Talk:Proportional representation
From Academic Kids
I believe this definition is more accurate/common, but correct me if I'm wrong. I've left the old version at the bottom of this page for comparison. --DanKeshet
Old Version
An election system where competing factions share seats in an assembly according to the proportion of votes they received. The number of seats they each receive determines the number of votes they get when voting on decisions. This is the most common method for electing legislative assemblies or parliaments in modern democracies.
I removed the following as I deemed it disturbing to the flow of the article -- 213.231.204.211 17:15, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- For example, the electoral system used to elect the Romanian Chamber of Deputies also includes an additional 15 single member seats elected from at large constituencies, each of which represents one of 15 ethnic minority groups too small in number and too dispersed to win representation in parliament under the other electoral mechanism. (See the article, "Seat/Vote Proportionality in Romanian and Spanish Parliamentary Elections," by John Hickman and Chris Little in the Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, Volume 2, Number 2, 2000, pp. 197-212.)
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Unluckily, the only anglo-american major nation who has implemented something barely called PR is New Zealand. However, the debate in UK, especially Wales and Scotland (which have already made local improvements and implementations) is fairly old.
British Columbia, Canada represents the latest struggle to achive some level of PR after centuries of two-party, single-seat, winner-takes-all, First-Past-the-Post (FTPT) struggles:
http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca
the 30-50 hours of lectures can be considered a good example of the learning prosess for typical FPTP citizens of one of the three major, remaining non-PR nations.
http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public/learning_resources/learning_materials/av
- If you'd like to watch — or listen to — the Assembly's learning phase presentations, visit the Audio and Video link on the left.
To accompany these resources, we also offer other educational material of interest. We have some educational "fact sheets" that are easy to read. Our Other Links page is worth a visit, as it has links to numerous sites that cover electoral reform issues. Students and Educators will be interested in our Educational Resources pages. And, of course, we have info on the BC-STV electoral system that the Assembly decided to recommend for B.C. -
- Dear Anon, New Zealand's system is PR. It is a proportional allocation of seats with two-tiers. Furthermore don't classify NZ as 'Anglo-American' a.) we have no historic links to the US b.) we also have a significant Maori population --Gregstephens 22:59, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
