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“But people have always eaten people. What else is there to eat?”

— Flanders and Swann, The Reluctant Cannibal

At bottom, the debate over electoral reform boils down to this: should each riding be represented by one member of Parliament, or several?

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That’s the fundamental difference between electoral systems. Single-member systems like first past the post or preferential voting may differ in how you mark your ballot — with a single x, or a 1, 2, 3 — but they are alike in being “winner take all” systems, where all of the voters in a riding are represented by a lone MP.

What distinguishes proportional systems is the division of representation in an each electoral district among several members. Suppose a riding had five members. Instead of 40 per cent of the vote entitling a party to 100 per cent of the representation, as at present, it would be good enough for two of the five, with the rest distributed among the other parties in like manner. The system is proportional in the whole because it is proportional in the parts.