
parallel voting system is not PR, so Italy is not an appropriate candidate for measuring the stability of PR.
Voter participation
Plurality systems usually result in single-party-majority government because generally fewer parties are elected in large numbers under FPTP compared to PR, and FPTP compresses politics to little more than two-party contests. Relatively few votes in a few of the most finely balanced districts, the "
swing seats", are able to swing majority control in the house. Incumbents in less evenly divided districts are invulnerable to slight swings of political mood. In the UK, for example, about half the constituencies have always elected the same party since 1945;
in the 2012
US House
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 chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...
elections 45 districts (10% of all districts) were uncontested by one of the two dominant parties. Voters who know their preferred candidate will not win have little incentive to vote, and even if they do their votes have
no effect
"No Effect" is a song by Australian hip-hop artist Hooligan Hefs, released independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based ...
, although they are still counted in the popular vote calculation.
With PR, there are no "
swing seats". Most votes contribute to the election of a candidate, so parties need to campaign in all districts, not just those where their support is strongest or where they perceive most advantage. This fact in turn encourages parties to be more responsive to voters, producing a more "balanced" ticket by nominating more women and minority candidates.
On average about 8% more women are elected.
Since most votes count, there are fewer "
wasted vote In electoral systems, a wasted vote is any vote which is not for an elected candidate or, more broadly, a vote that does not help to elect a candidate. The narrower meaning includes ''lost votes'', being only those votes which are for a losing candi ...
s", so voters, aware that their vote can make a difference, are more likely to make the effort to vote, and less likely to vote
tactically. Compared to countries with plurality electoral systems,
voter turnout
In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford Univ ...
improves and the population is more involved in the political process.
However, some experts argue that transitioning from plurality to PR only increases voter turnout in geographical areas associated with
safe seats under the plurality system; turnout may decrease in areas formerly associated with
swing seats.
Gerrymandering
To ensure approximately equal representation, plurality systems are dependent on the drawing of boundaries of their
single-member districts, a process vulnerable to political interference (
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 ...
). To compound the problem, boundaries have to be periodically re-drawn to accommodate population changes. Even apolitically drawn boundaries can unintentionally produce the effect of gerrymandering, reflecting naturally occurring concentrations.
PR systems with their multiple-member districts are less prone to this research suggests five-seat districts or larger are immune to gerrymandering.
Equality of size of multiple-member districts is not important (the number of seats can vary) so districts can be aligned with historical territories of varying sizes such as cities, counties, states, or provinces. Later population changes can be accommodated by simply adjusting the number of representatives elected. For example, Professor Mollison in his 2010 plan for STV for the UK divided the country into 143 districts and then allocated a different number of seats to each district (to equal the existing total of 650) depending on the number of voters in each but with wide ranges (his five-seat districts include one with 327,000 voters and another with 382,000 voters). His district boundaries follow historical
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
and
local authority
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
boundaries, yet he achieves more uniform representation than does the
Boundary Commission
A boundary commission is a legal entity that determines borders of nations, states, constituencies.
Notable boundary commissions have included:
* Afghan Boundary Commission, an Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission, of 1885 and 1893, delineated the no ...
, the body responsible for balancing the UK's
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 thei ...
constituency sizes.
Mixed member systems are susceptible to gerrymandering for the local seats that remain a part of such systems. Under
parallel voting
Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most often first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) with party-list proportional representation (PR). It ...
, a
semi-proportional system, there is no compensation for the effects that such gerrymandering might have. Under MMP, the use of compensatory list seats makes gerrymandering less of an issue. However, its effectiveness in this regard depends upon the features of the system, including the size of the regional districts, the relative share of list seats in the total, and opportunities for
collusion
Collusion is a deceitful agreement or secret cooperation between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal right. Collusion is not always considered illegal. It can be used to att ...
that might exist. A striking example of how the compensatory mechanism can be undermined can be seen in the
2014 Hungarian parliamentary election
The 2014 Hungarian parliamentary election took place on 6 April 2014. This parliamentary election was the 7th since the 1990 first multi-party election. The result was a victory for the Fidesz–KDNP alliance, preserving its two-thirds majority, ...
, where the leading party,
Fidesz
Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (; hu, Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség) is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Hungary, led by Viktor Orbán.
It was formed in 1988 under the name of Alliance of Young ...
, combined gerrymandering and decoy lists, which resulted in a two-thirds parliamentary majority from a 45% vote. This illustrates how certain implementations of
mixed systems (if non-compensatory or insufficiently compensatory) can produce moderately proportional outcomes, similar to parallel voting.
Link between constituent and representative
It is generally accepted that a particular advantage of plurality electoral systems such as
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 thei ...
, or majoritarian electoral systems such as the
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 ...
, is the geographic link between representatives and their constituents.
A notable disadvantage of PR is that, as its multiple-member districts are made larger, this link is weakened.
In party list PR systems without delineated districts, such as the Netherlands and Israel, the geographic link between representatives and their constituents is considered weak, but has shown to play a role for some parties. Yet with relatively small multiple-member districts, in particular with STV, there are counter-arguments: about 90% of voters can consult a representative they voted for, someone whom they might think more sympathetic to their problem. In such cases it is sometimes argued that constituents and representatives have a closer link;
constituents have a choice of representative so they can consult one with particular expertise in the topic at issue.
With multiple-member districts, prominent candidates have more opportunity to be elected in their home constituencies, which they know and can represent authentically. There is less likely to be a strong incentive to
parachute them into constituencies in which they are strangers and thus less than ideal representatives.
Mixed-member PR systems incorporate single-member districts to preserve the link between constituents and representatives.
However, because up to half the parliamentary seats are list rather than district seats, the districts are necessarily up to twice as large as with a plurality/majoritarian system where all representatives serve single-member districts.
An interesting case occurred in the Netherlands, when "out of the blue" a party for the elderly, the
General Elderly Alliance gained six seats in the
1994 election. The other parties had not paid attention, but this made them aware. With the next election, the Party of the Elderly was gone, because the established parties had started to listen to the elderly. Today, a party for older folks,
50PLUS
50PLUS (; abbreviated 50+) is a political party in the Netherlands that advocates pensioners' interests. The party was founded in 2009 by Maurice Koopman, Alexander Münninghoff, and Jan Nagel. Henk Krol served as the party's leader from 2016 to ...
