CfER FAQ #1

Q. What is Proportional Representation?

A. Proportional Representation ("PR") means using a type of election system in which the overall results are proportional to the votes.

E.g., in a PR system, if a party gets 30% of the votes, they get 30% of the seats in the legislature, if they get 5% of the votes, they get 5% of the seats. In contrast, winner-take-all systems (such as those in the USA and England) make it almost impossible for smaller parties to win seats, since they have to get 51% of the vote in a district to win a seat. As a result, although Democrats and Republicans make up only about 79% of the electorate, they hold more than 99% of the seats in Congress and in state legislatures.

PR is used in the vast majority of the world's stable democracies. It is a proven system. In fact, most established democracies that don't use PR are ex-colonies of England that just adopted the English winner-take-all system. And PR is used in the United States today, though not too many people know about it.

There are different types of PR systems. PR is used in local, state and federal elections, government and non-government elections, partisan and non-partisan elections.

CfER FAQ #9

Q. Isn't PR really complicated?

A. The process of choosing a legislative body by vote - PR or otherwise - is inherently complicated. It can be made very simple if we decide to surrender all of our power of choice to redistricting committees and other political insiders. But by accepting a small amount of additional complexity, voters can increase their power dramatically. There are several PR methods that have been proven to work for decades by millions of voters.

CfER FAQ #10

Q. How does PR actually work?

A. There can be a number of different ways to count choice voting (nonpartisan PR) elections, but if you use the following approaches, you are on solid ground.

FOR A HAND COUNT

Check out "Procedures for a Hand-Counted Choice Voting Election"

FOR A COMPUTER COUNT

A computer count is much like a hand count, except that:

1. A candidate is allowed to get "surplus votes" -- votes beyond the winning threshold. Whenever this happens, the computer transfers part of each ballot to other candidates, as directed by the rankings on each ballot. E.g. The threshold is 2000. Candidate A recieves 4000 votes. Half of each vote is transferred from A to other candidates, so that he has 2000 total votes. DemoChoice is a website that can conduct such counts.

2. Duplicate rankings may be allowed.
The vote will be split equally among those candidates with duplicate rankings. E.g. The voter marks candidates A, B, and C as her #1 choice. The each get 1/3 of her vote. If candidate A is later declared defeated, then B & C will now each get 1/2 of her vote.

VARIATIONS

There are a number of variations that are possible. The rules above are only meant to show you one way to do a count, not every possible variation.

See CVD's web site for some possible wording for municipal elections.

CfER FAQ #11

Q. Isn't PR expensive to administer?

A. PR methods are not substantially more expensive to administer than any other election method, and the cost would just be lost in the background noise of voter pamphlet costs, registration database maintenance, and so on.

There are sometimes costs associated with adopting a PR method if the voting equipment can't already handle it.

The costs of PR must be weighed against the cost of bad representation: if PR can prevent a single pork-barrel project - or an electricity crisis such as the one experienced in 2001 - it will quickly pay for itself.

CfER FAQ #12

Q. What books or periodicals do you recommend to learn more about PR

A. Some of the best stuff is just in getting newsletters from CVD or your state level PR group. Contact them for more information on joining/subscribing to these newsletters. In addition, CVD regularly sends out email updates to interested parties. Email them to get on this list at: fairvote@compuserve.com.

Proportional Representation, The Case for a Better Election System, by Douglas Amy (Crescent Street Press, Northampton, MA, 1997). An excellent introduction to PR, this 42 page pamphlet is highly accessable. Can be ordered thru CVD (email: fairvote@compuserve.com) for only $3.00 a copy.

Real Choices, New Voices, by Douglas Amy (Columbia University Press, 1993). This book is an easy to read, excellent primer on PR. It may be available at your local library or bookstore, but if not, it is definitely available thru CVD, or at the Amazon & Barnes and Noble web-sites.

Fixing Elections, by Steven Hill. This is not about PR, but discusses why winner-take-all elections are a disservice to democracy.

