Condorcet methods
107-589: The Federal Assembly is the federal bicameral parliament of Switzerland . It comprises the 200-seat National Council and the 46-seat Council of States . It meets in Bern in the Federal Palace . The houses have identical powers. Members of both houses represent the cantons , but, whereas seats in the National Council are distributed in proportion to population, each canton has two seats in
214-483: A Senate and a Chamber of Deputies : Buenos Aires , Catamarca , Corrientes , Entre Ríos , Mendoza , Salta , San Luis (since 1987) and Santa Fe . Tucumán and Córdoba changed to unicameral systems in 1990 and 2001 respectively. Santiago del Estero changed to a bicameral legislature in 1884, but changed back to a unicameral system in 1903. When the Australian states were founded as British colonies in
321-672: A United Federal Assembly in certain circumstances, such as to elect the Federal Council (the head of government and state ), the Federal Chancellor , the federal judges or (only in times of great national danger) a general . Prior to the establishment of the federal state in 1848, the only central organ of Switzerland was the Federal Diet ( Tagsatzung ). Following the Sonderbund War in 1847,
428-484: A concurrent majority —the approval of a majority of members in each of the chambers of the legislature. When this is the case, the legislature may be called an example of perfect bicameralism . However, in many parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, the house to which the executive is responsible (e.g. House of Commons of the UK and National Assembly of France ) can overrule the other house (e.g. House of Lords of
535-670: A blend or hybrid of the Westminster and the United States systems of government , especially since the Australian Senate is a powerful upper house like the U.S. Senate; this notion is expressed in the nickname "the Washminster mutation". Unlike upper houses in most Westminster parliamentary systems , the Australian Senate is vested with significant power, including the capacity to block legislation initiated by
642-585: A candidate-based PR system, has only rarely been used to elect more than 21 in a single contest. Some PR systems use at-large pooling or regional pooling in conjunction with single-member districts (such as the New Zealand MMP and the Scottish additional member system ). Other PR systems use at-large pooling in conjunction with multi-member districts ( Scandinavian countries ). Pooling is used to allocate leveling seats (top-up) to compensate for
749-536: A compromise was found by adopting the American model of bicameralism ; the parliament will be composed of two chambers with equal power, and the agreement of both will be required to take a decision. The National Council , which represents the people, will comprise representatives from each canton with their distribution being proportional to the population of the cantons, while the Council of States , which represents
856-475: A few list-PR systems). A country-wide pooling of votes to elect more than a hundred members is used in Angola, for example. Where PR is desired at the municipal level, a city-wide at-large districting is sometimes used, to allow as large a district magnitude as possible. For large districts, party-list PR is often used, but even when list PR is used, districts sometimes contain fewer than 40 or 50 members. STV,
963-636: A formal group in order to be able to sit on a committee. Since March 2009, there have been six groups in the Federal Assembly. The latest group to form was the Conservative Democratic Party which split off the Swiss People's Party in 2008. The Christian Democrats/EPP/glp Group (CEg) was formed after the 2007 elections, out of the former Christian Democratic (C) and EPP (E) groups. The current FTP/Liberal group (RL)
1070-592: A large elected lower house, and (unlike Britain) a smaller upper house. The Founding Fathers of the United States also favoured a bicameral legislature. The idea was to have the Senate be wealthier and wiser. Benjamin Rush saw this though, and noted that "this type of dominion is almost always connected with opulence". The Senate was created to be a stabilising force, not elected by mass electors, but selected by
1177-632: A more democratic proportional legislature. For states considering a different constitutional arrangement that may shift power to new groupings, bicameralism could be demanded by currently hegemonic groups who would otherwise prevent any structural shift (e.g. military dictatorships, aristocracies). The growing awareness of the complexity of the notion of representation and the multi-functional nature of modern legislatures may be affording incipient new rationales for second chambers, though these do generally remain contested institutions in ways that first chambers are not. An example of political controversy regarding
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#17327731569181284-480: A number of seats roughly based on its population size (see degressive proportionality ) and in each member state, the election must also be held using a PR system (with proportional results based on vote share). The most widely used families of PR electoral systems are party-list PR, used in 85 countries; mixed-member PR (MMP), used in 7 countries; and the single transferable vote (STV), used in Ireland, Malta,
1391-568: A reform that could address many legislative and budgetary problems for states. Proportional representation Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results Proportional representation ( PR ) refers to any type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in
1498-530: A relevant field of legislation. Though the European Union has a highly unusual character in terms of legislature, one could say that the closest point of equivalency lies within bicameral legislatures. The European Union is considered neither a country nor a state, but it enjoys the power to address national Governments in many areas. In a few countries, bicameralism involves the juxtaposition of democratic and aristocratic elements. The best known example
