Proportional representation Translation

Proportional representation
Proportional representation (sometimes referred to as full representation, or PR), is a
category of electoral formula aiming at a close match between the percentage of votes
that groups of candidates (grouped by a certain measure) obtain in elections and the
percentage of seats they receive (usually in legislative assemblies). PR is a democratic
principle rather than an electoral system in itself. It is often contrasted to plurality voting
systems, 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.
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 asabove-theline 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, all of which offer a variant form of proportional representation. These systems
are not true proportional representation. They are minority representation systems
where as many different parties as there are seats could theoretically be elected,
however, the people often split their votes amongst several party candidates, which
gives more proportional results.
Coalition governments
More parties exist in nations with full representation, making it less likely for a single
party to obtain the majority of votes and seats. Coalitions therefore occur, often between
two parties, sometimes based on the cooperation of three or more parties. On occasion,
a minority government can be formed. The party or parties comprising such a
government hold half the number of seats or less, but are allowed to govern as long as
the majority agrees to their actions. The particular system in place matters, as for
instance in New Zealand, where two especially large parties result, leaving them with no
other options than to form a government together or to form a government of one of the
two large parties with several small parties. The particular system as found in
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most Scandinavian countries, delivers many parties, but with three or four larger parties,
who can often create a government with just two parties.
History
A proportional representation system was devised in the late 19th century, by Victor
D'Hondt of Belgium. Victor Considrant, a utopian socialist, also devised the system 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 Britain, but the British parliament rejected it. It was,
however, then used in Tasmania in 1907, and has spread from there. STV has been
used in the Republic of Ireland since 1919.
Proportional representation is actually used by more nations than the plurality voting
system. All of the members of the European Parliament, or MEPs, including those
elected from constituencies in Britain, are elected by proportional representation.
Proportional representation is also used in many European countries.
While first-past-the-post is commonly found in countries based on the British
parliamentary system, and in the 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. 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. Political analysts point out the fact that the
current attitude and sequence of events is very similar to what happened in New
Zealand when New Zealand opted for Mixed Member Proportional Representation and
the analysts conclude Canada is heading towards the same direction. Fact|date=February 2007
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 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. Fact|date=February 2007 From 1870 to 1980, the State of Illinois
used a semi-proportional system of cumulative voting to elect its State House of
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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. A comparison
[http://www.localparty.org/sanfrancisco/sflp.html] between San Francisco and
Rotterdam shows how emancipation and access are more entrenched in district
elections.
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.
Proportional representation 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. 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.
In Ireland, proportional representation has resulted in a situation whereby a mainly
centrist party with a large support base, Fianna Fil, typically receives 30%-50% of the
vote but the opposition parties, traditionally the centre-right Fine Gael and the centreleft Labour Party, are comparatively weak. This has led to a series of coalition
governments in power, including coalitions between Fianna Fil and Labour, Fine Gael
and Labour, the current coalition between Fianna Fil and the left-wing Green Party and
a rainbow coalition featuring every non Fianna Fil member of the dil. 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 Fil is the only party in the
Republic of Ireland to form a government on its own.
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. [http://www.uno-komitee.de/en/documents/unpareader-2003.pdf]
There are certain other advantages to proportional representation.
Methods of proportional representation

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There are different methods of proportional representation, which achieve either a

greater degree of proportionality or a greater degree of determinate outcome.
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 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 all European Union countries (closed list) as well as in Finland using multimember districts and open 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 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; i.e. in a nine
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member constituency the quota would be the number of votes divided by 10 (9 + 1).
Only in a few cases is this achieved at the first count. For the second count, if a
candidate wins election his surplus vote (in excess of the quota) is transferred to his
voters' second choices; otherwise, the least popular candidate is eliminated and 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, he will be eliminated too (as he 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 and selected
(optional) local governments in New Zealand.
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
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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 listto 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
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 multiparty 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 might be seen as a party system
where the "center" has an unproportional and undesirable strong position in the
formation of any governing coalition.