Proportional Representation and Election Reform in Ohio, by Kathleen Barber (Ohio State University Press, 1995). Analyzes PR's use in the United States, with a focus on Ohio.

Seats and Votes, by Taagapera and Shugart. This one is tough reading unless you have a knack for math or don't mind skipping the math. But if you can get through it, it gives you a really thorough understanding how changing electoral rules can have a large impact on providing fair representation for all.

United States Electoral Systems; Their Impact on Women and Minorities, edited by Wilma Rule and Joseph F. Zimmerman (Praeger, 1992). Fairly accessible set of articles by different scholars, looking at how electoral systems affect women and minorities.

Is Democracy Fair? The Mathematics of Voting and Apportionment, written by Leslie Johnson Nielsen and Michael de Villiers (Key Curriculum Press, 1997)
P.O. Box 2304, Berkeley, CA 94702, (510) 548-2304 e-mail: editorial@keypress.com web site: http://www.keypress.com This is a textbook that explains all the major methods of vote counting and apportionment clearly and gives students plenty of encouragement to think about the pros and cons of each method.

Excursions in Modern Mathematics, Prentice Hall
This is an introductory college level math textbook. It has an entire section dealing with the mathematics of voting and different voting systems.
Companion Web Page

Finally, there is a large PR bibliography at a new web site developed by Professor Douglas Amy (author of Real Choices, New Voices) for citizens, activists, teachers and students who want to learn more about proportional representation elections. The PR Library includes a large number of articles with a US focus.

FAQ #14 -- "What countries use Proportional Representation?"

[By and large, this is pretty accurate. The Center for Voting and Democracy (CVD) has another list which is more accurate and complete, albeit in a different format, and only available by postal mail. You can e-mail CVD or via their web site

[Info modified 1/2001]

CfER FAQ #15

Q. What are the advantages of PR?

A. One result of PR is opening up the political process. Without PR, democracies tend to either be two party systems (e.g. USA), or 3 party systems in which the majority party, the party in control, does not actually have the support of the majority of the people in that country (e.g. the United Kingdom, Canada). With PR, depending on the type of PR and the specific country, there are usually around 7 or 8 parties, and they usually form stable coaltion governments. Now, if you think the two-party system is a good thing, then you should oppose PR, because it would surely result in a multi-party system. But, if you, like most Americans, believe that we should have more than two parties representing America, then you should consider this a major advantage.

A second advantage is that generally speaking more people vote when PR is used. Some people claim that if we used PR here in the U.S., that our turnout would rival Europian countries typical turnout of appr. 85%. While that would be very nice, more careful studies seem to indicate that our turnout would increase more in the range of 10% to a total of about 60%. While this isn't as much as we'd like, we recognize that there are many reasons why people don't vote, only some of which have to do directly with the voting system. Finally, note that a 10% increase in voting would reverse approximately 20 years of steady declines in voter turnout.

A third advantage is that PR results in more women being elected. This has been effectively proven by several researchers, such as Professor Wilma Rule, and others.

Another advantage is that the tone of the debate in PR elections tends to be much more issue oriented, less about personalities, and thus much less negative. E.g., if the party list system or MMP systems were being used, then the discusssion tends to be about the parties' performance and platform. In preference voting, candidates need to get #2 and #3 rankings, so they cannot afford to viciously attack their opponents, or they would lose those important high rankings.

In PR systems, voters can usually vote their heart, instead of making strategic votes for fear of wasting their votes.

The evil of gerrymandering is eliminated under PR, and only under PR, because gerrymanding is a result of districts in which one candidate will be elected, and under PR there are larger, multi-member districts.

More candidates tend to run under PR, because it is easier to be a candidate when you need a smaller, more enthusiastic base of support. And the candidates can honestly address difficult issues that they might have avoided before, because if, for example you only need 10 or 20% of the vote to get elected, you can afford to be more straightforward.

PR results in majority rule, but still fairly represents minority viewpoints. This is the crux of PR, and by itself is reason enough to adopt PR.