1605-520: A second chamber has been the debate over the powers of the Senate of Canada or the election of the Senate of France . Bicameral legislatures as a result have been trending down for some time with unicameral , proportional legislatures seen as more democratic and effective. The relationship between the two chambers varies: in some cases, they have equal power, while in others, one chamber (the directly elected lower house with proportional representation )
1712-455: A single group. As of 2022 , roughly 40% of the world's national legislatures are bicameral, while unicameralism represents 60% nationally and much more at the subnational level. Often, the members of the two chambers are elected or selected by different methods, which vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This can often lead to the two chambers having very different compositions of members. Enactment of primary legislation often requires
1819-536: Is a bicameral legislative body. The House of Representatives has 98 delegates, elected for four-year terms by proportional representation. The House of Peoples has 58 members, 17 delegates from among each of the constituent peoples of the Federation, and 7 delegates from among the other peoples. Republika Srpska , the other entity, has a unicameral parliament, known as the National Assembly , but there
1926-504: Is allocated seats based on its party share. Some party-list PR systems use overall country-wide vote counts; others count vote shares in separate parts of the country and allocate seats in each part according to that specific vote count. Some use both. List PR involves parties in the election process. Voters do not primarily vote for candidates (persons), but for electoral lists (or party lists ), which are lists of candidates that parties put forward. The mechanism that allocates seats to
2033-531: Is also a Council of Peoples who is de facto the other legislative house. Only 6 of the 36 states or Union Territories of India have bicameral legislatures, Andhra Pradesh , Bihar , Karnataka , Maharashtra , Telangana , and Uttar Pradesh , while the rest all have unicameral legislatures. The lower houses are called Legislative Assemblies , and their members are elected by universal adult suffrage from single-member constituencies in state elections, which are normally held every five years called Vidhana Sabha. In
2140-420: Is also randomness – a party that receives more votes than another party might not win more seats than the other. Any such dis-proportionality produced by the district elections is addressed, where possible, by the allocation of the compensatory additional members. (Number of districts won) (party-list PR seats) under MMP MMP gives only as many compensatory seats to a party as they need to have
2247-408: Is appointed when the two chambers cannot agree on the same wording of a proposal, and consists of a small number of legislators from each chamber. This tends to place much power in the hands of only a small number of legislators. Whatever legislation, if any, the conference committee finalizes is presented in an unamendable "take-it-or-leave-it" manner by both chambers. During his term as governor of
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#17327731569182354-535: Is called the House of Representatives and the upper house is named the Senate . As of 31 August 2017, the lower house has 151 members, each elected from single-member constituencies, known as electoral divisions (commonly referred to as "electorates" or "seats") using full-preference instant-runoff voting . This tends to lead to the chamber being dominated by two major groups, the Liberal / National Coalition and
2461-449: Is clearly superior in its powers. The first tends to be the case in federal systems and those with presidential governments. The second tends to be the case in unitary states with parliamentary systems . There are two streams of thought: critics believe bicameralism makes meaningful political reforms more difficult to achieve and increases the risk of gridlock—particularly in cases where both chambers have similar powers—while proponents argue
2568-590: Is democratically elected every four years (constitutionally up to five years). In contrast, in Canada's upper house , Senators are appointed to serve until age 75 by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister through an Independent Advisory Board as of 2016. The government (i.e. executive) is responsible to and must maintain the confidence of the elected House of Commons. Although
2675-419: Is described here. The mixed-member proportional system combines single member plurality voting (SMP), also known as first-past-the-post (FPTP), with party-list PR in a way that the overall result of the election is supposed to be proportional. The voter may vote for a district candidate as well as a party. The main idea behind MMP is compensation , meaning that the list-PR seat allocation is not independent of
2782-466: Is elected using proportional representation while the lower house uses Instant-runoff voting in single member electorates. This is reversed in the state of Tasmania , where proportional representation is used for the lower house and single member electorates for the upper house . The Legislature of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina , one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina ,
2889-456: Is more complicated than first-past-the-post voting , but the following example shows how the vote count is performed and how proportionality is achieved in a district with 3 seats. In reality, districts usually elect more members than that in order to achieve more proportional results. A risk is that if the number of seats is larger than, for example, 10 seats, the ballot will be so large as to be inconvenient and voters may find it difficult to rank