, has established itself in the Netherlands, albeit never with the same high number of seats. This can be seen as an example how geography in itself may not be a good enough reason to establish voting results around it and overturn all other particulars of the voting population. In a sense, voting in districts restricts the voters to a specific geography. Proportional voting follows the exact outcome of all the votes.
Potential lack of balance in presidential systems
In a
presidential system, the president is chosen independently from the parliament. As a consequence, it is possible to have a
divided government
A divided government is a type of government in presidential systems, when control of the executive branch and the legislative branch is split between two political parties, respectively, and in semi-presidential systems, when the executive ...
where a parliament and president have opposing views and may want to balance each other's influence. However, the proportional system favors government of coalitions of many smaller parties that require compromising and negotiating topics. As a consequence, these coalitions might have difficulties presenting a united front to counter presidential influence, leading to a lack of balance between these two powers. With a proportionally elected House, a President may strong-arm certain political issues
This issue does not happen in a
parliamentary system
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of th ...
, where the prime-minister is elected indirectly by the parliament itself. As a consequence, a divided government is impossible. Even if the political views change with time and the prime minister loses their support from parliament, they can be replaced with a
motion of no confidence
A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or m ...
. Effectively, both measures make it impossible to create a
divided government
A divided government is a type of government in presidential systems, when control of the executive branch and the legislative branch is split between two political parties, respectively, and in semi-presidential systems, when the executive ...
.
Attributes of PR systems
District magnitude
Academics agree that the most important influence on proportionality is an electoral district's
magnitude
Magnitude may refer to:
Mathematics
*Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction
*Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object
*Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector
*Order of ...
, the number of representatives elected from the district. As magnitude increases, proportionality improves.
Some scholars recommend for STV voting districts of roughly four to eight seats,
which are considered small relative to PR systems in general, which frequently have district magnitudes in the hundreds.
At one extreme, the
binomial electoral system used in
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
between 1989 and 2013, a nominally proportional open-list system, features two-member districts. As this system can be expected to result in the election of one candidate from each of the two dominant political blocks in most districts, it is not generally considered proportional.
At the other extreme, where the district encompasses the entire country (and with a low minimum threshold, highly proportionate representation of political parties can result), parties gain by broadening their appeal by nominating more minority and women candidates.
After the introduction of STV in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
in 1921, district magnitudes slowly diminished as more and more three-member constituencies were defined, benefiting the dominant
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil (, ; meaning 'Soldiers of Destiny' or 'Warriors of Fál'), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party ( ga, audio=ga-Fianna Fáil.ogg, Fianna Fáil – An Páirtí Poblachtánach), is a conservative and Christia ...
, until 1979 when an independent boundary commission was established reversing the trend.
In 2010, a parliamentary constitutional committee recommended a minimum magnitude of four. Despite relatively low magnitudes, Ireland has generally experienced highly proportional results.
In the
FairVote
FairVote, formerly the Center for Voting and Democracy, is a 501(c)(3) organization that advocates electoral reform in the United States.
Founded in 1992 as Citizens for Proportional Representation to support the implementation of proportional r ...
plan for STV (which FairVote calls ''choice voting'') for the
US 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 chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
, three- to five-member super-districts are proposed.
In Professor Mollison's plan for STV in the UK, four- and five-member districts are mostly used, with three and six seat districts used as necessary to fit existing boundaries, and even two and single member districts used where geography dictates.
Electoral threshold
The
electoral threshold
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...
is the minimum vote required to win one seat. The lower the threshold, the higher the proportion of votes contributing to the election of representatives and the lower the proportion of votes wasted.
All electoral systems have electoral thresholds, either formally defined or the
natural threshold, which is the mathematical consequence of the district magnitude and election parameters.
A formal threshold usually requires parties to win a certain percentage of the vote in order to be awarded seats from the party lists. In Germany and New Zealand (both MMP), the threshold is 5% of the national vote but the threshold is not applied to parties that win a minimum number of constituency seats (three in Germany, one in New Zealand). Turkey defines a threshold of 10%, the Netherlands 0.67%.
Israel has raised its threshold from 1% (before 1992) to 1.5% (up to 2004), 2% (in
2006) and 3.25% in 2014. South Africa has no explicit electoral threshold, only a natural threshold ~0.2%. A
list of electoral thresholds by country shows a typical electoral threshold for party-list PR is 3-5%.
In STV elections, winning the
quota
Quota may refer to:
Economics
* Import quota, a trade restriction on the quantity of goods imported into a country
* Market Sharing Quota, an economic system used in Canadian agriculture
* Milk quota, a quota on milk production in Europe
* Indi ...
(ballots/(seats+1)) of first preference votes assures election. However, well regarded candidates who attract good second (and third, etc.) preference support can hope to win election with only half the quota of first preference votes. Thus, in a six-seat district the effective threshold would be 7.14% of first preference votes (100/(6+1)/2).
For a district magnitude of 3, the STV electoral threshold is 12.5 %, significantly higher than typical party-list PR. The need to attract second preferences tends to promote consensus and disadvantage extremes. The electoral threshold has different effects on STV than on Party-list PR. For STV the votes for candidates below natural threshold are not wasted, but transferred to the next-indicated choice. For party-list PR a vote for a party below electoral threshold is an
unrepresented vote The unrepresented voters are considered the total amount of voters not represented by any party sitting in the legislature in the case of proportional representation. In contrast, the related concept of wasted votes generally applies to plurality vo ...
, unless the
spare vote
The spare vote is a version of single transferable voting applied to the ranking of parties, first proposed for elections in Germany in 2013. This preferential party system is a ranked proportional representation electoral system applying to poli ...
system is applied.
Party magnitude
Party magnitude is the number of candidates elected from one party in one district. As party magnitude increases a more balanced ticket will be more successful encouraging parties to nominate women and minority candidates for election.
But under STV, nominating too many candidates can be counter-productive, splitting the first-preference votes and allowing the candidates to be eliminated before receiving transferred votes from other parties. An example of this was identified in a ward in the
2007 Scottish local elections
The 2007 Scottish local elections were held on 3 May 2007, the same day as Scottish Parliament elections and local elections in parts of England. All 32 Scottish councils had all their seats up for election – all Scottish councils are unitar ...
where
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
, putting up three candidates, won only one seat while they might have won two had one of their voters' preferred candidates not stood.