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Disadvantages
From a mathematical point of view, the main problem with Single Transferable Vote, or
any similar system based on ranking preferences, is that they are particularly prone to a
defect called "non-monotonicity". In short, this means that voting for a candidate (raising
the candidate in the voter's preference in this case) does not always improve, or at least
leave unchanged, that candidate's results. In other words, it's possible to receive "too
many" votes, causing a candidate to lose where he or she would have won without the
added votes.
In practical terms, proportional systems tend to give results with different properties, at
least compared to traditional plurality systems. Namely, it tends to create more
fractionalized results with small, often single-issue parties or candidates. Whether this is
a desirable or undesirable property is hotly debated. Detractors claim that a legislature
dominated by factions is sometimes unable to form a consensus on a particular issue.
Many proportional systems have a thresholding system to minimize the damage that
these single-issue factions can cause. In these systems, only parties which receive
more than some minimum percentage of votes receive representation.
Other criticisms and strengths of proportional representation can be found at Plurality
voting system.
List of countries using proportional representation
This is a list of countries using proportional representation.
[http://ed.labonte.com/pr.html]
Further reading
* Denis Pilon, "The Politics of Voting", Edmond Montgomery Publications, 2007
* Josep M. Colomer. Political Institutions. Oxford University Press, 2003.
* Josep M. Colomer ed. Handbook of Electoral System Choice. Palgrave-Macmillan,
2004.
* John Hickman and Chris Little. "Seat/Vote Proportionality in Romanian and Spanish
Parliamentary Elections" "Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans" Vol. 2, No. 2,
November 2000
* Martin Linton and Mary Southcott. "Making Votes Count: The Case for Electoral
Reform", Profile Books Ltd, London, 1998.
* Amy, Douglas J. "Real Choices/New Voices: The Case for Proportional
Representation Elections in the United States". Columbia University Press, 1993.
* Roland Nicholson, Jr., "Proportional Representation Elections in Hong Kong", New
York Times, September, 1992

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ee also
* Plurality voting system
* D'Hondt method
* Sainte-Lagu method
* List of politics-related topics
* Wealth primary
* Apportionment
Notes
External links
* [http://worldpolicy.org/projects/globalrights/democracy/maps-pr.html Atlas of Electoral
Systems of the World] Colour-coded world maps showing the electoral systems used by
every democratic country in the world, also available with more details as
[http://worldpolicy.org/projects/globalrights/democracy/table-pr.html tables of text] . Part
of the information on [http://worldpolicy.org/projects/globalrights/prindex.html Electoral
Systems] offered by the [http://www.worldpolicy.org/wpi/index.html World Policy
Institute] (WPI)'s [http://worldpolicy.org/globalrights/ Project for Global Democracy &
Human Rights]
* [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/prlib.htm Proportional Representation
Library]
* [http://www.mcdougall.org.uk/VM/ISSUE10/P6.HTM Quantifying Representativity]
Article by Philip Kestelman
* [http://www.fairvote.org/ FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy]
* [http://www.fairvote.org/pr/index.html PR page] from old CVD web site.
* [http://www.fairvote.org/index.php?page=718 PR page] from new CVD web site.
* [http://www.deborda.org The De Borda Institute] A Northern Ireland-based
organisation promoting inclusive voting procedures
* [http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/index.php Electoral Reform Society] Founded in
England in 1884, the ERS is the longest running PR organization. This site contains
particularly good information about Single Transferable Vote -- the Society's preferred
form of PR.
* [http://www.prsa.org.au Proportional Representation Society of Australia]
* [http://www.RangeVoting.org/PropRep.html PR page] at [http://www.RangeVoting.org
Center for Range Voting]
* [http://www.fairvotecanada.org/ Fair Vote Canada]
* [http://www.localparty.org/ LocalParty.Org California]
* [http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/vm/survey.htm#multiple Voting methods
survey] Describes 19 multi-winner systems
* [http://info.wlu.ca/lispop/pr/pr.php PR Simulator] A web-based application that converts
historical or theoretical voting data into proportional results
* [http://www.proportional-representation.org/ Why Not Proportional Representation?]
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* [http://lawiscool.com/2007/07/29/vote-dilution-means-minorities-have-less-voice Vote
Dilution means Voters have Less Voice] Law is Cool site
* [http://info.wlu.ca/lispop/pr/pr.php?file=prdata_US2004 PR Simulator Results (US
Election 2004)] An example of how the above PR Simulator can be used - in this case
following the failed Colorado proposal to assign Electoral College votes proportionally

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