2996-551: Is no need for a single office (e.g. a president, or mayor) to be elected proportionately if no votes are for parties (subgroups). In the European Parliament , for instance, each member state has a number of seats that is (roughly) proportional to its population, enabling geographical proportional representation. For these elections, all European Union (EU) countries also must use a proportional electoral system (enabling political proportional representation): When n % of
3103-489: Is not considered to make an electoral system "proportional" the way the term is usually used. For example, the US House of Representatives has 435 members, who each represent a roughly equal number of people; each state is allocated a number of members in accordance with its population size (aside from a minimum single seat that even the smallest state receives), thus producing equal representation by population. But members of
3210-576: Is the British House of Lords , which includes a number of hereditary peers . The House of Lords is a vestige of the aristocratic system that once predominated in British politics, while the other house, the House of Commons , is entirely elected. Over the years, some have proposed reforms to the House of Lords, some of which have been at least partly successful. The House of Lords Act 1999 limited
3317-580: Is used with 5-member districts, it is common for successful candidates to receive 16.6 percent of the vote in the district. This produces a high effective threshold in the districts, and the country maintains a very strong two-party system. However, about 4000 voters in a district would be enough to elect a third-party candidate if voters desired but this seldom happens. Conversely, New South Wales, which uses STV to elect its legislative council in 21-seat contests, sees election of representatives of seven or eight parties each time. In this election about 1/22nd of
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3424-653: The Australian Senate , and Indian Rajya Sabha . Proportional representation systems are used at all levels of government and are also used for elections to non-governmental bodies, such as corporate boards . All PR systems require multi-member election contests, meaning votes are pooled to elect multiple representatives at once. Pooling may be done in various multi-member voting districts (in STV and most list-PR systems) or in single countrywide – a so called at-large – district (in only
3531-482: The Autonomous Communities to reform it into a strictly territorial chamber. The European Union maintains a somewhat close to bicameral legislative system consisting of the European Parliament , which is elected in elections on the basis of universal suffrage, and the Council of the European Union , which consists of one representative for each government of member countries, who are competent for
3638-554: The British Parliament has been the model for most other parliamentary systems, and its Acts have created many other parliaments. The origins of British bicameralism can be traced to 1341, when the Commons met separately from the nobility and clergy for the first time, creating what was effectively an Upper Chamber and a Lower Chamber, with the knights and burgesses sitting in the latter. This Upper Chamber became known as
3745-589: The Crossbenches and given a life peerage. Until 2009, 12 Lords of Appeal in Ordinary sat in the House as the highest court in the land; they subsequently became justices of the newly created Supreme Court of the United Kingdom . As of 16 February 2021, 803 people sit in the House of Lords, with 92 Hereditary Peers, 26 Lords Spiritual and 685 Life Peers. Membership is not fixed and decreases only on
3852-568: The Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (appointed by the Federal Council ). Parties can cooperate in parliamentary groups , also called political groups , allowing smaller parties access to rights as part of a caucus . At least five members from the same Council are needed to form a group. Only informal groups exist in the Council of States . Members of the National Council are required to be in
3959-759: The Great Compromise , the Founding Fathers invented a new rationale for bicameralism in which the Senate had an equal number of delegates per state, and the House had representatives by relative populations. A formidable sinister interest may always obtain the complete command of a dominant assembly by some chance and for a moment, and it is therefore of great use to have a second chamber of an opposite sort, differently composed, in which that interest in all likelihood will not rule. Federal states have often adopted it as an awkward compromise between existing power held equally by each state or territory and
4066-640: The House of Lords from 1544 onward, and the Lower Chamber became known as the House of Commons , collectively known as the Houses of Parliament . Many nations with parliaments have to some degree emulated the British "three-tier" model. Most countries in Europe and the Commonwealth have similarly organised parliaments with a largely ceremonial head of state who formally opens and closes parliament,
4173-608: The Labor Party . The government of the day must achieve the confidence of this House to gain and hold power. The upper house, the Senate, is also popularly elected, under the single transferable vote system of proportional representation . There are a total of 76 senators: 12 senators are elected from each of the 6 Australian states (regardless of population) and 2 from each of the 2 autonomous internal territories (the Australian Capital Territory and
4280-666: The Northern Territory ). This makes the total number 76, i.e. 6×12 + 2×2. In many respects, Australia is a unique hybrid with influences from the United States Constitution , as well as from the traditions and conventions of the Westminster system and some indigenous features. Australia is exceptional in this sense because the government faces a fully elected upper house, the Senate , which must be willing to pass all its legislation. Although only