The same effect may have contributed to the collapse of
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil (, ; meaning 'Soldiers of Destiny' or 'Warriors of Fál'), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party ( ga, audio=ga-Fianna Fáil.ogg, Fianna Fáil – An Páirtí Poblachtánach), is a conservative and Christia ...
in the
2011 Irish general election
The 2011 Irish general election took place on Friday 25 February to elect 166 Teachtaí Dála across 43 constituencies to Dáil Éireann, the lower house of Ireland's parliament, the Oireachtas. The Dáil was dissolved and the general electi ...
.
Others
Other aspects of PR can influence proportionality such as the size of the elected body, the choice of open or closed lists, ballot design, and vote counting methods.
Measuring disproportionality
Exact proportionality has a single unambiguous definition: the seat shares must exactly equal the vote shares. When this condition is violated, the allocation is disproportional, and it may be interesting to examine the ''degree'' of disproportionality – the degree to which the number of seats won by each party differs from that of a perfectly proportional outcome. This degree does not have a single unambiguous definition. Some common disproportionality indexes are:
* The
Loosemore–Hanby index The Loosemore–Hanby index measures disproportionality of electoral systems, how much the principle of one person, one vote is violated. It computes the absolute difference between votes cast and seats obtained using the formula:
:LH=\frac\sum_^n ...
- calculated by subtracting each party's vote share from its seat share, adding up the absolute values (ignoring any negative signs), and dividing by two.
**Related to it is the
Rae index
Rae may refer to:
People
*Rae (given name), including a list of people with the given name
*Rae (surname), including a list of people with the surname Nicknames for
*Rachel (given name)
*Rachelle
*Raquel
*Raven (given name)
*Reema
*Reena (disam ...
. It measures the average
deviation, while the Loosemore–Hanby index measures the total deviation.
**Related to the amount of
unrepresented vote The unrepresented voters are considered the total amount of voters not represented by any party sitting in the legislature in the case of proportional representation. In contrast, the related concept of wasted votes generally applies to plurality vo ...
, which only measures the difference between votes cast and seats obtained for parties which did not obtain any seat.
* The
Gallagher Index - involves squaring the difference between each party's vote share and seat share, and taking the square root of the sum.
**Related to it is the
Sainte-Laguë Index - where the discrepancy between a party's vote share and seat share is measured relative to its vote share.
The disproportionality changes from one election to another depending on voter behavior and size of effective electoral threshold, here shown is the unrepresented vote for New Zealand.
In
2005 New Zealand general election
5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has attained significance throughout history in part because typical humans have five digits on eac ...
every party above 1% got seats due to the electoral threshold in New Zealand of at least one seat in first-past-the-post voting, which caused a much lower unrepresented vote compared to the other years.
Different indexes measure different concepts of disproportionality. Some disproportionality concepts have been mapped to
social welfare function
In welfare economics, a social welfare function is a function that ranks social states (alternative complete descriptions of the society) as less desirable, more desirable, or indifferent for every possible pair of social states. Inputs of the f ...
s.
[
]
Disproportionality indexes are sometimes used to evaluate existing and proposed electoral systems. For example, the
Canadian Parliament's 2016 Special Committee on Electoral Reform recommended that a system be designed to achieve "a Gallagher score of 5 or less". This indicated a much lower degree of disproportionality than observed in the
2015 Canadian election under
first-past-the-post voting
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 thei ...
, where the Gallagher index was 12.
There are various other measures of proportionality, some of them have software implementation.
The common indexes (Loosemore–Hanby, Gallagher, Sainte-Laguë) do not support
ranked voting
The term ranked voting (also known as preferential voting or ranked choice voting) refers to any voting system in which voters rank their candidates (or options) in a sequence of first or second (or third, etc.) on their respective ballots. Ra ...
.
An alternative that does support it is the
Droop proportionality criterion (DPC). It requires that if, for some set ''M'' of candidates, there exist more than ''k''
Droop quotas of voters who rank them at the top , ''M'', positions, then at least ''k'' candidates from ''M'' are elected. In the special case in which voters vote solely by party, DPC implies proportionality.
PR electoral systems
Party Based Systems
Party list PR
Party list proportional representation is an electoral system in which seats are first allocated to parties based on vote share, and then assigned to party-affiliated candidates on the parties'
electoral lists. This system is used in many countries, including
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
(open list),
Latvia (open list),
Sweden (open list),
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 ...
(national closed list),
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
(open list),
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
(closed list) as adopted in 2008 in first CA election, 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 ...
(open list),
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
(closed list),
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
(closed list),
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
(open list), and
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 ...
(open list). For elections to the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
, most
member states use open lists; but most large EU countries use closed lists, so that the majority of EP seats are distributed by those. Local lists were used to elect the
Italian Senate during the second half of the 20th century. Some common types of electoral lists are:
*
Closed list systems, where each party lists its candidates according to the party's
candidate selection
Preselection is the process by which a candidate is selected, usually by a political party, to contest an election for political office. It is also referred to as candidate selection. It is a fundamental function of political parties. The presele ...
process. This sets the order of candidates on the list and thus, in effect, their probability of being elected. The first candidate on a list, for example, will get the first seat that party wins. Each voter casts a vote for a list of candidates. Voters, therefore, do not have the option to express their preferences at the ballot as to which of a party's candidates are elected into office. A party is allocated seats in proportion to the number of votes it receives.
*
Ley de Lemas
''Ley de Lemas'' is a form of the double simultaneous vote (DSV) electoral system which is, or has been, used in elections in Argentina, Uruguay, and Honduras. It is an unusual variant of open list proportional representation, and works as foll ...
- an intermediate system used in Uruguay, where each party presents several closed lists, each representing a faction. Seats are distributed between parties according to the number of votes, and then between the factions within each party.
*
Open list
Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, which allows only active members, par ...
systems, where voters may vote, depending on the model, for one person, or for two, or indicate their order of preference within the list. These votes sometimes rearrange the order of names on the party's list and thus which of its candidates are elected. Nevertheless, the number of candidates elected from the list is determined by the number of votes the list receives.
*
Localized list
A localized list or local list is a technique used under systems of party-list proportional representation to determine which party candidates are elected from the party list. Local lists differ from open lists or closed lists. As with open lis ...
systems, where parties divide their candidates in single member-like constituencies, which are ranked inside each general party list depending by their percentages. This method allows electors to judge every single candidate as in a
FPTP
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.
* Two-tier party list systems - as in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. In
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 = Kingdom of Denmark
, establish ...