Last but not least, PR reduces the effect of money in elections. This is because candidates can target their base, and spend money very efficiently. Every election that uses PR results in fair minority representation, even when the minority doesn't have money. (By the way, "minority" in this case does not mean just an ethnic minority, but any group that isn't the majority, such as Republicans in a liberal area, and vice-versa.)

CfER FAQ #16

Q. What are the disadvantages of PR?

A. Some people fear that PR will result in political instability. To a large extent, this is due to confusion with parliamentary systems, where the legislative branch chooses the executive branch, resulting in irregular enforcement of laws.

Instability occurs when a small faction quits the ruling coalition, resulting in a significan rearrangement of the balance of power. It occurred when Senator Jim Jeffords quit the Republican Party in 2001. It could have also occurred if a far-right-wing senator had decided that the party was being too liberal in its efforts to maintain power.

PR tends to (but does not always) result in multi-party or multi-faction legislatures, and it can be more difficult for a legislature to reorganize itself after such a power shift. However, this difficulty is usually more a result of specific procedural rules of the legislature rather than PR itself. A few PR governments, most famously Italy and Israel (which are also both parliamentary), tend to have trouble with this, but the vast majority of them do not.

One large disadvantage is that it is a change! While some might see this as an advantage, any change involves some costs. E.g., we have to educate election administrators and companies that suppy election equipment to support more types of voting, and different ballots, than they currently are used to.

Some forms of PR require the existence of political parties. Some people are uncomfortable with the idea of making government and the democratic process dependent on such private organizations, and there are many first-amendment issues associated with this.

In California, it's already too late, because our state constitution requires the existence of parties and the use of partisan primary elections, even though PR is not widely used. Furthermore, PR would result in more parties and more competition between them, so any feared abuses would be less likely, and there would be more alternatives for a voter to choose from. And some PR methods are nonpartisan.

One concern that is raised is that the U.S. Constitution would have to be amended to allow PR. However, that is not correct. PR could be used in House elections simply by modifying the Voting Rights Act to allow PR to be used. In fact, such a bill has been introduced in the House from 1996-1998, by Cynthia McKinney (D-GA).

Another concern is that people would lose local representation, because PR is used in multi-member districts, not single-member districts. There are two ways of addressing this concern. One is to use MMP, which is a mixed-system that has local representation, and the other is to use fairly small multi-member districts. In any case, most people care about issues more than geography these days -- the current system forces representation based on where you live, not how you feel about issues.

CfER FAQ #2

Q. How can I become part of the movement for PR?

A. Join us! Californians for Electoral Reform (CfER)
Email CfER
PO Box 128; Sacramento, CA 95812
510/527-8025
916/967-0300
415/751-4474
408/688-8692

$25 for a regular membership, $6 for low income, $40 for Donor memberships. Groups can also join for $20. Regular membership includes a newsletter, and the national newsletter from CVD (see below). To join, send an email to the above address, including your name, address and phone number. Indicate that you are joining. You will be signed up, and billed. If you change your mind, just write "cancel" on the bill.

If you are not from California and would like to start an effort in your area, contact:
Center for Voting and Democracy (CVD)
6905 5th St NW, Ste. 200; Washington, DC 20012 301/270-4616 cvdusa@aol.com
Call or email for information

CfER FAQ #20

Q. What non-governmental groups/organizations use choice voting or instant runoff voting?

We are aware of the following non-governmental groups and organizations that use choice voting. This list is definitely incomplete, because we regularly hear of more groups that are using it. If you know of any other groups that are using preference voting, please email us!info@fairvoteca.org

The ACLU of Washington State voted in May of 1999 to use Choice Voting and IRV for election of officers and to select delegates to their national convention. Also, the National ACLU uses a form of cumulative voting for electing it's officers. For more information, contact John Gear: catalyst (at) mail.pacifier.com.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Academy Award nominations have been using Choice Voting since the 1930's, because they found it provides for more diversity in the nominations. They use a pure hand count. For more information, contact Bruce Davis, Executive Director, at 310/247-3000.

