Proportional representation

This template is misplaced. It belongs on the talk page: Talk:Proportional representation.

Map needed

It is requested that a map or maps be included in this article to improve its quality.

Proportional representation (PR), sometimes referred to as full representation, is a class of voting system aimed at securing a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates obtain in elections, and the percentage of seats they receive (e.g., in legislative assemblies).

PR is often contrasted to plurality voting systems, such as those commonly used in the United States and (much of) the United Kingdom, where disproportional seat distribution results from the division of voters into multiple electoral districts, especially "winner takes all" plurality ("first-past-the-post" or FPTP) districts.

Methods of proportional representation

Proportional representation as an election method allows all voters a degree of influence on the political process. 15% of the votes under such a system award the party in question 15% of the seats.^[1] By contrast, the established parties in current US and UK elections can, and most often do, win 100% control of the parliament with support from as little as 20-25% of the eligible voters, at the cost of all parties that are not part of the top two in the country.^[2] Hence, proportional representation is categorized by many as a democratic system, and the US and UK systems as semi-democratic.^[3]

There are different methods of proportional representation which achieve either a greater degree of proportionality or a greater degree of determinate outcome.^[4]

Various forms of proportional representation exist, such as party-list proportional representation, where the above-mentioned groups correspond directly with candidate lists as usually given by political parties. Within this form a further distinction can be made depending on whether or not a voter can influence the election of candidates within a party list (open list and closed list respectively). Another kind of electoral system covered with the term proportional representation is the single transferable vote (STV), which, in turn, does not depend on the existence of political parties (and where the above-mentioned "measure of grouping" is entirely left up to the voters themselves). Elections for the Australian Senate use what is referred to as above-the-line voting where candidates belonging to registered political parties are grouped together on the ballot paper with the voter provided with the option of "group voting" a semi-open party list/individual candidate system.

There are also electoral systems, single non-transferable vote (SNTV) and cumulative voting and limited bloc voting (LBV), all of which offer a form of semi-proportional representation (SPR).

Party list system in a multi-member constituency

The parties each list their candidates according to that party's determination of priorities. In a closed list, voters vote for a list, not a candidate. Each party is allocated seats in proportion to the number of votes, using the ranking order on its list. In an open list, voters may vote, depending on the model, for one person, or for two, or indicate their order of preference within the list.

This system is used in many countries, including Finland (open list), Sweden (open list), Israel (where the whole country is one closed list constituency), Brazil (open list), the Netherlands (open list), South Africa (closed list), Democratic Republic of the Congo (open list) and for elections to the European Parliament in most European Union countries (mostly open lists, with the exception of Ireland and Northern Ireland using Single transferable vote and the remainder of the United Kingdom using closed lists).

Additional-member system, mixed-member system

Main articles: Additional Member Systems - mixed member proportional representation and parallel voting; alternative vote and alternative vote top-up

Mixed election systems combine a proportional system and a single seat district system, attempting to achieve some of the positive features of both of these. Mixed systems are often helpful in countries with large populations, since they balance the mechanisms of elections focusing on local or national issues. They are used in nations with widely varying voting populations in terms of geographic, social, cultural and economic realities, including Bolivia, Germany, Lesotho, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

Such systems, or variations of them, are used in the UK - Greater London Authority, [Germany], Lesotho, Mexico, Bolivia, New Zealand, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. Italy has changed between sub-systems.

Single transferable vote in a multi-member constituency

This method of proportional representation uses a system of preferential voting to determine the results of the election

A constituency elects two or more representatives per electorate. Consequently the constituency is proportionally larger than a single member constituency. Parties tend to offer as many candidates as they most optimistically could expect to win: the major parties may nominate almost as many candidates as there are seats, while the minor parties and independents rather fewer. Voters mark their ballot, allocating preferences to their preferred ranking for some or all candidates. A successful candidate must achieve a quota, being the total number of votes received divided by the number of candidates to be elected plus one, plus one; i.e. in a nine member constituency the quota would be (the number of votes divided by 10) +1. Only in a few cases is this achieved at the first count. For the second count, if a candidate wins election her/his surplus vote (in excess of the quota) is transferred to her/his voters' second choices; otherwise, the least popular candidate is eliminated and her/his votes redistributed according to the second preference shown on them. If there are more than one candidate who can not get enough votes after the transfer of votes of least popular candidate, she or he will be eliminated too (as they could not avoid it on the next round under any circumstance).

This process continues for as many counts as are needed until all seats are filled either by the required number of candidates achieving a quota and being deemed to be elected or until there are only the number of candidates remaining as there are number of seats. Although the counting process is complicated, voting is clear and most voters get at least one of their preferences elected.

All deputies are answerable directly to their local constituents. Some political scientists argue that STV is more properly classified as 'semi-proportional' as there is no assurance of a proportional result at a nationwide level. Indeed, many advocates of STV would argue that preventing nationwide proportionality is one of the primary goals of the system, to avoid the perceived risks of a very highly fragmented legislature.

