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Mixed-member proportional representation
Type of mixed electoral system / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system which combines local majoritarian elections with a compensatory tier of party list votes, which are used to allocate additional members in a way that aims to produce proportional representation overall. In most MMP systems, voters get two votes: one to decide the representative for their single-seat constituency, and one for a political party. Some countries use single vote variants of MMP, although this article focuses primarily on dual vote versions of MMP.
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Seats in the legislature are filled first by the successful constituency candidates, and second, by party candidates based on the percentage of nationwide or region-wide votes that each party received.[1][2][3] The constituency representatives are usually elected using first-past-the-post voting (FPTP). The nationwide or regional party representatives are, in most jurisdictions, drawn from published party lists, similar to party-list proportional representation. To gain a nationwide representative, parties may be required to achieve a minimum number of constituency seats, a minimum percentage of the nationwide party vote, or both.
MMP differs from parallel voting in that the nationwide seats are allocated to political parties in a compensatory manner in order to achieve proportional election results. Under MMP, two parties that each receive 25% of the votes end up with about 25% of the seats, even if one party wins more constituency seats than the other. Depending on the exact system implemented in a country and the results of a particular election, the proportionality of an election may vary.[4] Overhang seats may reduce the proportionality of the system, although this can be compensated for by allocating additional party list seats to cover any proportionality gap.[5]
MMP was first used to elect representatives to the German Bundestag, and has been adopted by New Zealand and others, with modifications.