explain the list system of election
Answers
Explanation:
list system
Home
Politics, Law & Government
Politics & Political Systems
list system
voting
Alternate titles: party-list system
BY The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica | View Edit History
list system, a method of voting for several electoral candidates, usually members of the same political party, with one mark of the ballot. It is used to elect the parliaments of many western European countries, including Switzerland, Italy, the Benelux countries, and Germany. Electors vote for one of several lists of candidates, usually prepared by the political parties. Each party is granted seats in proportion to the number of popular votes it receives. There are several rules for computing the number of seats awarded to a party, the best known being the “d’Hondt rule” and the “largest-remainder rule.” Seats are usually awarded to candidates in the order in which their names appear on the lists. Although ordinarily the list system forces the voters to cast their votes for parties rather than for individual candidates, a number of variations on the system permit voter preferences for individuals to be taken into account. The Swiss system, one of the most extreme variations, is marked by panachage, the ability of the voter to mix candidates from several party lists if he so desires.
Related Topics: proportional representation representation panachage
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
2008 Canadian federal election results
election: Party-list proportional representation
…single transferable vote formula and list systems—which predominate in elections in western Europe and...…
proportional representation: Party-list system
Under the party-list system, the elector votes not for a single candidate but for a list of candidates....…
Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland, federated country of central Europe. Switzerland’s administrative capital...…
proportional representation
Home
Politics, Law & Government
Politics & Political Systems
proportional representation
politics
BY The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica | View Edit History
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 have received fewer than half of the votes cast (as is the case, for example, in the United States), proportional representation ensures minority groups a measure of representation proportionate to their electoral support. Systems of proportional representation have been adopted in many countries, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
FAST FACTS
2-Min Summary
Key People: Leonard Henry Courtney, Baron Courtney
Related Topics: election single transferable vote list system greatest remainder formula largest average formula
Development and debates
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.
Unlike the plurality system, which uses single-member districts, proportional representation systems use multimember constituencies. Systematic methods of applying proportional representation were first developed in the mid-19th century in Denmark by Carl Andrae and in Britain by Thomas Hare and John Stuart Mill. Methods currently in use include the single-transferable-vote method (STV), the party-list system, and the additional-member system.
Get a Britannica Premium subscription an
I know it is very long you are thinking