Proportional Representation

Proportional Representation is a voting system where, for whatever qualities people use to elect their representatives (whether it be ideology, ethnicity, gender, etc.), the proportion of representatives having those qualities is approximately the same as the proportion of voters voting for that quality.

Some election systems that strive to achieve proportional representation include the single transferable vote and party-list proportional representation. Other systems, such as plurality voting, are sometimes made more proportional by gerrymandering districts to ensure that a minority group is in the majority in one or more specific districts.

Examples of the use of proportional representation election systems include:

• The parliament of New Zealand uses a system known as mixed member proportional (MMP) - Germany uses something similar
• The Lower House of Parliament in the Netherlands uses a pure party list system.

External Resources

• Center for Voting and Democracy (http://www.fairvote.org)
• The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (http://www.idea.int/index.htm)