, for example, the country is divided into ten multiple-member voting districts arranged in three regions, electing 135 representatives. In addition, 40 compensatory seats are elected. Voters have one vote which can be cast for an individual candidate or for a party list on the district ballot. To determine district winners, candidates are apportioned their share of their party's district list vote plus their individual votes. The compensatory seats are apportioned to the regions according to the party votes aggregated nationally, and then to the districts where the compensatory representatives are determined. In the 2007 general election, the district magnitudes, including compensatory representatives, varied between 14 and 28. The basic design of the system has remained unchanged since its introduction in 1920.
Mixed systems
There are
mixed electoral systems combining a plurality/majority formula with a proportional formula
or using the proportional component to compensate for disproportionality caused by the plurality/majority component.
The most prominent mixed compensatory system is
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 ...
(MMP). It combines a single-district vote, usually
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 thei ...
, with a compensatory regional or nationwide party list proportional vote. For example, suppose that a party wins 10 seats based on
plurality, but requires 15 seats in total to obtain its proportional share of an elected body. A fully proportional mixed compensatory system would award this party 5 compensatory (PR) seats, raising the party's seat count from 10 to 15. MMP has the potential to produce proportional or moderately proportional election outcomes, depending on a number of factors such as the ratio of FPTP seats to PR seats, the existence or nonexistence of extra compensatory seats to make up for
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, and electoral thresholds.
It was invented for the German
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 Common ...
after the Second World War, and has spread to
Lesotho,
Bolivia,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
and
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
. The system is also used for the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament where it is called the
additional member system.
Voters typically have two votes, one for their district representative and one for the party list. The list vote usually determines how many seats are allocated to each party in parliament. After the district winners have been determined, sufficient candidates from each party list are elected to "top-up" each party to the overall number of parliamentary seats due to it according to the party's overall list vote. Before apportioning list seats, all list votes for parties which failed to reach the threshold are discarded. If eliminated parties lose seats in this manner, then the seat counts for parties that achieved the threshold improve. Any direct seats won by independent candidates are subtracted from the parliamentary total used to apportion list seats.
Proportionality of MMP can be compromised if the ratio of list to district seats is too low, as it may then not be possible to completely compensate district seat disproportionality. Another factor can be how
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 are handled, district seats that a party wins in excess of the number due to it under the list vote. To achieve proportionality, other parties require "balance seats", increasing the size of parliament by twice the number of overhang seats, but this is not always done. Until recently, Germany increased the size of parliament by the number of overhang seats but did not use the increased size for apportioning list seats. This was changed for the 2013 national election after the constitutional court rejected the previous law, not compensating for overhang seats had resulted in a
negative vote weight
Negative vote weight (also known as ''inverse success value'') refers to an effect that occurs in certain elections where votes can have the opposite effect of what the voter intended. A vote for a party might result in the loss of seats in parlia ...
effect. Lesotho, Scotland and Wales do not increase the size of parliament at all, and, in 2012, a New Zealand parliamentary commission also proposed abandoning compensation for overhang seats, and so fixing the size of parliament. At the same time, it would abolish the single-seat threshold any such seats would then be overhang seats and would otherwise have increased the size of parliament further and reduce the electoral threshold from 5% to 4%. Proportionality would not suffer.
Similarly to MMP,
mixed single vote systems (MSV) use a proportional formula for allocating seats on the compensatory tier, but voters only have one vote that functions on both levels. MSV may use a positive vote transfer system, where unused votes are transferred from the lower tier to the upper, compensatory tier, where only these are used in the proportional formula. Alternatively, the MMP (seat linkage) algorithm can be used with a mixed single vote to "top-up" to a proportional result. With MSV, the similar requirements as in MMP apply to guarantee an overall proportional result.
Parallel voting
Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most often first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) with party-list proportional representation (PR). It ...
(MMM) systems use proportional formulas to allocate seats on a proportional tier separately from other tiers. Certain systems, like
scorporo
''Scorporo'' (, ) is a partially compensatory, mixed-member majoritarian electoral system, sometimes referred to as a negative vote transfer system (NVT) whereby a portion of members are elected in single-member districts (SMDs) and a portion ...
use a proportional formula after combining results of a parallel list vote with transferred votes from lower tiers (using negative or positive vote transfer).
Another mixed system is
dual-member proportional representation
Dual-member proportional representation (DMP), also known as dual-member mixed proportional, is an electoral system designed to produce proportional election results across a region by electing two representatives in each of the region’s d ...
(DMP). It is a single-vote system that elects two representatives in every district. The first seat in each district is awarded to the candidate who wins a plurality of the votes, similar to
FPTP voting. The remaining seats are awarded in a compensatory manner to achieve proportionality across a larger region. DMP employs a formula similar to the "best near-winner" variant of
MMP used in the German state of
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...
. In Baden-Württemberg, compensatory seats are awarded to candidates who receive high levels of support at the district level compared with other candidates of the same party. DMP differs in that at most one candidate per district is permitted to obtain a compensatory seat. If multiple candidates contesting the same district are slated to receive one of their parties' compensatory seats, the candidate with the highest vote share is elected and the others are eliminated. DMP is similar to
STV in that all elected representatives, including those who receive compensatory seats, serve their local districts. Invented in 2013 in the
Canadian province of
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
, DMP received attention on
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...
where it appeared on a
2016 plebiscite as a potential replacement for
FPTP
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 ...
, but was eliminated on the third round. It was also one of three proportional voting system options on a
2018 referendum in
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
.
Biproportional apportionment
Biproportional
apportionment
The legal term apportionment (french: apportionement; Mediaeval Latin: , derived from la, portio, share), also called delimitation, is in general the distribution or allotment of proper shares, though may have different meanings in different c ...
aims to achieve proportionality in two dimensions, for example: proportionality by region and proportionality by party. There are several mathematical methods to attain biproportionality.
One method is called
iterative proportional fitting The iterative proportional fitting procedure (IPF or IPFP, also known as biproportional fitting or biproportion in statistics or economics (input-output analysis, etc.), RAS algorithm in economics, raking in survey statistics, and matrix scaling in ...