The American Geophysical Union (professional society for all of the geophysical sciences) uses IRV for electing all of its officers; it is specified in the bylaws. http://www.agu.org/
American Geophysical Union, 2000 Florida Ave, N.W., Washington DC 20009
(202)-462-6900 / 1-800-966-2481

American Mensa uses Choice Voting and MPV. They use a hand count. Contact Brewster Gillette at 503/245-3707, or Mensa headquarters at 817/332-2600.

The American Political Science Association ( http://apsanet.org/governance/constitution.html) uses IRV to elect its president. Sadly, the Association uses block voting to elect its board.

The American Psychological Association (website: http://www.apa.org) uses "preferential" voting to elect their president as well as their board of directors. The APA bylaws that lay out election procedures for the Board of Directors and Officers appear at:
http://www.apa.org/governance/bylaws/art7.html
http://www.apa.org/governance/bylaws/art8.html
American Psychological Association, Election Office
750 First Street, NE; Washington, DC 20002-4242 : (202) 336-6072

The Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology (ASCIT) uses IRV to elect its officers for many years. Check out Article VIII in the ASCIT By-Laws.

The Associated Students of the University of California

• Berkeley has been using Choice Voting and IRV since perhaps the 1940's. They have approximately 8000 votes each election, with typically around 100 candidates running for 15 seats. The count is performed entirely manually, and they use a fractional Choice Voting count! Check out the ASUC Elections By-Laws.

• Davis - students voted to adopt Choice Voting and IRV in 2003.

The Boston chapter of the Black Radical Congress uses PR.

The California League of Conservation Voters (www.ecovote.org) uses preference voting to elect its two staff member board positions.

Californians for Electoral Reform (formerly Californians for Proportional Representation) has been using Choice Voting to elect its nine member Board of Directors since its inception in 1993. Voters vote by mail with a standard paper ballot, then ChoicePlus is used to tally the election. Contact: Elections Director Dave Kadlecek at 510/763-3515, dkadlecek (at) igc.apc.org.

Starting in spring of 2003, the Student Assembly ath the College of William and Mary (http://www.wm.edu/SO/studentassembly/) will be using for all elections. This includes SA President, Senators, and other class officers.

Fiji used IRV (which they apparently call "preferential voting") for the first time in 1999.

The Green Party of California and most of its locals use IRV for their internal affairs, such as electing officers. For more information, contact Tom Stafford at tstaff (at) rain.org.

The Georgia Green Party uses Choice Voting for internal elections. For more information please contact Hugh Esco at hesco (at) mindspring.com.

The Green Party of Seattle uses "preference/choice balloting" to elect five of the seven Coordinating Council members. The elected secretary and treasurer also get seats on the Coordinating Council. The GPoS also uses IRV in candidate endorsements.

The 36th District Green Party of WA State uses preference/choice balloting to elect three of its five coordinating council members, with the secretary and treasurer also getting seats.

The Harvard/Radcliffe Undergraduate Council (student government organization at Harvard and Radcliffe) uses the STV form of PR for its Council and Officers. See the bylaws at www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hruc/constbylaws.

We have been told that International Training in Communcations, a group similar to Toastmasters, uses preference voting. Their address is PO Box 92803, Anaheim, CA 92803.

John Hopkins University used Instant Run-off Voting for its freshman student council elections for the first time in the fall of 1999.

KPFA (http://www.kpfa.org), the Berkeley flagship station of the listener-sponsored Pacifica Network, uses Choice Voting in its listener elections of their Local Advisory Board. They use a modified version that ensures a balance of race and gender.

Lane Community College, in Oregon, just voted in 1997 to use Choice Voting. Contact: Kevin Hornbuckle, kevinh (at) efn.org, 503/485-2474.

The Miami University (Ohio) Faculty Senate has used ranked choice voting for some time for its Faculty Senate.  For more info contact Phil Macklin at macklipa (at) muohio.edu.

