Why we need Proportional Representation [infographic]
For those who’ve been under a rock it was General Election time in the UK this week. The results were pretty much a slap in the face for all of the parties involved. What was clear was that, given the current system, no party really had a clear mandate from the electorate.
I didn’t actually see the great David McCandless’ effort until after I finished mine but we’re effectively showing the same story: the electoral system in the UK needs to be reformed. We need to move from a combative first-past-the-post system to a fairer system that promotes negotiation and compromise.
Proportional representation (PR), sometimes referred to as full representation, is a type of voting system aimed at securing a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates obtain in elections, and the percentage of seats they receive (e.g., in legislative assemblies).
PR is often contrasted to plurality voting systems, such as those commonly used in the United States and (much of) the United Kingdom, where disproportional seat distribution results from the division of voters into multiple electoral districts, especially “winner takes all” plurality (“first-past-the-post” or FPTP) districts.