This system is used in Australia (Senate, Tasmanian and Australian Capital Territory Houses of Assembly and the Legislative Councils in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria), the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland (assembly and local government elections), Malta, local government elections in Scotland, Wales and selected (optional) local governments in New Zealand.

History

The schoolmaster Thomas Wright Hill is credited as inventor of the single transferable vote, whose use he described in 1821 for application in elections at his school. The method, which guarantees proportional representation, was introduced in 1840 by his son Rowland Hill into the public election for the Adelaide City Council. Unlike several later systems, this did not allow for party-list proportional representation.

A party-list proportional representation system was first devised and described in 1878 by Victor D'Hondt of Belgium. The procedure, known as the D'Hondt method, is still widely used. Victor Considérant, a utopian socialist, devised a similar system and described it in an 1892 book. After some Swiss cantons (beginning with Ticino in 1890), Belgium was the first country to adopt list-PR for the 1900 elections to its national parliament. Similar systems were implemented in many European countries during or after World War I. Single Transferable Vote was first used in Denmark in 1857, making STV the oldest PR system, but the system used there never really spread. STV was re-invented (apparently independently) in the UK, but the British parliament rejected it. It was, however, then used in Tasmania in 1907, and has spread from there. In the last Irish elections to the UK Parliament in 1919, STV was used in one constituency (University of Dublin: two Independent Unionists were elected). After Irish independence, the first General Election to Dáil Éireann in 1923 and all subsequent ones have used STV.

Proportional representation is used by more nations than the plurality voting system, and it is the dominant electoral system in Europe. It is in place in Germany, most of northern and eastern Europe, and is also used for European Parliament elections: all of the members of the European Parliament, or MEPs, including those elected from constituencies in the UK, are elected by proportional representation. In France, proportional representation was adopted at the end of World War II, discarded in 1958, then used once more for parliament elections in 1986 and terminated immediately afterwards.

While first-past-the-post is commonly found in countries based on the British parliamentary system, and in Westminster elections in the United Kingdom, a form of proportional representation known as the mixed member system is now being used in the United Kingdom to elect the members of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh National Assembly, after being adopted by New Zealand in 1993. Although once an unknown system, proportional representation is now gaining popularity in Canada with five provinces—British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick—currently debating whether to abolish the first past the post system, and at the federal level, a Parliamentary Committee explored the issue in 2005.

Proportional representation does have some history in the United States. Many cities, including New York City, once used it for their city councils as a way to break up the Democratic Party monopolies on elective office. In Cincinnati, Ohio, proportional representation was adopted in 1925 to get rid of a Republican Party party machine, but the Republicans successfully overturned proportional representation in 1957. With proportional representation, otherwise marginalized social, political and racial minorities were able to attain elected office, and this fact was ironically a key argument opponents of proportional representation used in their campaigns — "undesirables" were gaining a voice in electoral politics.^{[citation needed]} From 1870 to 1980, the State of Illinois used a semi-proportional system of cumulative voting to elect its State House of Representatives. Each district across the state elected both Republicans and Democrats year-after-year. While most jurisdictions no longer use proportional representation, it is still used in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Peoria, Illinois. San Francisco did not have proportional elections; rather it had city-wide elections where people would cast votes for five or six candidates simultaneously, delivering some of the benefits of proportional representation, but not all.

Some electoral systems incorporate additional features to ensure absolutely accurate or more comprehensive representation, based on gender or minority status (like ethnicity or race). Note that features such as this are not strictly part of proportional representation; depending on what kind of PR is used, people tend to be already represented proportionally according to these standards without such additional rules.

In Ireland, proportional representation has resulted in a situation whereby a mainly centrist party with a large support base, Fianna Fáil, typically receives 30%-50% of the vote but the opposition parties, traditionally the centre-right Fine Gael and the centre-left Labour Party, are comparatively weak. This has led to a series of coalition governments in power, including coalitions between Fianna Fáil and Labour, Fine Gael and Labour, the current coalition between Fianna Fáil and the left-wing Green Party and a rainbow coalition featuring every non Fianna Fáil member of the dáil. The lack of a unified opposition in Ireland has resulted in a series of centre-right led governments since the state's creation in 1921. Since 1932 Fianna Fáil is the only party in the Republic of Ireland to form a government on its own, however there has not been a single-party government since 1989.

In his essay, Overcoming Practical Difficulties in Creating a World Parliamentary Assembly, Joseph E. Schwartzberg proposes the use of proportional representation in the United Nations Parliamentary Assembly in order to prevent, for instance, lower castes of Indians from being excluded.^[5]

Partial proportionality

Some nations with proportional elections, like Israel and the Netherlands, have one electoral district only: the entire nation, and the entire pie is cut up according to the entire outcome. Most nations have district systems in place where more than one person is elected per district. The constituency or district magnitude (DM) of a system is therefore measured by the number of seats in a constituency, and plays a vital role in determining how proportional an electoral system can be. The greater the number of seats in a constituency, the more proportional the outcome will be. PR applied to a single-member district (SMD) is by necessity majoritarian. If the constituency is in a jurisdiction using list PR in its multi-member districts (MMDs) the winning candidate simply needs a plurality, otherwise called a simple or relative majority, of the vote to win, so that the election in the SMD is by first-past-the-post. If the constituency is in a jurisdiction using PR-STV in its MMDs, an absolute majority of 50% plus 1 will likely be the minimum required for victory (depending on which quota is used) so that the election in the SMD is by the alternative vote. Four elected officials per district delivers a threshold of 20% (1/M+1) to gain a single seat. However, constituency borders can still be gerrymandered to reduce the overall proportionality. This may be achieved by creating "majority-minority" constituencies - constituencies in which the majority is formed by a group of voters that are in the minority at a higher level. Proportional representation with the entire nation electing the single body cannot be gerrymandered.