4387-615: The Tagsatzung became responsible for drawing up the Swiss Federal Constitution . The process of formulating legislative power resulted in clashing opinions, in particular in relation to the representation of the various cantons: the radicals , in the majority in the largest cantons , pushed for a system where representation was purely proportional to the population of each township; the small cantons, for their part, feared being marginalized. After long debates,
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4494-413: The United States , link their bicameral systems to their federal political structure. In the United States, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, and Nepal for example, each state or province is given the same number of seats in one of the houses of the legislature, despite variance between the populations of the states or provinces. The bicameral Parliament of Australia consists of two Houses: the lower house
4601-656: The government . Another similar situation are cross-community votes in Northern Ireland when the petition of concern procedure is invoked. Norway had a kind of semi-bicameral legislature with two chambers, or departments, within the same elected body, the Storting . These were called the Lagting and the Odelsting, and were abolished after the general election of 2009. According to Morten Søberg , there
4708-477: The governor-general : however, this is generally considered a last resort and is a highly controversial decision to take, given the conflict between the traditional concept of confidence as derived from the lower house and the ability of the Senate to block supply (see 1975 Australian constitutional crisis ). Many political scientists have held that the Australian system of government was consciously devised as
4815-413: The 19th century, they each had a bicameral Parliament. The lower house was traditionally elected based on the one-vote-one-value principle, with universal male suffrage, later expanded to women, whereas the upper house was either appointed on the advice of the government or elected, with a strong bias towards country voters and landowners. After Federation , these became the state Parliaments. In Queensland,
4922-543: The 200-seat legislature as large as in the examples that follow, about 67 three-seat districts would be used. Districts with more seats would provide more proportional results – one form of STV in Australia uses a district with 21 members being elected at once. With a larger district magnitude, it is more likely that more than two parties will have some of their candidates elected. For example, in Malta , where STV
5029-653: The Appointment Commission (the independent body that vets non-partisan peers, typically from academia, business or culture) or by Dissolution Honours, which take place at the end of every Parliamentary term when leaving MPs may be offered a seat to keep their institutional memory. It is traditional to offer a peerage to every outgoing Speaker of the House of Commons. Further reform of the Lords has been proposed; however, no proposed reforms have been able to achieve public consensus or government support. Members of
5136-583: The Commons. The Senate's power to investigate issues of concern to Canada can raise their profile (sometimes sharply) on voters' political agendas. In German, Indian, and Pakistani systems, the upper houses (the Bundesrat , the Rajya Sabha , and the Senate respectively) are even more closely linked with the federal system, being appointed or elected directly by the governments or legislatures of each German or Indian state , or Pakistani province . This
5243-469: The Council of States, except the six ' half-cantons ', which have one seat each. Both are elected in full once every four years, with the last election being held in 2023. The Federal Assembly possesses the federal government's legislative power , along with the separate constitutional right of citizen's initiative . For a law to pass, it must be passed by both houses. The two houses may come together as
5350-479: The Framers to grant the Senate prerogatives in foreign policy, an area where steadiness, discretion, and caution were deemed especially important. State legislators chose the Senate, and senators had to possess significant property to be deemed worthy and sensible enough for the position. In 1913, the 17th Amendment passed, which mandated choosing Senators by popular vote rather than State legislatures. As part of
5457-493: The German Bundesrat , the various Länder have between three and six votes; thus, while the less populated states have a lower weight, they still have a stronger voting power than would be the case in a system based proportionately on population, as the most populous Land currently has about 27 times the population of the least populous . The Indian upper house does not have the states represented equally, but on
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#17327731569185564-510: The House are elected in single-member districts generally through first-past-the-post elections : a single-winner contest does not produce proportional representation as it has only one winner. Conversely, the representation achieved under PR electoral systems is typically proportional to a district's population size (seats per set amount of population), votes cast (votes per winner), and party vote share (in party-based systems such as party-list PR ). The European Parliament gives each member state
5671-624: The House of Lords all have an aristocratic title, or are from the Clergy . 26 Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England sit as Lords Spiritual (the Archbishop of Canterbury , Archbishop of York , the Bishop of London , the Bishop of Durham , the Bishop of Winchester and the next 21 longest-serving Bishops). It is usual that retiring Archbishops, and certain other Bishops, are appointed to
