Mixed-member proportional representation

MMP was originally used to elect representatives to the German Bundestag. It has been adopted by Bolivia, Lesotho and New Zealand. It was also used in Romania during its 2008 and 2012 legislative elections. In Germany, where it is used on the federal level and in most states, MMP is known as personalized proportional representation.

About Mixed-member proportional representation in brief

Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) is a mixed electoral system in which voters get two votes: one to decide the representative for their single-seat constituency, and one for a political party. Seats in the legislature are filled firstly by the successful constituency candidates, and secondly, by party candidates based on the percentage of nationwide or region-wide votes that each party received. MMP was originally used to elect representatives to the German Bundestag, and has been adopted by Bolivia, Lesotho and New Zealand. It was also used in Romania during its 2008 and 2012 legislative elections. In Germany, where it is used on the federal level and in most states, MMP is known as personalized proportional representation. In the Canadian province of Quebec, where an MMP model was studied in 2007, it is called the compensatory mixed-member voting system. In Bavaria, the second vote is not simply for the party but for one of the candidates on the party’s regional list: Bavaria uses seven regions for this purpose. In Baden-Württemberg, there are no lists; they use the \”best near-winner\” method in a four-region model, where the regional members are the local candidates of the under-represented party in that region. In most jurisdictions, candidates may stand for both a constituency and on a party list, but in Wales are restricted to contend either for a constituency or for a partyList, but not both. If a candidate is on the list, but wins a constituency seat, they do not receive two seats; they are instead crossed off the party list and the party seat goes to the next candidate down.

In German states, most states do not use MMP until after the federal election, but federally, not until the German federal election in 2016. In New Zealand, 27.33% of voters split their vote compared to 31.64% in 2014. Overhang seats may reduce the proportionality of the system, although this can be compensated for by allocating additional party list seats to cover any proportionality gap. If a party wins more seats than the proportional quota received by FPTP, these surplus seats become overhang seats to work towards restoring a full proportionality. This can be done by either the D’Hondt method or the Sainte-Laguë method or Subtracted from each party’s party’s vote. At the regional or national level, several different calculation methods have been used, but the basic characteristic of the M MP is that the total number of seats in the assembly, and not only the party-list seats, are allocated proportionally to the number of votes the party received in the party portion of the ballot. In the original variant used in Germany, citizens gave only one vote, so that voting for a representative automatically meant also voting for the representative’s party. Most of Germany changed to the two-vote variant to make local members of parliament more personally accountable.

Related posts:

First-past-the-post voting Plurality voting Absentee ballot Dubbak (Assembly constituency)