The Real Difference Between District Voting and Proportional Voting May Surprise You!

When voting in districts, even with a plethora of best candidates running, only one will be winning that single seat. It means that you are either voting with the winning majority or the losing minority. The voting system is simple, and your chances do not improve whether there is one district or ten, because you can only vote in one district.

In proportional voting, you pick your candidate, and your chances have just improved dramatically to get the one you picked. It is an intrinsic system, which means you have to make a single choice, plus you have extremely good odds to get your candidate occupy one of the seats.

This visual shows that a voter's odds are already improved significantly when there are just two seats with a proportional voting system. The difference is actually easy to see. As we know, in district elections a minimum of fifty percent (plus one) of the votes is needed to get the seat. But it only takes 33.33 percent (plus one) of the votes to get your candidate in a seat if there are two winnable seats in a single intrinsic race.

With two seats available, one-third (plus one) of the votes guarantees that a candidate wins the first seat, while number two only needs the exact 33.33 percent of the votes to get the second seat. The third candidate, even when getting as many as 33.33 percent (but minus one) of the votes, cannot win any of the two available seats. That is an improvement over the 49.99% support a loser has to endure in District Elections.

If there is a third seat in the total number of seats for your council race, each of the candidates needs to secure 25 percent of the votes to get a seat. This amounts to 75 percent (with an additional one or two) voters expressing their electoral voice for the board, and getting things done. This further diminishes the voting minority not-being represented. As you can see, the odds improve with every additional seat on council or board about being heard with our votes. But let this sink in: proportional voting is already superior when there are just two seats, so there's no need to add seats to the council or board more than there are now to get your voice heard better.

It may sound like proportional voting is making it easier for the candidates to win a seat, but in reality it is becoming easier for you to get the one that you want. District voting discriminates because it is a blunt system, and it does so as soon as there are two seats. Proportional voting makes polticians listen to the voters far more closely.

In an additional example, if your pick is candidate A, you 'only' need to resonate with 20 percent of the other voters if there are four seats to be had in total. It shows that you no longer need to be in the majority to win like we are now; voters like you need to be just strong enough to get hold of a seat and be represented at the table.

Here the image of a city with a five-seat council. Click the image for four examples in which the seats are always the same and the number of voters are always the same; this way, it becomes possible to see how the intrinsic function is captured.

With nine seats, to present you yet another example, 90 percent of the voters all end up getting the different candidates they voted for. The system is indeed an intrinsic system. Politicians listen better to the voters if each of them needs to compete outright and full-out with many other candidates. The race takes places in the same arena at the same time where candidates win their individual seat. But don't expect major changes right away, because system changes like proportional voting tend to deliver its benefits in the long run. Locally, our cities and counties will be run better tomorrow when we have proportional voting in place, but particularly the day after.

This image shows a normal outcome in a place where people voted in a proportional manner. There are 11 seats, and there are therefore multiple parties representing various interests (2010 numbers are shown next to previous 2006 results). A city council or a county board with all members registered to a single party will become rare when voting is done proportionally.

Requesting local governments to provide us proportional elections is the first step to let this change happen (and it is the polite thing to let your current officials know that you know that they are not really representative of the voters in the true sense of the word, and that it's time for them to vacate). The Constitution says we should have proportional elections, because no other system ensures equality before the law, plus it states that inferior systems should not be used.

Want to take your first step? Copy and paste the text in the letter below and send it to your city council or county board election commission. There is not even the need to sign it. All you are saying is that the city and the county have an obligation to be responsible to you; it's the law.

"Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain!"