5778-485: The House to sit as representative peers sit for life; when a representative peer dies, there is a by-election to fill the vacancy. The power of the House of Lords to block legislation is curtailed by the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 . Peers can introduce bills except Money Bills, and all legislation must be passed by both Houses of Parliament . If not passed within two sessions, the House of Commons can override
5885-514: The Lords' delay by invoking the Parliament Act . Certain legislation, however, must be approved by both Houses without being forced by the Commons under the Parliament Act . These include any bill that would extend the time length of a Parliament, private bills, bills sent to the House of Lords less than one month before the end of a session, and bills that originated in the House of Lords. Life Peers are appointed either by recommendation of
5992-452: The State legislators. Senators would be more knowledgeable and more deliberate—a sort of republican nobility—and a counter to what James Madison saw as the "fickleness and passion" that could absorb the House. He noted further that "The use of the Senate is to consist in its proceeding with more coolness, with more system and with more wisdom, than the popular branch." Madison's argument led
6099-502: The State of Minnesota , Jesse Ventura proposed converting the Minnesotan legislature to a single chamber with proportional representation , as a reform that he felt would solve many legislative difficulties and impinge upon legislative corruption. In his book on political issues, Do I Stand Alone? , Ventura argued that bicameral legislatures for provincial and local areas were excessive and unnecessary, and discussed unicameralism as
6206-519: The UK and Senate of France) and may be regarded as an example of imperfect bicameralism . Some legislatures lie in between these two positions, with one house able to overrule the other only under certain circumstances. The British Parliament is often referred to as the " Mother of Parliaments " (in fact a misquotation of John Bright , who remarked in 1865 that "England is the Mother of Parliaments") because
6313-670: The US House of Representatives). Votes and seats often cannot be mathematically perfectly allocated, so some amount of rounding has to be done. The various methods deal with this in different ways, although the difference is reduced if there are many seats – for example, if the whole country is one district. Party-list PR is also more complicated in reality than in the example, as countries often use more than one district, multiple tiers (e.g. local, regional and national), open lists or an electoral threshold . This can mean that final seat allocations are frequently not proportional to
6420-433: The absence or insufficient number of leveling seats (in list PR, MMP or AMS) may produce disproportionality. Other sources are electoral tactics that may be used in certain systems, such as party splitting in some MMP systems. Nonetheless, PR systems approximate proportionality much better than other systems and are more resistant to gerrymandering and other forms of manipulation. Proportional representation refers to
6527-535: The appointed upper house was abolished in 1922, while in New South Wales there were similar attempts at abolition, before the upper house was reformed in the 1970s to provide for direct election. Beginning in the 1970s, Australian states (except Queensland, which is unicameral) began to reform their upper houses to introduce proportional representation in line with the Federal Senate. The first
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#17327731569186634-502: The basis of their population. There is also bicameralism in countries that are not federations, but have upper houses with representation on a territorial basis. For example, in South Africa, the National Council of Provinces (and before 1997, the Senate ) has its members chosen by each province 's legislature. In Spain, the Senate functions as a de facto territorially based upper house, and there has been some pressure from
6741-412: The candidates determine the winner. This is done using a preferential ballot . The ranking is used to instruct election officials of how the vote should be transferred in case the first preference is marked for an un-electable candidate or for an already elected candidate. Each voter casts one vote and the district used elects multiple members (more than one, usually 3 to 7). Because parties play no role in
6848-658: The cantons, will be composed of the same number of representatives from each canton. According to the Constitution of 1848 , the Federal Assembly is "the supreme authority of the Confederation". The Tagsatzung accepted the draft constitution in June 1848. On September 12, following the vote of the various cantons, it noted that the Constitution had been approved and dissolved itself on September 22, as required by
6955-591: The chambers, it may happen that a Government has a strong majority (usually) in the Chamber of Deputies and a weak one (or no majority at all) in the Senate. This has led sometimes to legislative deadlocks, and has caused instability in the Italian Government. In some of these countries, the upper house is indirectly elected. Members of France's Senate and Ireland's Seanad Éireann are chosen by electoral colleges . In Ireland, it consists of members of
7062-510: The context of voting systems, PR means that each representative in an assembly is elected by a roughly equal number of voters. In the common case of electoral systems that only allow a choice of parties, the seats are allocated in proportion to the vote tally or vote share each party receives. The term proportional representation may be used to mean fair representation by population as applied to states, regions, etc. However, representation being proportional with respect solely to population size
7169-714: The death, retirement or resignation of a peer. Another example of aristocratic bicameralism was the Japanese House of Peers , abolished after World War II and replaced with the present House of Councillors . Many unitary states like Italy , France , the Netherlands , the Philippines , the Czech Republic , the Republic of Ireland and Romania have bicameral systems. In countries such as these,
