{"id":4311,"date":"2019-12-06T16:52:35","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T16:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.electoral-reform.org.uk\/?p=4311"},"modified":"2025-11-03T11:21:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T11:21:35","slug":"what-is-proportional-representation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/what-is-proportional-representation\/","title":{"rendered":"What is proportional representation?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lots of people think the way we vote in the UK isn\u2019t fair. They want something called proportional representation<\/em>. But what does that mean?<\/p>\n

There are lots of different ways to decide who gets to sit in parliament, some are more \u2018proportional\u2019 and some are less. Proportional representation\u00a0means that the number of seats a party gets in parliament should match the number of votes they get. For example, if a party gets one-third of the votes, they should get one-third of the seats. The number of MPs in parliament are \u2018in proportion\u2019 to the votes cast.<\/p>\n

Right now, the UK uses a system called First Past the Post<\/a>. This,\u00a0<\/em>along with other systems like Alternative Vote<\/a> and Supplementary Vote<\/a> can sometimes be fair, but often they are not. These systems are called majoritarian<\/em>, and they don\u2019t always give parties the number of seats that match their votes.<\/p>\n

This can make voting confusing. In some past UK elections, the party with the most votes didn\u2019t win the most seats<\/a>, so they couldn\u2019t form the government.<\/p>\n

There are better systems that try to be fairer. More proportional ways of electing MPs like Party List Proportional Representation<\/a>, the\u00a0Single Transferable Vote<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Additional Member System<\/a>, have been designed with the aim of making the number of MPs in parliament match the share of the vote their party received.<\/p>\n

Some of these systems let you vote for a party<\/a>. Others let you vote for a person<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In proportional systems, each area picks more than one MP. The area could be a town, a county, or even the whole country. This means the MPs chosen can better reflect the different views of the people who live there.<\/p>\n

What happens when you use proportional voting?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Before 2007, Scotland used First Past the Post for local councils. This caused problems like one-party councils and seats with no competition. Many people felt their votes didn\u2019t count.<\/p>\n

In 2007, Scotland changed to the Single Transferable Vote<\/em> system. This made elections more fair and competitive. People could vote for who they really wanted, instead of voting just to stop another party.<\/p>\n

Other parts of the UK\u2014like Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland\u2014now use fairer voting systems. It\u2019s time for Westminster to do the same, so everyone\u2019s voice can be heard.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sign our petition for fair votes in Westminster<\/a> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lots of people think the way we vote in the UK isn\u2019t fair. They want something called proportional representation. But what does that mean? There are lots of different ways to decide who gets to sit in parliament, some are more \u2018proportional\u2019 and some are less. Proportional representation\u00a0means that the number of seats a party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":4368,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[5,405,102,52],"class_list":["post-4311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-electoral-reform","tag-first-past-the-post","tag-ge2019","tag-proportional-representation","tag-single-transferable-vote","feature-category-explainers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}