Multiple-member districts do not necessarily ensure that an electoral system will be proportional. The bloc vote can result in "super-majoritarian" results in which geographical variations can create majority-minority districts that become subsumed into the larger districts. Also, in theory, a party, who does not provide a list with enough people to fill all the seats won by it, may be given those unfilled seats. This is termed an underhang.

Some nations, with either exclusively proportional representation or — as is the case with Germany — additional member systems, require a party list to achieve an election threshold — a certain minimum percentage of votes to receive any seats. Typically, this lower limit is set at between two and five percent of the total number of votes cast. Parties who do not reach that margin will not be represented in parliament, making majorities, coalitions and thus governments easier to achieve. Proponents of election thresholds argue that they discourage excessive fragmentation, disproportionate power, or extremist parties. Opponents of thresholds argue that they cause unfair redirection of support from minor parties, thus giving the parties which cross the threshold disproportionally high percentages of the seats and creating the possibility that a party or group of parties will assume control of the legislature without gaining a majority of votes.

There are several ways of measuring proportionality, the most common being, among others, the Gallagher Index.

Center based proportional and multi-party systems

Election systems based on proportional representation tend to favor a multi-party result which demands a coalition to form a government supported by a majority of the voters or elected candidates. If the election system as well as the mechanisms for forming a governing coalition also tend to support the existence of a centrist party, the resulting over-all system is often defined as a "center-based proportional representation multi-party system". Election systems which tend to result in so-called two-block (many parties forming coalitions, blocks, but with no party, or "block", in the "center") systems are not seen as "center-based" but multi-party variations of two-party (two-block) systems.

The undesirable "extreme" of a "Center Based" system (like in Condorcet method) might be seen as a party system where the "center" has an unproportional and undesirable strong position in the formation of any governing coalition.^{[clarification needed]}

List of countries using proportional representation

This is a list of countries using proportional representation at national level.

Country	Type
Algeria	Party list
Angola	Party list
Australia	For Senate only, Single Transferable Vote
Austria	Party list
Argentina	Party list
Aruba	Party list
Belgium	Party list
Bolivia	Mixed Member Majoritarian
Brazil	Party list
Bulgaria	Party list
Burkina Faso	Party list
Burundi	Party list
Cambodia	Party list
Cape Verde	Party list
Colombia	Party list
Costa Rica	Party list
Croatia	Party list
Cyprus	Party list
Czech Republic	Party list
Democratic Republic of the Congo	Mixed member proportional
Denmark	Party list
Dominican Republic	Party list
Equatorial Guinea	Party list
Estonia	Party list
Finland	Party list
Germany	Mixed member proportional
Greece	Party list (with plurality bonus)
Guinea-Bissau	Party list
Guyana	Party list
Hungary	Mixed Member Majoritarian
Iceland	Party list
India	For Upper House (Rajya Sabha) only, Single Transferable Vote by State Legislatures
Indonesia	Party list
Iraq	Party list
Ireland	Single Transferable Vote
Israel	Party list
Italy	Party list (with plurality bonus for coalitions)
Japan	Mixed Member Majoritarian
Latvia	Party list
Lesotho	Mixed Member Majoritarian
Liberia	Party list
Liechtenstein	Party list
Luxembourg	Party list
Malta	Single Transferable Vote
Mexico	Mixed Member Majoritarian
Moldova	Party list
New Zealand	Mixed Member Proportional
Namibia	Party list
Netherlands	Party list
Netherlands Antilles	Party list
New Caledonia	Party list
Nicaragua	Party list
Northern Ireland	Single Transferable Vote (for regional assembly only)
Norway	Party list
Paraguay	Party list
Peru	Party list
Poland	Party list
Portugal	Party list
Romania	Party list
Russia	Party list
San Marino	Party list
Sao Tome and Principe	Party list
Scotland	Additional Member System (for national assembly only)
Slovakia	Party list
Slovenia	Party list
South Africa	Party list
South Korea	Party list
Spain	Party list
Sri Lanka	Party list
Suriname	Party list
Sweden	Party list
Switzerland	Party list
Taiwan	Mixed Member Majoritarian
Thailand	Mixed Member Majoritarian
Turkey	Party list
Ukraine	Party list
Uruguay	Party list
Venezuela	Party list
Wales	Additional Member System (for national assembly only)
Wallis and Futuna	Party list