(IPF). It was proposed for elections by the mathematician
Michel Balinski
Michel Louis Balinski (born Michał Ludwik Baliński; October 6, 1933 – February 4, 2019) was an applied mathematician, economist, operations research analyst and political scientist. As a Polish-American, educated in the United States, he li ...
in 1989, and first used by the city of
Zurich for its council elections in February 2006, in a modified form called "new Zurich apportionment" (''Neue Zürcher Zuteilungsverfahren''). Zurich had had to modify its party list PR system after the
Swiss Federal Court
The federal judiciary of Switzerland consists of the Federal Supreme Court, in Lausanne, the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, the Federal Patent Court, in St. Gallen and the Federal Administrative Court, in St. Gallen. These courts are ...
ruled that its smallest
wards, as a result of population changes over many years, unconstitutionally disadvantaged smaller political parties. With biproportional apportionment, the use of open party lists has not changed, but the way winning candidates are determined has. The proportion of seats due to each party is calculated according to their overall citywide vote, and then the district winners are adjusted to conform to these proportions. This means that some candidates, who would otherwise have been successful, can be denied seats in favor of initially unsuccessful candidates, in order to improve the relative proportions of their respective parties overall. This peculiarity is accepted by the Zurich electorate because the resulting city council is proportional and all votes, regardless of district magnitude, now have equal weight. The system has since been adopted by other Swiss cities and
cantons
A canton is a type of administrative division of a country. In general, cantons are relatively small in terms of area and population when compared with other administrative divisions such as counties, departments, or provinces. Internationally, t ...
.
Balinski has proposed another variant called
fair majority voting (FMV) to replace single-winner plurality/majoritarian electoral systems, in particular the system used for the
US 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 chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
. FMV introduces proportionality without changing the method of voting, the number of seats, or thepossibly gerrymandereddistrict boundaries. Seats would be apportioned to parties in a proportional manner at the
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 ...
level.
In a related proposal for the
UK parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...
, whose elections are contested by many more parties, the authors note that parameters can be tuned to adopt any degree of proportionality deemed acceptable to the electorate. In order to elect smaller parties, a number of constituencies would be awarded to candidates placed fourth or even fifth in the constituency unlikely to be acceptable to the electorate, the authors concede but this effect could be substantially reduced by incorporating a third, regional, apportionment tier, or by specifying minimum thresholds.
Candidate Based Systems
Single transferable vote
The single transferable vote (STV), also called
ranked choice voting,
is a
ranked system: voters rank candidates in order of preference. Voting districts usually elect three to seven representatives; each voter casts just one vote. The count is cyclic, electing or eliminating candidates and transferring votes until all seats are filled. A candidate whose tally reaches a
quota
Quota may refer to:
Economics
* Import quota, a trade restriction on the quantity of goods imported into a country
* Market Sharing Quota, an economic system used in Canadian agriculture
* Milk quota, a quota on milk production in Europe
* Indi ...
, the minimum vote that guarantees election, is declared elected. The candidate's surplus votes (those in excess of the quota) are transferred to other candidates at a fraction of their value proportionate to the surplus, according to the voters' preferences. If there are no surplus votes to transfer and there are still seats to fill, the least popular candidate is eliminated, those votes being transferred to their next preference at full value. The votes are transferred according to the next marked preference. Any votes that cannot be transferred are moved to a pile labelled exhausted or non-transferable.
The cont continues until all the seats are filled or until there is only one more candidate than the number of remaining open seats. At that point all of them except the least popular candidate are declared elected, even if they do not have quota.
The transfer of votes of eliminated candidates is simple -- the transfer of surplus votes is more involved. There are various methods for transferring surplus votes.
Manual methods used in early times and still today in places where STV was adopted in early 20th Century (Ireland and Malta) transfer surplus votes according to a randomly selected sample, or transfer only a segment of the surplus selected based on the next usable marked preference.
Other more recent methods transfer all votes at a fraction of their value (the fraction derived by the surplus divided by the candidate's tally) and with reference to all the marked preferences on the ballots, not just the next usable preference. They may need the use of a computer.
The different methods may not produce the same result in all respects. But the front runners in the first count before any transfers are conducted are all or mostly elected in the end, so the various methods of transfers all produce much the same result.
Some variants of STV allow transfers to already elected or eliminated candidates, and these, too, can require a computer.
In effect, the method produces groups of voters of much the same size so the overall effect is to reflect the diversity of the electorate, each substantial group having one or more representatives the group voted for.
Statistics of effective votes vary.
In Cambridge, under STV, 90 percent of voters see their vote help to elect a candidate, more than 65 percent of voters see their first choice candidate elected, and more than 95 percent of voters see one of their top three choices win.
Other reports claim that 90% of voters have a representative to whom they gave their first preference. Voters can choose candidates using any criteria they wish, the proportionality is implicit.
Political parties are not necessary; all other prominent PR electoral systems presume that parties reflect voters wishes, which many believe gives power to parties.
STV satisfies the
electoral system criterion ''
proportionality for solid coalitions
Proportionality for Solid Coalitions (PSC) is a voting system criterion relating to ranked voting systems. It's the essential requirementD. R. Woodall: ''Monotonicity of single-seat preferential election rules''. Discrete Applied Mathematics 77 (1 ...
'' a solid coalition for a set of candidates is the group of voters that rank all those candidates above all others and is therefore considered a system of proportional representation.
However, the small district magnitude used in STV elections (usually 5 to 9 seats, but sometimes rising to 21) has been criticized as impairing proportionality, especially when more parties compete than there are seats available,
and STV has, for this reason, sometimes been labelled "quasi proportional".
While this may be true when considering districts in isolation, results are proportional.
Even though Ireland has particularly small magnitudes (3 to 5 seats), results of STV elections are "highly proportional".
In
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...
, the average magnitude was 4.0 but eight parties gained representation, four of them with less than 3% of first preference votes nationally. Six independent candidates also won election.
STV has also been described as the proportional system as it elects candidates without the need for parties. The influence of parties can distort proportionality.
The system tends to handicap extreme candidates because, to gain transfers based on back-up preferences and so improve their chance of election, candidates need to canvass voters beyond their own circle of supporters, and so need to moderate their views.
Conversely, widely respected candidates can win election even if they receive relatively few first preferences. They do this by benefiting from strong subordinate preference support. Of course, they must have enough initial support so that they are not in the bottom rung of popularity or they will be eliminated when the field of candidate is thinned.