7276-529: The disproportional results produced in single-member districts using FPTP or to increase the fairness produced in multi-member districts using list PR. PR systems that achieve the highest levels of proportionality tend to use as general pooling as possible (typically country-wide) or districts with large numbers of seats. Due to various factors, perfect proportionality is rarely achieved under PR systems. The use of electoral thresholds (in list PR or MMP), small districts with few seats in each (in STV or list PR), or
7383-504: The elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions ( political parties ) among voters. The essence of such systems is that all votes cast – or almost all votes cast – contribute to the result and are effectively used to help elect someone. Under other election systems, a bare plurality or a scant majority are all that are used to elect candidates. PR systems provide balanced representation to different factions, reflecting how votes are cast. In
7490-410: The election are as follows (popular vote). Under party-list PR, every party gets a number of seats proportional to their share of the popular vote. This is done by a proportional formula or method; for example, the Sainte-Laguë method – these are the same methods that may be used to allocate seats for geographic proportional representation (for example, how many seats each states gets in
7597-432: The electorate support a particular political party or set of candidates as their favourite, then roughly n % of seats are allotted to that party or those candidates. All PR systems aim to provide some form of equal representation for votes but may differ in their approaches on how they achieve this. Party-list PR is the most commonly used version of proportional representation. Voters cast votes for parties and each party
7704-450: The example below, the Droop quota is used and so any candidate who earns more than 25 percent of the vote is declared elected. Note that it is only possible for 3 candidates to each achieve that quota. In the first count, the first preference (favourite candidate) marked on each of the ballots is counted. Candidates whose vote tally equals or passes the quota are declared elected as shown in
7811-497: The example below. (first preferences) Next, surplus votes belonging to those already elected, votes the candidates received above the quota (votes that they did not need to be elected), are transferred to the next preference marked by the voters who voted for them. Continuing the example, suppose that all voters who marked first preference for Jane Doe marked John Citizen as their second choice. Based on this, Jane Doe's surplus votes are transferred to John Citizen, John Citizen passes
7918-408: The first Federal Council. In 1874, following the revision of the Constitution and the introduction of extended popular rights, the Federal Assembly became "the supreme authority of the Confederation subject to the rights of the people and the cantons". The organization of the two councils has changed little over time. When the National Council was created, the total number of seats was 111. This number
8025-530: The general principle found in any electoral system in which the popularly chosen subgroups (parties) of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. To achieve that intended effect, proportional electoral systems need to either have more than one seat in each district (e.g. single transferable vote ), or have some form of compensatory seats (e.g. mixed-member proportional representation apportionment methods ). A legislative body (e.g. assembly, parliament) may be elected proportionally, whereas there
8132-582: The government in the House of Representatives. This block can however be overridden in a joint sitting after a double dissolution election, at which the House of Representatives has the dominant numbers.As a result of proportional representation, the chamber features a multitude of parties vying for power. The governing party in the lower house rarely has a majority in the Senate, and so generally needs to negotiate with other parties and independents to get legislation passed. This variant of bicameralism has also been further explored by Tarunabh Khaitan, who coined
8239-665: The government. The passage of these motions, bills or amendments to government motions or bills requires double majority in both groups simultaneously. (Before 2004, when elections to the Legislative Council from the Election Committee was abolished, members returned through the Election Committee vote with members returned from geographical constituencies.) The double majority requirement does not apply to motions, bills and amendments introduced by
8346-625: The lower house, local councillors, the Taoiseach , and graduates of selected universities, while the Netherlands' Senate is chosen by members of provincial assemblies (who, in turn, are directly elected). In Hong Kong , members of the unicameral Legislative Council returned from the democratically elected geographical constituencies and partially democratic functional constituencies are required to vote separately since 1998 on motions, bills or amendments to government bills not introduced by
8453-493: The lower house, the House of Representatives, can hold a no-confidence vote against the government, in practice the support of the Senate is also necessary in order to govern. The Senate maintains the ability similar to that held by the British House of Lords, prior to the enactment of the Parliament Act 1911 , to block supply against the government of the day. A government that is unable to obtain supply can be dismissed by