The Minnesota State Bar Association adopted STV/choice voting for use in its internal elections. This decision was made by the Board of Governors in mid-September 2000, with recommendation from a study committee that favored it as a means of diversifying the leadership of the organization

The National Organization of Women uses IRV in electing its national officers and it is "permissible" in electing the national board members from each region. See Article VI.5 and Article VII.5.B at http://209.207.163.32/organiza/bylaws.html

The Onion River Food Cooperative in Burlington, Vermont, used Choice Voting for their board elections in November 1999. For more information, contact Terry Bouricius at klamb (at) brownsriver.k12.vt.us or at 802/864-8382.

Pacific Green Party of Oregon uses PR (Choice Voting) to elect its Coordinating Committee. Contact Fillard Rhyne at 503/777-0117 for more info.

The Reform Party will use IRV to select its Presidential candidate for the November 2000 general election. For more information go to www.reformparty.org/candidates/nominations.html..

Stanford University has been using Choice Voting for its academic elections (Senate, Steering Committee, and Advisory Board) since at least 1973.  For more information, contact JC Bangert at jbangert (at) stanford.edu. Beginning in 2001, the student government (ASSU) will use IRV for presidential elections -- contact Dave Robinson at dbr (at) stanford.edu for more information. The Grad Student Council and Undergraduate Senate still use plurality voting.

The University of Illinois Math Department Councils have been elected with Choice Voting since the late 1950's. The vote is tallied using a computer program written by Jim Parr, who is associated with the university. Contact: Jim Parr, parr (at) arachnic.match.ilstu.edu.

We are told that the University of Texas Graduate Assembly uses preference voting, and that interested parties should contact Dr. Robert Jeffrey for more information (but we weren't given a telephone number, postal address, or email address!).

The World Science Fiction Society uses IRV to select the winner of the Hugo award in each category. For more information see: worldcon.org.

York High School in Monterey, California, uses IRV for its student government elections.

CfER FAQ #21 -- Doesn't Arrow's Theorem prove that voting is flawed?

CfER FAQ #22

Q. What Software is Available to count PR Elections?

The DemoChoice web poll system is an open-source, cross-platform package for tallying preference voting elections.

ChoicePlus by Voting Solutions is a commercial package that has been used to tally public preference voting elections in Cambridge, MA and elsewhere.

Other programs have been written and used to count non-governmental PR elections, or for research purposes. According to Jim Lindsay, "Writing a program to count a Choice Voting election is not really that difficult. Any competent programmer can do it. However, writing one that is stable, supports a wide variety of options, is fast, and produces a number of reports, etc., is not at all a trivial task."

If you've written software to count PR elections, and you'd like to be listed here, email us!

CfER FAQ #23

Q. What Hardware is Available to count PR Elections?

In general, there are three types of voting machines: DRE (direct recording entry machines, or electronic voting machines), marksense (fill in the bubble), punch card systems. The old lever system might have been considered DRE, and a fair number of rural areas still do manual voting.

Electronic voting machines have been the most friendly to PR activists. It is easy for them to support preference voting. Marksense companies are somewhat friendly -- some can handle PV, some can't yet. Punch card companies tend to be somewhat hostile.

However, punch card systems are being replaced at an increasing rate, and it seems that almost all companies are now providing some sort of marksense or DRE solution.

Global Elections Systems (604/261-6313, now owned by Diebold) is the vendor that serves Cambridge. Their system has been used successfully since 1997. Sequoia Pacific Systems (704/487-0161) has the New York upgrading contract, and I'm told they are supporting preference voting due to its use for the school committees there.

CfER FAQ #26

Question: Isn't PR the same as the Parliamentary System?

CfER FAQ #27

"Isn't PR based on a quota system? Wouldn't that be very divisive?"

No! This is, unfortunately, a common misconception about PR. PR is 100% race neutral, and 100% gender neutral. PR has *nothing* to do with quotas of any sort.

Our current system of at-large local elections combined with large, single member districts for state and national campaigns does an excellent job of representing majority parties and majority ethnicities. The current system does *not* fairly represent minority parties and minority ethnicities. PR, however, fairly represents both majorities and minorities. Majority rule + fair representation for all = PR.

