PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

electoral device that seeks to create a representative body that reflects the distribution of opinion in the electorate. Where majority or plurality systems effectively reward strong parties and penalize weak ones by assigning authority to represent the whole constituency to a candidate who may have received half or less of the votes, proportional representation ensures minority groups a measure of representation proportionate to their numbers. To its advocates the case for proportional representation is fundamentally the same as that for representative government: an election is like a census of opinion as to how the nation should be governed, and only if an assembly represents the full diversity of opinion within a nation can its decisions be regarded as the decisions of the nation itself. The system is also suggested as a means of redressing the possible anomaly arising under majority or plurality systems whereby parties may win more seats with fewer popular votes than their opponents. Proportional representation is opposed on grounds of both principle and expediency. Its opponents hold that in an election a nation is making a decision, a choice, and that the function of the electoral system is to achieve a consensus rather than a census of opinions. Further, to make it possible for small parties to be represented is to encourage the formation of splinter parties, the mutual bargaining of which may lead to weak government. The key to proportional representation is the creation of constituencies with multiple representatives. The principle was formulated systematically in the middle of the 19th century by C.C.G. Andrae in Denmark and Thomas Hare and John Stuart Mill in Great Britain. Since then, several methods for applying it have been devised; the best known are the single-transferrable-vote method and the list system. Under the single-transferrable-vote method, voters rank candidates on the ballot in order of preference. A quota is calculated using the so-called Droop formula (named after its deviser, the Belgian H.R. Droop): the total number of valid votes cast is divided by the number of seats to be filled plus one, and one is added to the quotient. Thus, for example, if 200,000 votes are cast and nine seats are to be filled, the quota equals 200,000 divided by ten, plus one, or 20,00l. The first preference votes are counted, and any candidate who obtains the quota is declared elected. Votes received by successful candidates in excess of the quota are transferred to other candidates according to the voters' second preferences. Any surplus among subsequently elected candidates is similarly transferred, and so on, if necessary. If any seats are still vacant, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and all his ballots transferred to the voters' second preferences, and so on, until all seats are filled by candidates obtaining a quota. In this way the results reflect fairly accurately the preferences of the electors and, therefore, their support for both individuals and parties. Under the list system, the elector votes not for a single candidate but for a list of candidates; each list, normally, is put up by a different party. Each party gets a share of the seats proportional to its share of the votes. There are various alternative rules to achieve this; the two principal ones are the largest-remainder rule and the highest-average rule (the latter being often referred to as the d'Hondt rule, from its deviser, the Belgian Victor d'Hondt). Under the largest-remainder rule a quota is set, and each party is assigned one seat for each time that it can meet the quota. These votes are deducted from each party's total, and when no party has enough votes remaining to meet the quota, remaining seats are assigned on the basis of whatever votes are left. Under the highest-average rule, seats are assigned one at a time to the party with the highest total. After each seat is assigned, the winning party's total is adjusted: the original total vote is divided by the number of seats it has won plus one. The seats that a party wins are assigned to its candidates in the order in which they are named in the list. The principle of the list system is carried to its logical conclusion when a whole country is used as a constituency. The two systems of proportional representation discussed above, and variations of them, were adopted in the Weimar Republic in Germany (191933), the Fourth Republic in France (194658), and in Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and The Netherlands. Proportional representation is thought to be superfluous where a two-party system operates effectively.