Proportional approval voting
Systems can be devised that aim at proportional representation but are based on approval votes on individual candidates (not parties). Such is the idea of
proportional approval voting
Proportional approval voting (PAV) is a proportional electoral system for selecting committees. It is an extension of the D'Hondt method of apportionment that additionally allows for personal votes (voters vote for candidates, not for a part ...
(PAV).
When there are a lot of seats to be filled, as in a legislature, counting ballots under PAV may not be feasible, so sequential variants have been used, such as
sequential proportional approval voting
Sequential proportional approval voting (SPAV) or reweighted approval voting (RAV) is an electoral system that extends the concept of approval voting to a multiple winner election. It is a simplified version of proportional approval voting. Pr ...
(SPAV).
Sequential proportional approval voting
Sequential proportional approval voting
Sequential proportional approval voting (SPAV) or reweighted approval voting (RAV) is an electoral system that extends the concept of approval voting to a multiple winner election. It is a simplified version of proportional approval voting. Pr ...
(SPAV) is a multi-winner voting system similar to STV in that voters can express support for multiple candidates, but different in that candidates are
graded instead of
ranked
A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second.
In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of ...
.
That is, a voter approves or disapproves of each candidate. SPAV was used briefly in Sweden during the early 1900s.
The vote counting procedure occurs in rounds. The first round of SPAV is identical to
approval voting. All ballots are added with equal weight, and the candidate with the highest overall score is elected. In all subsequent rounds, ballots that support candidates who have already been elected are added with a reduced weight. Thus voters who support none of the winners in the early rounds are increasingly likely to elect one of their preferred candidates in a later round. The procedure has been shown to yield proportional outcomes especially when voters are loyal to distinct groups of candidates (e.g. political parties).
Reweighted Range Voting
Reweighted Range Voting (RRV) uses the same method as
sequential proportional approval voting
Sequential proportional approval voting (SPAV) or reweighted approval voting (RAV) is an electoral system that extends the concept of approval voting to a multiple winner election. It is a simplified version of proportional approval voting. Pr ...
but uses a
score ballot.
Reweighted Range Voting was used for the nominations in the Visual Effects category for recent Academy Award Oscars from 2013 through 2017,
and is used in the city of
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...
, for sorting the priorities of the city council.
Asset voting
In asset voting,
the voters vote for candidates and then the candidates negotiate amongst each other and reallocate votes amongst themselves. Asset voting was proposed by
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...
in 1884 and has been more recently independently rediscovered and extended by Warren D. Smith and Forest Simmons.
As such, this method substitutes candidates' collective preferences for those of the voters.
Evaluative Proportional Representation (EPR)
Similar to
Majority Judgment
Majority judgment (MJ) is a single-winner voting system proposed in 2007 by Michel Balinski and Rida Laraki. It is a highest median rule, i.e., a cardinal voting system that elects the candidate with the highest median rating.
Unlike other v ...
voting that elects single winners, Evaluative Proportional Representation (EPR) elects all the members of a legislative body. Both systems minimize the quantitative and qualitative wasting of votes. Each citizen grades the fitness for office of as many of the candidates as they wish as either Excellent (ideal), Very Good, Good, Acceptable, Poor, or Reject (entirely unsuitable). Multiple candidates may be given the same grade by a voter. Using EPR, each citizen elects their representative at-large for a city council. For a large and diverse state legislature, each citizen chooses to vote through any of the districts or official non-geographically defined electoral associations in the country. Each voter grades any number of candidates in the whole country. Each elected representative has a different voting power (a different number of weighted votes) in the legislative body. This number is equal to the total number of votes given exclusively to each member from all citizens. Each member's weighted vote results from receiving one of the following from each voter: their highest grade, highest remaining grade, or proxy vote. No citizen's vote is "
wasted
Wasted may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
*'' Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk'', a 1997 memoir by Mark Judge
*'' Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia'', a 1998 autobiography by Marya Hornbacher
*'' Wasted: A Childhood Sto ...
" because each citizen's vote equally adds to the voting power in the legislative body of the elected candidate they see as likely to represent their hopes and concerns most accurately. Unlike all the other proportional representation systems, each EPR voter, and each self-identifying minority or majority, is proportionally represented exactly. Also, like Majority Judgment, EPR reduces by almost half both the incentives and possibilities for voters to use Tactical Voting.
History
One of the earliest proposals of proportionality in an assembly was by
John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...
in his influential pamphlet ''
Thoughts on Government'', written in 1776 during the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
:
Mirabeau
Mirabeau may refer to:
People and characters
* Mirabeau B. Lamar (1798–1859), second President of the Republic of Texas
French nobility
* Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau (1715–1789), French physiocrat
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, com ...
, speaking to the
Assembly of Provence on January 30, 1789, was also an early proponent of a proportionally representative assembly:
In February 1793, the
Marquis de Condorcet led the drafting of the
Girondist constitution which proposed a
limited voting
Limited voting (also known as partial block voting) is a voting system in which electors have fewer votes than there are positions available. The positions are awarded to the candidates who receive the most votes absolutely. In the special case ...
scheme with proportional aspects. Before that could be voted on, the
Montagnards
Montagnard (''of the mountain'' or ''mountain dweller'') may refer to:
* Montagnard (French Revolution), members of The Mountain (''La Montagne''), a political group during the French Revolution (1790s)
** Montagnard (1848 revolution), members of t ...
took over the
National Convention
The National Convention (french: link=no, Convention nationale) was the parliament of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for the rest of its existence during the French Revolution, following the two-year Nationa ...
and produced their own
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princ ...
. On June 24,
Saint-Just proposed the
single non-transferable vote, which can be proportional, for national elections but the constitution was passed on the same day specifying
first-past-the-post voting
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 thei ...
.
Already in 1787,
James Wilson James Wilson may refer to:
Politicians and government officials
Canada
*James Wilson (Upper Canada politician) (1770–1847), English-born farmer and political figure in Upper Canada
* James Crocket Wilson (1841–1899), Canadian MP from Quebe ...
, like Adams a
US Founding Father, understood the importance of multiple-member districts: "Bad elections proceed from the smallness of the districts which give an opportunity to bad men to intrigue themselves into office", and again, in 1791, in his Lectures on Law: "It may, I believe, be assumed as a general maxim, of no small importance in democratical governments, that the more extensive the district of election is, the choice will be the more wise and enlightened". The 1790
Constitution of Pennsylvania
The Constitution of Pennsylvania is the supreme law within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. All acts of the General Assembly, the governor, and each governmental agency are subordinate to it. Since 1776, Pennsylvania's Constitution has undergone ...
specified multiple-member districts for the state Senate and required their boundaries to follow
county line
Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...
s.