8560-401: The many candidates, although 21 are elected through STV in some elections with no great difficulty. (In many STV systems, voters are not required to mark more choices than desired. Even if all voters marked only one preference, the resulting representation would be more balanced than under single-winner FPTP.) Under STV, an amount that guarantees election is set, which is called the quota . In
8667-430: The merits of the " checks and balances " provided by the bicameral model, which they believe help prevent ill-considered legislation. Formal communication between houses is by various methods, including: Some countries, such as Argentina , Australia , Austria , Belgium , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Brazil , Canada , Germany , India , Malaysia , Mexico , Nepal , Nigeria , Pakistan , Russia , Switzerland , and
8774-676: The number of hereditary peers (as opposed to life peers , appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister ) to 92, down from around 700. Of these 92, one is the Earl Marshal , a hereditary office always held by the Duke of Norfolk , one is the Lord Great Chamberlain , a hereditary office held by turns, currently by Baron Carrington , and the other 90 are elected by all sitting peers . Hereditary peers elected by
8881-491: The number of seats of each party be proportional. Another way to say this is that MMP focuses on making the outcome proportional. Compare the MMP example to a mixed-member majoritarian system, where the party-list PR seat allocation is independent of the district results (this is also called parallel voting ). There is no compensation (no regard to how the district seats were filled) when allocating party-list seats so as to produce
8988-419: The parties' vote share. The single transferable vote is an older method than party-list PR, and it does not need to formally involve parties in the election process. Instead of parties putting forward ordered lists of candidates from which winners are drawn in some order, candidates run by name, each voter marks preferences for candidates, with only one marked preference used to place the vote, and votes cast for
9095-408: The parties/lists is how these systems achieve proportionality. Once this is done, the candidates who take the seats are based on the order in which they appear on the list. This is the basic, closed list version of list PR. An example election where the assembly has 200 seats to be filled is presented below. Every voter casts their vote for the list created by their favourite party and the results of
9202-511: The party's seats. 81 percent of the voters saw their first choice elected. At least 15 percent of them (the Doe first, Citizen second voters) saw both their first and second choices elected – there were likely more than 15 percent if some "Citizen first" votes gave their second preference to Doe. Every voter had satisfaction of seeing someone of the party they support elected in the district. for candidates of party Under STV, to make up
9309-513: The phrase "Moderated Parliamentarism" to describe a parliamentary system with several distinctive features: mixed bicameralism, moderated (but distinct) electoral systems for each chamber, weighted multipartisanship, asynchronous electoral schedules, and deadlock resolution through conference committees. Canada's elected lower house, the House of Commons , comprises Members of Parliament (MPs) from single-member "ridings" based mainly on population (updated every 10 years using Census data). The Commons
9416-409: The quota and so is declared elected to the third and last seat that had to be filled. Even if all of Fred Rubble's surplus had gone to Mary Hill, the vote transfer plus Hill's original votes would not add up to quota. Party B did not have two quotas of votes so was not due two seats, while Party A was. It is possible, in realistic STV elections, for a candidate to win without quota if they are still in
9523-528: The results of the district level voting. First-past-the-post is a single winner system and cannot be proportional (winner-takes-all), so these disproportionalities are compensated by the party-list component. A simple, yet common version of MMP has as many list-PR seats as there are single-member districts. In the example it can be seen, as is often the case in reality, that the results of the district elections are highly disproportional: large parties typically win more seats than they should proportionally, but there
9630-421: The running when the field of candidates has thinned to the number of remaining open seats. In this example, the district result is balanced party-wise. No one party took all the seats, as frequently happens under FPTP or other non-proportional voting systems. The result is fair – the most popular party took two seats; the less popular party took just one. The most popular candidates in each party won
9737-405: The six parliamentary groups are composed as follows: After the 2015 federal election , the Federal Assembly was composed of 7 groups: Bicameralism Bicameralism is a type of legislature that is divided into two separate assemblies , chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature . Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism , in which all members deliberate and vote as
9844-654: The six states with bicameral legislatures, the upper house is called the Legislative Council ( Vidhan Parishad ) or Vidhana Parishat, one-third of whose members are elected every two years. Members of the Legislative Council are elected in various ways: From 1956 to 1958 the Andhra Pradesh Legislature was unicameral. In 1958, when the State Legislative Council was formed, it became bicameral until 1 June 1985 when it
9951-451: The transitional provisions of the approved text. During the month of October 1848, elections were organized in the cantons in order to elect the deputies. After a few skirmishes, particularly in the canton of Fribourg, the results were announced which confirmed the victory of the radicals, who won more than three-quarters of the seats in the National Council and 30 of the 44 seats in the Council of States. On, November 16 1848, Parliament elected
