Through proportional representation electoral systems, like-minded groupings of voters win legislative seats in better proportion to their share of the population. Whereas winner-take-all elections award 100% of power to a 50.1% majority, proportional representation allows voters in a minority to win a fair share of representation. Proportional representation describes a broad range of methods that require at least some legislators to be elected in districts with more than one seat.

Proportional representation voting systems used in the United States include choice voting (voters rank candidates, and seats are allocated by efficiently distributing voters preferences using a proportional formula), cumulative voting (voters cast as many votes as seats and can give multiple votes to one candidate), and limited voting (voters have fewer votes than seats). Internationally, some proportional representation systems are based on voting for political parties, others for candidates. Some allow very small groupings of voters to win seats; others require higher thresholds of support to win representation. The common thread that defines proportional representation is promoting more accurate, balanced representation of the spectrum of political opinion. More than 100 communities in the United States use proportional representation, the Democrats require states to nominate presidential convention delegates by proportional representation, and almost all emerging democracies have chosen proportional representation. This family of electoral systems is becoming the international norm, with Iraq, Afghanistan, and the entire Eastern Bloc being recent welcome additions to the global community of proportional representation nations.

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December 18th 2002
Healthy Next Steps for Democracy in Santa Monica Part II
Santa Monica Mirror

The introduction of the single transferable vote to Santa Monica's existing proportional representation system is posed as an improvement.

September 19th 2002
Formulas For a Clean Election

FairVote's Matthew Cossolotto argues that Congress needs to pass more meaningful election reform legislation, such as proportional voting methods or instant runoff voting (IRV), to ensure that each vote counts.

July 26th 2002
Framed Up: What the Constitution gets wrong

FairVote's Hendrik Hertzberg contends that the U.S. and other countries that use winner-take-all elections have poor ratings of "democratic fairness" and "encouraging consensus" compared to other countries that use proportional representation.

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