STV or more precisely, an election method where voters have one transferable vote, was first invented in 1819 by an English schoolmaster,
Thomas Wright Hill, who devised a "plan of election" for the committee of the ''Society for Literary and Scientific Improvement'' in Birmingham that used not only transfers of surplus votes from winners but also from losers, a refinement that later both Andræ and Hare initially omitted. But the procedure was unsuitable for a public election and was not publicised. In 1839, Hill's son,
Rowland Hill
Sir Rowland Hill, KCB, FRS (3 December 1795 – 27 August 1879) was an English teacher, inventor and social reformer. He campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of Uniform Penny Post and his soluti ...
, recommended the concept for public elections in Adelaide, and a simple process was used in which voters formed as many groups as there were representatives to be elected, each group electing one representative.
The first practical PR election method, the List Plan system, was conceived by Thomas Gilpin, a retired paper-mill owner, in a paper he read to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in Philadelphia in 1844: "On the representation of minorities of electors to act with the majority in elected assemblies". It was never put into practical use, but even as late as 1914 it was put forward as a way to elect the U.S. electoral college delegates and for local elections.
A practical election using the Single Transferable Vote system (a combination of preferential voting and multi-member districts) was devised in Denmark by
Carl Andræ, a mathematician, and first used there in 1855, making it the oldest PR system. That system was later adopted for national elections in Malta (1921), the Republic of Ireland (1921) and Australia (1948).
STV was also invented (apparently independently) in the UK in 1857 by
Thomas Hare, a London
barrister, in his pamphlet ''The Machinery of Representation'' and expanded on in his 1859 ''Treatise on the Election of Representatives''. The scheme was enthusiastically taken up by
John Stuart Mill, ensuring international interest. The 1865 edition of the book included the transfer of preferences from dropped candidates and the STV method was essentially complete, although Hare pictured the entire British Isles as one single district. Mill proposed it to the House of Commons in 1867, but the British parliament rejected it. The name evolved from "Mr.Hare's scheme" to "proportional representation", then "proportional representation with the single transferable vote", and finally, by the end of the 19th century, to "the single transferable vote".
In Australia, the political activist
Catherine Helen Spence
Catherine Helen Spence (31 October 1825 – 3 April 1910) was a Scottish-born Australian author, teacher, journalist, politician, leading suffragist, and Georgist. Spence was also a minister of religion and social worker, and supporter of ...
became an enthusiast of STV and an author on the subject. Through her influence and the efforts of the Tasmanian politician
Andrew Inglis Clark
Andrew Inglis Clark (24 February 1848 – 14 November 1907) was an Australian founding father and co-author of the Australian Constitution; he was also an engineer, barrister, politician, electoral reformer and jurist. He initially qualified as a ...
, Tasmania became an early pioneer of the system,
electing the world's first legislators through STV in 1896, prior to its federation into Australia.
A party-list proportional representation system was devised and described in 1878 by
Victor D'Hondt
Victor Joseph Auguste D'Hondt (; 20 November 1841 – 30 May 1901) was a Belgian lawyer and jurist of civil law at Ghent University. He devised a procedure, the D'Hondt method, which he first described in 1878, for allocating seats to candidates ...
in Belgium, which became the first country to adopt list PR in 1900 for its national parliament. D'Hondt's method of seat allocation, the
D'Hondt method
The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest ...
, is still widely used. Some Swiss cantons (beginning with Ticino in 1890) used the system before Belgium.
Victor Considerant
Victor Prosper Considerant (12 October 1808 – 27 December 1893) was a French utopian socialist philosopher and economist who was a disciple of Charles Fourier.
Biography
Considerant was born in Salins-les-Bains, Jura and studied at the Éco ...
, a utopian socialist, devised a similar system in an 1892 book. Many European countries adopted similar systems during or after World War I. List PR was favoured on
the Continent
Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...
because the use of lists in elections, the
scrutin de liste
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 ...
, was already widespread. STV was preferred in the English-speaking world because its tradition was the election of individuals.
In the UK, the 1917
Speaker
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** I ...
's Conference recommended STV for all multi-seat Westminster constituencies, but it was only applied to
university constituencies
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 a ...
, lasting from 1918 until 1950 when those constituencies were abolished.
In Ireland, STV was used in 1918 in the
Dublin University
The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dubl ...
constituency, and was introduced for devolved
elections in 1921.
STV is currently used for two national lower houses of parliament, Ireland, since independence (as the
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...
) in 1922,
and Malta, since 1921, long before independence in 1966.
In Ireland, two attempts were made by
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil (, ; meaning 'Soldiers of Destiny' or 'Warriors of Fál'), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party ( ga, audio=ga-Fianna Fáil.ogg, Fianna Fáil – An Páirtí Poblachtánach), is a conservative and Christia ...
governments to abolish STV and replace it with the '
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 thei ...
' plurality system. Both attempts were rejected by voters in referendums held
in 1959 and
again in 1968.
STV is also prescribed for all other elections in Ireland including that of the presidency, although it is there effectively the
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 ...
, as it is an election with a single winner.
It is also used for the Northern Ireland Assembly and European and local authorities, Scottish local authorities, some New Zealand and Australian local authorities,
the
Tasmanian
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
(since 1907) and
Australian Capital Territory
The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. I ...
assemblies, where the method is known as ''Hare-Clark'',
and the city council in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
, (since 1941).
PR is used by a majority of the world's 33 most robust democracies with populations of at least two million people; only six use
plurality or a majoritarian system (
runoff
Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to:
* RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program
* Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed
* Runoff or run-off, a stock marke ...
or
instant runoff) for elections to the legislative assembly, four use
parallel systems, and 23 use PR. PR dominates Europe, including Germany and most of northern and eastern Europe; it is also used for
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
elections. France adopted PR at the end of World War II, but discarded it in 1958; it was used for parliament elections in 1986.
Switzerland has the most widespread use of proportional representation, which is the system used to elect not only national legislatures and local councils, but also all local executives. PR is less common in the English-speaking world;
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
and
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
use STV for election of legislators.
Australia uses it for Senate elections.