In addition, our current system unfairly encourages the overrepresentation of men at the state and national level. I refer you to the work of political science professors Rule, Darcy, Welch, Clark, Lakeman, and Shugart for more information about this. But the gist of it is this: If we are serious about fair representation for women, we need PR.

Simply because it is a more sophisticated system, and not due to any quotas or predetermined results, PR would better reflect the diversity that helps to make America great. But it would not do so due to a quota system -- rather just because with PR, who is eventually elected better reflects how people actually voted.

CfER FAQ #28

Question: "How would PR work for the California State Assembly?"

Answer:

Applying PR to the State Assembly is easily done. Any of the three forms (MMP, Party List, and Choice Voting) could be used. The use of any of them would require a state constitutional amendment, however, since California's constitution currently mandates single-member districts for both the Assembly and State Senate.

Given that, let's look at how MMP might work. We could divide the Assembly into 40 members elected from single-member districts, and 40 elected from party lists. Each voter would have two votes for Assembly on election day, a candidate vote and a party vote. The candidate vote is cast for the person that the voter wants to represent the district, and either current pluarality rules, or Instant Runoff rules, could be used. The party vote is cast for the party that the voter wants to represent him or her in the Assembly, and does not have to be for the same party as that of the candidate whom the voter chose.

After the 40 district seats are allocated, the 40 party seats are allocated in a compensatory fashion, so that each party gets a total number of seats (district plus party) corresponding to the percentage of the party vote they received. For example, suppose the Blue Party and the Red Party each receive 10 percent of the vote, entitling each to 8 seats in the Assembly. If five Blue Party members are elected from the districts, the Blue Party gets three of the party seats seats which they fill from their list. If two Red Party members are elected from districts, they get six of the party seats.

The split doesn't have to be 40/40 to get proportionality. Reasonable proportionality can be acheived with a 60/20 split (60 from districts, 20 from party lists), if the public would prefer more representatives from districts than from the party lists.

Q. What happens if a party elects more candidates from districts than they are entitled to by the party vote? For example, suppose the Yellow Party also gets 10 percent of the vote but elects 12 people from districts? Do four of them get kicked out?

A. While rare, such a situation could happen, and any valid election law would have to cover such a case. At least two solutions are possible. In no case would you want to disallow the Yellow Party the 12 seats they won through districts; it wouldn't be fair to the voters of those districts. One possibility is to let the size of the Assembly grow temporarily (until the next election), in this case by four additional seats. The rest of the parties would still get their percentage of seats based on the nominal count of 80 seats. This is the approach taken by New Zealand. The other approach is to adjust the remaining seat allocations so that the total still comes out to 80; this means that the other parties will get slightly fewer seats than the percentages would indicate, but the relative distribution (excluding the Yellow Party) would still be the same.

