Some examples of distribution of seats between political parties (I
believe these are all proportional or close to proportional).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Belgium#Chamber_of_Representatives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Denmark#Last_election_results
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Estonia#Latest_election
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Finland#Election_results_2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Latvia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_of_the_Netherlands#Current_situation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Norway#Party_groups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Sweden#Politics
Juho
On Apr 19, 2010, at 2:28 PM, James Gilmour wrote:
robert bristow-johnson > Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 4:03 AM
I dunno about France, but is that the case in Italy? or Israel? I
thought there were a bunch of countries with a half dozen contending
parties or more. it looks to me that even the UK has three
significant parties.
It seems to me that in mentioning these particular countries you are
mixing up two aspects of voting system reform that should
always be kept completely separate, namely choosing a single-winner
voting system for single-OFFICE elections and choosing a system
for the election of representatives to representative assemblies.
Single-winner voting systems should never be used to elect the
members of a representative assembly because, except by chance,
single-winner voting systems cannot deliver the primary requirement
- an assembly properly representative of those who voted.
The reference to France could be to the Presidential election -
that is a single-winner election by popular vote, but it uses
Top-Two Run-Off with occasional disastrous consequences. The
members of the French National Assembly are elected from single-seat
electoral districts, also with two-round run-off, and so that
Assembly is not properly representative of those who vote.
In Italy the national Parliament was from 1945 to 1993 elected by
closed-list party-list national PR, with two very low thresholds.
Italy then flirted with MMP but went back to party-list PR in 2005
but with a 55% seat distortion to favour the coalition with most
votes. Israel uses closed-list party-list national PR with a very
low national vote (artificial) threshold. Both countries have
highly fragmented party systems - perhaps a consequence of using
closed-list versions of party-list PR voting systems.
So far as the UK is concerned, it depends how you define
"significant". From the all-time high of 97%, the vote for the two
largest
parties has declined since 1951, down to 68% in 2005. See:
http://www.jamesgilmour.org.uk/Percentage-Votes-for-Two-Largest-Parties-UK-GEs-1945-2005.pdf
But even when most votes were cast for the two largest parties, FPTP
failed as a voting system because, with rare exceptions, it did
not deliver a properly representative House of Commons but
manufactured gross majorities for one party or the other despite NO
party
ever winning 50% of the votes. And on two critical occasions (1951
and Feb 1974) FPTP elected the "wrong" party to government -
the sitting government won the vote but lost the election.
In Scotland and Wales there are four significant parties, even for
UK elections. At least there are in terms of votes - but not
in terms of seats, thanks to FPTP in single-member electoral
districts.
James Gilmour
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