NEW PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION ELECTORAL SYSTEMS THAT MAKE DEMOCRACY WORK:



Your Vote Should Elect – Overlapping Election Districts Proportional Representation Electoral Systems Enable You to Elect Your Chosen Candidate When Traditional Electoral Systems Don’t

Your Vote – use your vote to elect, not just to vote

New and better First Past The Post, Alternative Vote and Single Transferable Vote proportional representation electoral systems improve proportional representation by enabling voters to directly elect chosen candidates that traditional electoral systems don’t. These new systems can ensure virtually every voter directly elects their preferred candidate and that virtually every voter is directly represented by their preferred candidate in government. This strong connection between voting intention and the election of preferred representatives provides a tangible, direct connection with the voter and candidates. This systems structure is expected to increase voter interest and turnout.

Before discussing these new concepts in implementing effective proportional representation electoral systems, let’s take a short look at the history of voting plus some traditional, commonly used and greatly flawed electoral systems in order to see how we can encourage voter interest and the basic motivation to vote.

Progression of Right to Vote and Right to Elect – we’ve come a long way but …

In the seventeen hundreds, the right to vote was limited to privileged groups in society. Advocates of full democracy favored and campaigned for universal adult suffrage. Today, nearly all modern governments provide universal adult suffrage. However, the right to elect personally chosen candidates is still quite limited because about 46% to 100% of voters normally fail to directly elect preferred candidates when virtually all of today’s most commonly used and widely known electoral systems are used to elect representatives to legislative assemblies.

Voting Limitations on the Right to Elect – present accepted systems to elect are all flawed

Currently, there are no effective and easily understood electoral systems to enable very large majorities of voters to directly elect preferred candidates. For example, although first past the post (FPTP) and alternative vote (AV) method electoral systems are quite understandable; they respectively normally enable only about 50% and 54% [1] of all voters to elect candidates of choice. Also by contrast, single transferable vote (STV) method electoral systems can enable large majorities of voters to elect candidates of choice, but its’ complexity often forces voters into guessing who they elect with their votes. Furthermore, commonly used high election rate List Proportional Representation (List PR) electoral systems only enable voters to elect preferred parties of choice, not preferred party candidates of choice.

Disincentives to Vote – accepted systems ensure voters statistically fail to elect preferred candidates

High election failure rates can discourage substantial proportions of the voting population from voting. For example, consider:

List PR electoral systems. List PR ensures 100% of voters fail to directly elect preferred candidates of choice. This election failure rate can discourage those voters who want or prefer to elect party candidates of their own choosing from showing up to vote. FPTP electoral systems. FPTP normally ensures about 50% or less of all voters fail to elect preferred representatives. This election failure rate result can discourage voters who do not expect to elect a preferred representative from casting their votes. AV electoral systems. AV typically ensures about 46% or less of all voters fail to elect preferred representatives. Like FPTP, this election failure rate result creates a disincentive to vote. Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral systems. MMP generally combines the List PR electoral system with FPTP or AV electoral systems. The List PR component dilutes and reduces the total proportion of legislative assembly members that are directly elected as representatives of choice. As discussed above, this system contains all the disincentives for not voting that come with List PR, FPTP and AV electoral systems. STV electoral systems. Small multiple-member district (few representatives per district) electoral systems ensure large proportions of voters fail to elect preferred representatives. For example, two-member districts ensure about 33% or less of all voters fail to elect a preferred representative. Again like FPTP, this election failure rate result creates a disincentive to vote. By contrast, large multiple-member district (many representatives per district) electoral systems can ensure very large proportions of voters elect preferred representatives. But the big problem with high election rate STV electoral systems is complexity. This complexity may discourage people who yearn for simplicity from voting.

These currently utilized electoral systems are all flawed. But there are solutions that can enable you and all other voters to directly elect your candidates of personal choice much more often at a statistically higher rate every time elections are held.

Overlapping Election Districts System – strengthens the right to elect and quality of representative government



For the first time in history, the US 1787 constitution introduced the overlapping election districts system on a massive scale. This constitution produced federal election districts that overlap smaller state election districts which in turn overlap smaller city election districts.



The overlapping election districts concept is a concept that can be employed to improve the quality of representative government. When overlapping election districts are combined to form a single overlapping election districts electoral system, they can enable large majorities of voters to directly elect preferred candidates.

New and revolutionary overlapping election districts proportional representation electoral systems have been developed to improve the election success of voters and the proportional representation of parties. These systems use overlapping single-member election districts or overlapping multiple-member election districts to directly elect all members of legislative assemblies. In some overlapping election districts proportional representation electoral systems, the election success rate approaches 100%. This election success rate makes the right to representation by consent and proportional representation close to perfect. These systems tweak and improve upon the foundations of democracy.



FPTP, AV and STV Election Methods – produce proportional representation from candidates of direct election choice



Overlapping election districts proportional representation electoral systems can be utilized by many traditionally utilized election methods. Here’s how the FPTP, AV and STV election methods work. FPTP and AV candidates are respectively elected to single-member districts by the most votes and by an absolute majority of votes. By contrast STV candidates are elected to multiple-member districts by a quota of votes, which gets smaller as the number of representatives per district increases. On Election Day, STV and AV voters separately rank candidates from each overlapping election district on the ballot in order of preference whereas FPTP voters put a mark beside just one candidate from each overlapping election district on the ballot.

FPTP Overlapping Election Districts Electoral System Example



A FPTP general election area for a three overlapping election districts electoral system is shown below.