CfER FAQ #29

Q. Where is Cumulative Voting used?

Governmental Agencies

Jurisdiction	County	Year of first use
Chilton County Commission	Chilton AL	1988
Chilton Board of Education	Chilton AL	1988
Centre City Council	Cherokee AL	1988
Guin City Council	Marion AL	1988
Heath City Council	Covington AL	1988
Myrtlewood City Council	Marengo AL	1988
Peoria City Council	Peoria IL	1991
Alamogordo City Council	Otero NM	1987
Lovington School Board	Lea NM	unknown
Sisseton Board of Education	(unknown county) SD	1990
Abernathy City Council	Hale TX	1996
Andrews City Council	Andrews TX	1996
Anton City Council	Hockley TX	1995
Boerne City Council	Kendall TX	1997
Earth City Council	Lamb TX	1995
Friona City Council	Parmer TX	1994
Hale Center City Council	Hale TX	1994
Jourdonton City Council	Atascosa TX	1997
Morton City Council	Cochran TX	1994
O'Donnell City Council	Lynn TX	1997
Olton City Council	Lamb TX	1995
Poth City Council	Wilson TX	1996
Roscoe City Council	Nolan TX	1995
Rotan City Council	Fisher TX	1995
Yorktown City Council	Dewitt TX	1992
Abernathy Ind. School Dist.	Hale TX	1994
Amherst Ind. School Dist.	Lamb TX	1996
Andrews Ind. School Dist.	Andrews TX	1994
Anson Ind. School Dist.	Jones TX	1995
Anton Ind. School Dist.	Hockley TX	1996
Atlanta Ind. School Dist.	Cass TX	1995
Big Spring Ind. School Dist.	Howard TX	1998
Bovina Ind. School Dist.	Parmer TX	1994
Denver City Ind. School Dist.	Yoakum TX	1994
Dumas Ind. School Dist.	Moore TX	1995
Friona Ind. School Dist.	Parmer/Deaf Smith TX	1994
Hale Center Ind. School Dist.	Hale TX	1994
Hamlin Ind. School Dist.	Jones TX	1998
Irion Co. Ind. School Dist.	Irion TX	1996
Lockhart Ind. School Dist.	Caldwell TX	1991
Luling Ind. School Dist.	Caldwell TX	1996
Morton Ind. School Dist.	Cochran TX	1994
Navarro Ind. School Dist.	Guadalupe TX	1997
O'Donnell Ind. School Dist.	Lynn, Dawson TX	1995
Olton Ind. School Dist.	Lamb TX	1997
Post Ind. School Dist.	Garza TX	1997
Poth Ind. School Dist.	Wilson TX	1996
Riviera Ind. School Dist.	Kleberg TX	1997
Ropes Ind. School Dist.	Hockley TX	1997
Rotan Ind. School Dist.	Fisher TX	1995
Springlake-Earth Ind. School Dist.	Lamb TX	1995
Stamford Co. Line Ind. School Dist.	Haskell, Jones TX	1995
Sudan Ind. School Dist.	Bailey, Lamb TX	1997
Sundown Ind. School Dist.	Hockley TX	1997
Wilson Ind. School Dist.	Lynn TX	1997
Yoakum Ind. School Dist.	Lavaca TX	1993
Yorktown Ind. School Dist.	DeWitt TX	1992
Terry Co. Memorial Hosp. Dist.	Terry TX	1997

Non-governmental Agencies
Associated Students of Madison (ASM), which is the student government of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

If you know of other elections where cumulative voting is used, please let us know! E-mail us at stevew@initcomp.com.

A new web page by the Proportional Representation Society of Australia, Victoria branch.

Douglas Amy's PR Library.

The home page of the British Electoral Reform Society.

The home page of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

The ACE Project - Administration and Cost of Elections.

Atlas of Electoral Systems of the World page.

CfER FAQ #30

Q. When was PR first invented?  And when was it first used?

According to Mirror of the Nation's Mind (JFH Wright, 1980, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney):

Party List was "[p]roposed by Thomas Gilpin of Philadelphia, USA, and independently by Victor Considerant, in Switzerland [no dates given], [and] it was first used in the Canton of Ticino in Switzerland in 1891." (page 47.)

The first "quota-preferential" method was "put into a workable form first by Thomas Hill, a schoolmaster in Birmingham, England, in 1821." (page 48.)  "The first public election in the world in which the principle of proportional representation was put into effect appears to have been the election of the Municipal Corporation of the City of Adelaide in 1840."  (page 93.)  This was done at the suggestion of then-Secretary of the Colonization Commission for South Australia Rowland Hill, son of the afore-mentioned Thomas Hill.  But I don't think this used a single-transferable vote, but determined the makeup of the quota in a differnt way.  The first use of single-transferable vote apparently occurred "in elections of the members from Hobart and Launceston in the Tasmanian House of Assembly in 1897."  (page 95.)

The preferential ballot "was devised around 1870 by W.R.  Ware, a Professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Hare 1873, pp351-355)."  (page 35.)  "The first preferential method used in a parliamentary election in Australia [was] in Queensland in 1893" (page 34) but in that count if no one got a majority all but the top two were eliminated and the rest of the ballots transferred.  The "staggered runoff" concept that we understand today as IRV "was used first in Western Australia in 1908."  (page 34.)