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
adopted MMP in 1993. But UK, Canada and India use plurality (First Past the Post) systems for legislative elections. In
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, STV was used to elect provincial legislators in
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
from 1926 to 1955, and in
Manitoba
, image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg
, map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada
, Label_map = yes
, coordinates =
, capital = Winn ...
from 1920 to 1953. In both provinces the
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 ...
(AV) was used in rural areas.
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 thei ...
was re-adopted in Alberta by the dominant party for reasons of political advantage. In Manitoba a principal reason was the underrepresentation of Winnipeg in the provincial legislature.
STV has some history in the
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 territori ...
. Between 1915 and 1962, twenty-four cities used the system for at least one election. In many cities, minority parties and other groups used STV to break up single-party monopolies on elective office. One of the most famous cases is
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, where a coalition of Republicans and others pursued the adoption of STV in 1936 as part of an effort to free the city from control by the
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
machine. Another famous case is
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
, Ohio, where, in 1924, Democrats and
Progressive-wing Republicans secured the adoption of a
council-manager charter with STV elections in order to dislodge the
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
machine of
Rudolph K. Hynicka. Although Cincinnati's council-manager system survives, Republicans and other disaffected groups replaced STV with
plurality-at-large 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 1957. From 1870 to 1980,
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
used a semi-proportional
cumulative voting
Cumulative voting (also accumulation voting, weighted voting or multi-voting) is a multiple-winner method intended to promote more proportional representation than winner-take-all elections such as block voting or first past the post. Cumulativ ...
system to elect
its House of Representatives. Each district across the state elected both Republicans and Democrats year-after-year.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
(STV), and
Peoria, Illinois (cumulative voting), have used PR for many years now.
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
(before 1977 and 1980–1999) had citywide elections in which people cast votes for as many as nine candidates, but usually five or six candidates, simultaneously (
block voting
Block voting or bloc voting refers to electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected at once and a group (voting bloc) of voters can force the system to elect only their preferred candidates. Block voting may be used at large (in a si ...
), delivering some of the benefits of proportional representation through the use of a multi-member district. San Francisco used preferential voting (
Bucklin Voting
Bucklin voting is a class of voting methods that can be used for single-member and multi-member districts. As in highest median rules like the majority judgment, the Bucklin winner will be one of the candidates with the highest median ranking ...
) in its 1917 city election.
List of countries using proportional representation
Eighty-five countries in the world use a proportional electoral system to fill a nationally elected legislative body.
The table below lists those countries and gives information on the specific PR system that is in use.
Detailed information on electoral systems applying to the first chamber of the legislature is maintained by the
ACE Electoral Knowledge Network
The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network is a web portal with information on elections designed to meet the needs of people working in the electoral field.
Goals
The goal of the ACE network is to provide knowledge to people working in the field el ...
. Countries using PR as part of a
mixed-member majoritarian (e.g.
parallel voting
Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most often first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) with party-list proportional representation (PR). It ...
) system are not included.
Incentives for choosing an electoral system
Changing the electoral system requires the agreement of a majority of the currently selected legislators, who were chosen using the incumbent electoral system. Therefore, an interesting question is what incentives make current legislators support a new electoral system, particularly a PR system.
Many political scientists argue that PR was adopted by parties on the right as a strategy to survive amid suffrage expansion, democratization and the rise of workers' parties. According to Stein Rokkan in a seminal 1970 study, parties on the right opted to adopt PR as a way to survive as competitive parties in situations when the parties on the right were not united enough to exist under majoritarian systems. This argument was formalized and supported by Carles Boix in a 1999 study. Amel Ahmed notes that prior to the adoption of PR, many electoral systems were based on majority or plurality rule, and that these systems risked eradicating parties on the right in areas where the working class was large in numbers. He therefore argues that parties on the right adopted PR as a way to ensure that they would survive as potent political forces amid suffrage expansion. A 2021 study linked the adoption of PR to incumbent fears of revolutionary threats.
In contrast, other scholars argue that the choice to adopt PR was also due to a demand by parties on the left to ensure a foothold in politics, as well as to encourage a consensual system that would help the left realize its preferred economic policies.
See also
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Hare quota
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Sainte-Laguë method
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Interactive representation
Interactive representation is a proposed governance system in which elected officials have the same number of votes as the number of people that voted for them. It was proposed in Oregon in 1912 by William S. U'Ren and in Virginia in 2001 by Bill ...
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Direct representation
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One person, one vote
"One man, one vote", or "one person, one vote", expresses the principle that individuals should have equal representation in voting. This slogan is used by advocates of political equality to refer to such electoral reforms as universal suffrage, ...
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Justified representation
Justified representation (JR) is a criterion for evaluating the fairness of electoral systems in multiwinner voting, particularly in multiwinner approval voting. It can be seen as an adaptation of the proportional representation criterion to appr ...
, a generalization of the principle of proportionality to multiwinner approval voting.
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Electoral threshold
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...
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Spare vote
The spare vote is a version of single transferable voting applied to the ranking of parties, first proposed for elections in Germany in 2013. This preferential party system is a ranked proportional representation electoral system applying to poli ...
References
Further reading
Books
* Abbott, Lewis F. ''British Democracy: Its Restoration and Extension''. ISR/Kindle Books, 2019. . Chapter 7, "Electoral System Reform: Increasing Competition and Voter Choice and Influence".
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* Batto, Nathan F.; Huang, Chi; Tan, Alexander C.; Cox, Gary (2016). ''Mixed-Member Electoral Systems in Constitutional Context: Taiwan, Japan, and Beyond.'' Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
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*Jenifer Hart, Proportional Representation: Critics of the British Electoral System,1820-1945 (Clarendon Press, 1992)
*F.D. Parsons, Thomas Hare and Political Representation in Victorian Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
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Journals
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External links
The De Borda InstituteA Northern Ireland-based organisation promoting inclusive voting procedures
Election Districts Votingimproves PR with overlapping districts elections for first past the post, alternative vote and single transferable vote voters
Electoral Reform Societyfounded in England in 1884, the longest running PR organization. Contains good information about
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 ...
the Society's preferred form of PR
Electoral Reform AustraliaProportional Representation Society of AustraliaFair Vote CanadaFairVote, USAWhy Not Proportional Representation?Vote Dilution means Voters have Less VoiceLaw is Cool site
Proportional Representation and British DemocracyDebate on British electoral system reform
Australia's Upper Houses - ABC Rear VisionA podcast about the development of Australia's upper houses into STV proportional representation elected chambers.
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