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Proportional representation (PR) refers to any type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (political parties) among voters.
- Majoritarian Representation
A majoritarian electoral system is an electoral system where...
- D'Hondt method
The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the...
- Party-list proportional representation
Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset...
- Majoritarian Representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to any type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions among voters.
- Overview
- Development and debates
proportional representation, electoral system that seeks to create a representative body that reflects the overall distribution of public support for each political party. Where majority or plurality systems effectively reward strong parties and penalize weak ones by providing the representation of a whole constituency to a single candidate who may...
Advocates for proportional representation argue that an election is like a census of opinion as to how the country should be governed, and only if an assembly represents the full diversity of opinion within a country can its decisions be regarded as legitimate. For example, proponents maintain that the plurality system can produce unrepresentative, minority governments, such as in the United Kingdom, where the two major parties governed the country for the last three decades of the 20th century with little more than 40 percent of the votes. The proportional system also is suggested as a means of redressing the possible anomaly arising under majority or plurality systems whereby a party may win more seats with fewer popular votes than its opponents, as occurred in the British elections of 1951 and February 1974.
Critics of proportional representation contend that in an election a country is making a decision, and the function of the electoral system is to achieve a consensus rather than a census of opinion. Opponents argue further that, by making it possible for small parties to be represented, proportional representation encourages the formation of splinter parties that can result in weak and unstable government.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Proportional representation is a system used to elect people, usually to a country's parliament or other type of legislature. Proportional representation works by taking the results of an election to decide how many seats each political party receives.
Nov 18, 2023 · Mariam Zuhaib/AP. With an increasingly polarized Congress and fewer competitive elections, there are growing calls among some election reformers to change how voters elect members of the U.S. House...