CfER FAQ #31

Q. How does PR result in more positive, issue-oriented election campaigns?

A. The reasons why depend on the type of PR that is used.

If it is a party oriented system, such as the "party-list" or "mixed member" systems, then the discussions (and advertisements) are about the parties' platforms, performance, and history -- not about individuals. Parties may attack each other, but the attacks are not normally the ugly personal attacks that we so often see in the United States.

The other major type of PR is the Choice Voting system, in which the voter ranks his/her choices 1, 2, 3, etc. These elections tend to have positive campaigns because in order to win candidates must obtain not just #1 rankings, but also #2, #3, and even #4 rankings. So they cannot afford to attack their opponents, or they will lose lower ranking votes, and that could easily cost them the election.

You see, it is not that candidates suddenly become nicer people when PR is used. Most candidates under any electoral system would prefer to run clean, positive, and issue-oriented campaigns. The problem is that in order to win winner-take-all elections, it is very often necessary to run negative ads. Someone is going to find themselves behind in the polls, and despite best intentions, will start running hit pieces to try to narrow the gap. And it works -- if it didn't work, they'd stop doing it.

Therefore, what we must do is put in place electoral systems that encourage positive campaigns and discourage negative campaigns -- because it is just part of those systems that you need to run positive, issue-oriented campaigns to win elections. Once we have accomplished that goal, you'll actually be able to watch political advertisements without being sickened by those truly horrid hit pieces.

CfER FAQ #4

Q. Where is PR used in the U.S. and Canada?

PR, in the form of preference voting, is currently used to elect the City Council and School Committee in Cambridgeassachusetts, and the New York City local school committees.

PR has been used in a number of cities in the past, including New York City, Cincinnati, and others. In all known cases, PR succeeded in its mission of providing majority rule with fair minority representation. However, PR was dropped in many cities in the 1950's because the hand-count was cumbersome, due to McCarthyist hysteria after a communist was elected to the city council of New York, and sometimes due to racial tensions.

A number of jurisdictions are using semi-proportional systems (Limited and Cumulative Voting).  See FAQ #29 for a list of jurisdictions using Cumulative Voting.

A number of cities are considering using PR. As of this writing (November of 1996) there are petition campaigns in Cincinnati, Ohio, Seattle, Washington, and Urbana, Illinois. A number of city commissions are studying it.

San Franciscans just voted not to adopt PR in November of 1996. In a short 3-month period activists were able to convince 44% of the voters that PR was the best system. Unfortunately, district elections had a 20 year name recognition, and voters chose to adopt them instead of PR. There is other ongoing activity in other parts of the country. [see FAQ #2 for more info].

The Canadian Wheat Board uses PR. KPMG is the company that administered the election, contact Craig Fossay cfossay@kpmg.ca for info.

The Democratic Party uses a form of PR to select its delegates to its National Convention. Each candidate represents a sort of party, and delegates to the convention are allocated in proportion to the candidate's results. To be technical, the allocation is by Congressional District, and there's a 15% threshold. So if, in a given district, Al Gore gets 55% of the vote in the Democratic Primary, Bill Bradley gets 35%, and someone else gets 10%, Gore will get about 61% of that district's delegates, and Bradley will get about 39%. For more information contact the Democratic National Committee.

The Minnesota Democratic Party uses an interesting form of Proportional Representation in presidential caucuses. Voters actually physically move around the room to represent who they are supporting. If their candidate is eliminated, they move to a different group. For more information, contact Tony Solgard: solga002@tc.umn.edu

Finally, more and more non-governmental organizations are using PR and/or preference voting [see FAQ #20].

CfER FAQ #5

"What are the main types of Proportional Representation?"

There is a lot more that can be said about each of these systems. If you'd like more detailed informaton, just email us, and we'll answer within 48 hours, or double your money back.