10058-530: The two chambers are composed: the deputies, in fact, are elected on a nationwide basis, whilst the members of the Senate are elected on a regional basis: this may lead to different majorities among the two chambers because, for example, a party may be the first nationally but second or third in some regions. Considering that in the Italian Republic the Government needs to win confidence votes in both
10165-418: The two chambers formally have many of the same powers, this accountability clearly makes the Commons dominant—determining which party is in power, approving its proposed budget, and (largely) the laws enacted. The Senate primarily acts as a chamber of revision: it rarely rejects bills passed by the Commons but does regularly amend them; such amendments respect each bill's purpose, so they are usually acceptable to
10272-399: The two houses sit jointly as the "United Federal Assembly" ( German : Vereinigte Bundesversammlung , French : Assemblée fédérale, Chambres réunies , Italian : Assemblea federale plenaria , Romansh : Assamblea federala plenara ). This is done to: The United Federal Assembly is presided by the National Council 's presidency. The Federal Assembly also confirms the appointment of
10379-625: The upper house generally focuses on scrutinizing and possibly vetoing the decisions of the lower house. On the other hand, in Italy the Parliament consists of two chambers that have the same role and power: the Senate (Senate of the Republic, commonly considered the upper house ) and the Chamber of Deputies (considered the lower house ). The main difference among the two chambers is the way
10486-433: The upper houses of their state legislatures . During the 1930s, the legislature of the State of Nebraska was reduced from bicameral to unicameral with the 43 members that once comprised that state's Senate. One of the arguments used to sell the idea at the time to Nebraska voters was that by adopting a unicameral system, the perceived evils of the " conference committee " process would be eliminated. A conference committee
10593-402: The vote count, STV may be used for nonpartisan elections, such as the city council of Cambridge, Massachusetts . A large proportion of the votes cast are used to actually elect someone so the result is mixed and balanced with no one voting block taking much more than its due share of the seats. Where party labels are indicated, proportionality party-wise is noticeable. Counting votes under STV
10700-481: The vote in the state is enough to take a seat, and seven or eight parties take at least that many votes, demonstrating a different voting pattern than Malta exhibits. Mixed-member proportional representation combines election of district members with election of additional members as compensatory top-up. Often MMP systems use single-member districts (SMDs) to elect district members. (Denmark, Iceland and Sweden use multi-member districts in their MMP systems.) MMP with SMDs
10807-744: Was a related system in the 1798 constitution of the Batavian Republic . In some countries with federal systems, individual states (like those of the United States , Argentina , Australia and India ) may also have bicameral legislatures. A few such states as Nebraska in the U.S., Queensland in Australia, Bavaria in Germany, and Tucumán and Córdoba in Argentina have later adopted unicameral systems. ( Brazilian states and Canadian provinces all abolished upper houses). Only 8 out of 24 provinces still have bicameral legislatures, with
10914-494: Was abolished. This continued until March 2007 when the State Legislative Council was reestablished and elections were held for its seats. In Tamil Nadu , a resolution was passed on 14 May 1986 and the state's Legislative Council was dissolved on 1 November 1986. Again on 12 April 2010, a resolution was passed to reestablish the council, but was ultimately unsuccessful. Similarly, the states of Assam , Jammu and Kashmir , Madhya Pradesh , Punjab , and West Bengal have also dissolved
11021-536: Was also the case in the United States before the Seventeenth Amendment was adopted. Because of this coupling to the executive branch , German legal doctrine does not treat the Bundesrat as the second chamber of a bicameral system formally. Rather, it sees the Bundesrat and the Bundestag as independent constitutional bodies. Only the directly elected Bundestag is considered the parliament. In
11128-660: Was formed in 2003 out of the former FDP (R) and Liberal (L) groups; since the 2009 fusion of the Free Democratic and Liberal Parties, RL is once again a single-party group. In 2011, the CEg was disbanded, the Green Liberals formed their own parliamentary group (GL) and the three Christian parties formed the Christian-Evangelical Group (CE). Currently (for the legislative period of 2019–2023),
11235-454: Was not fixed and evolved in proportion to the growth of the Swiss population until 1962 when the definitive number of seats was established at 200; the term of office, meanwhile, was increased from the original three years to four years in 1931. The mode of election, originally according to the majority system, transitioned to proportional representation in 1918. The Council of States, meanwhile,
11342-451: Was not modified until 1979, by adding two new seats for the Canton of Jura which had just been created. The Federal Assembly is made up of two chambers: Seats in the National Council are allocated to the cantons proportionally, based on population . In the Council of States , every canton has two seats (except for the former "half-cantons", which have one seat each). On occasions
11449-846: Was the South Australian Legislative Council in 1973, which initially used a party list system (replaced with STV in 1982), followed by the Single Transferable Vote being introduced for the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1978, the Western Australian Legislative Council in 1987 and the Victorian Legislative Council in 2003. Nowadays, the upper house both federally and in most states
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