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Proportional Representation


Prepared by the Voting Methods Team, League of Women Voters of Boulder County (LWVBC), CO -- August 2025

What it is

Proportional Representation (PR) means having an elected body resemble the electorate in whichever ways (ideology, geography, gender, etc.) the electorate deems important in each ballot contest. The percentage of seats should reflect the will of the electorate. (If an electoral group makes up 40% of the vote, they should elect about 40% of the seats.) The goal is to improve representation and ensure that all candidates who have enough support will have a seat at the table. PR elections allow each person to vote according to whatever campaign issues and/or candidate characteristics matter most to the voter.


Why it matters

Changing to a system that yields more accurate representation matters! A major problem with our current winner-take-all voting system is that one group, such as a political party, often wins a much larger percentage of seats than that group’s percentage of the electorate, giving that group oversized power.



proportional representation graphic

Requirements for Proportional Representation

  1. Multi-Winner elections – used in at-large or multi-member districts
  2. Voting methods that aren’t winner-take-all

Advantages of Proportional Representation

Councils, boards and legislatures whose members proportionally represent the will of the electorate have the following advantages:

Proportional Representation

  • results in more voters being represented by their choice

  • empowers voters to choose the attributes that they want represented in each elected body

  • makes every person’s vote count and allows for a wider range of views to be represented, leading to less “us vs. them” polarization

  • creates a deliberative government where smaller electoral groups have a seat at the table, resulting in less groupthink and more innovative solutions

  • encourages forming coalitions: a small faction must band together with another faction to successfully support or oppose changes
  • helps break two-party domination because a minor party or independent candidate with enough support can win a seat

  • eliminates or substantially mitigates the impacts of gerrymandering

  • uses multi-winner contests which leads to more candidates running and fewer uncontested elections

Learn more about Proportional Representation and how it works by clicking on the links below


Proportional Representation explained
The organization Protect Democracy gives a good explanation of PR and shows PR ballots for open (party) list, closed list, mixed-member systems and Single Transferable Vote (STV, a ranked voting method).  

On the same webpage, following the PR ballots, is a 10-minute Vox video, Why US elections only give you two choices, which explains the problem with winner-take-all elections and shows how each type of PR solves the problem. This video can also be viewed on YouTube with the same title.



Irish schoolkids make STV easy to understand
In this 5-minute video, Irish schoolchildren represent ballots to visually show how to count votes in a 3-winner STV election.

The next three links pertain to the city of Portland, Oregon’s  2024 City Council election using STV


Cambridge's PR lessons for Portland
An article about PR for the public’s education prior to their STV City Council election in 2024

Demonstrating PR with 4 different colors of candy
A 7-minute video explaining how Portland’s Council election will result in PR



Post-election analysis
The Data and Democracy Lab’s study of the 2024 Portland City Council election

 

The links below are materials the LWVBC Voting Methods Team created about PR and are available on the team’s webpage:
lwvbc.org > Issues > Voting Methods


Proportional Representation: Why It Matters and How Voting Methods Can Get Us There (video) (35 min)



Proportional Multi-Winner Voting Methods (tri-fold pamphlet)

Multi-Winner Elections: Working Toward Proportional Representation (slides)

Proportional Representation: What it is and why it matters (video) (30 min),Proportional Representation (slides)

 


If you want further information about adopting, implementing, and/or using a voting method that will achieve Proportional Representation, please contact us at vmteam@lwvbc.org