End winner-take-all elections where only one person wins, and make seats match the share of votes each party gets
In short
- Parliament seats are made to match the share of votes each party gets.
- The system where only the top vote-getter in each district wins and every other vote is wasted is dropped.
- Each voter casts two votes: one for a local representative and one for a party.
- Voters choose who gets in from within a party, not just follow the order the party sets.
- An independent committee, not the politicians who hold seats now, designs the new system.
If this comes true
On election night in a community hall in a mountain town, a retired postal worker whose votes for twenty years never turned into a single seat sees two seats go to the small party he chose, and he claps hands with his daughter beside him.
Perhaps
No party may reach a majority, coalition talks may drag on, and the budget to rebuild an elementary school across the river might stay undecided for half a year.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
This covers elections for the national parliament and for large local assemblies. Societies that mainly use a system where only the top vote-getter in each district wins would move to a system where the share of seats does not stray far from each party's share of votes. The exact form can differ from society to society, but two types are the basis. One gives each person two votes, one in a single-member district to choose a local representative and one for a party, and then hands out extra seats according to the party vote to close the overall gap. The other widens the districts so that several people are chosen from each one, and seats are split according to the votes. In both cases, closed lists, where the party alone decides the order of names, are not used. Instead, lists are open: voters also cast votes for individuals within a party, and those personal votes can change who gets in. To keep very small parties from multiplying, a minimum vote share for winning seats may be set, but only up to a few percent, and no higher line may be used to shut out new parties. Special seats can remain for sparsely populated areas and for people who have historically gone unrepresented, such as indigenous peoples. The design of the change is not decided by sitting lawmakers voting alone. An independent committee chosen from outside the legislature drafts a plan, and it is decided after deliberation by citizens chosen by lot or a national vote. After two elections under the new system, the gap between votes and seats is measured and made public. Offices where only one person can be chosen, such as a president or a head of local government, are outside this proposal.
BenefitsEvery vote counts the same, wherever you live
When the share of seats gets close to the share of votes, the value of a vote almost stops changing with where a person lives. A farmer in the minority in a city and a young person in a conservative town can both feel that their vote leads to a seat in parliament, and the need to vote tactically for whoever looks likely to win shrinks. People can then vote for the ideas they truly support, and parliament mirrors the full range of opinion in society. A small party raising a new issue can speak in parliament once it gathers a certain level of support, so topics like climate, immigration, and the decline of rural areas are less likely to be pushed back for the convenience of big parties. Parties also have to go after votes everywhere in the country, not only in close districts, so people living in safe strongholds are less likely to be ignored. Open lists make it easier for people backed by voters, rather than people favored by party leaders, to win, which also lets fresh air into the parties. The situation in which one party holds all power on thirty-some percent of the votes disappears, and because big decisions need agreement among several parties, policy swings less sharply each time the government changes.
DrawbacksVoters find it harder to decide who governs
If seats are split by share, it becomes rare for one party to win a majority, and the government is decided by deals between parties after the election. Voters can choose a party, but at the time of voting they cannot know which parties will team up, who will be prime minister, or which promises will be dropped. It can really happen that no government forms for months after an election, or that a small party holding the key to a coalition wields more power than its votes. Even if people are unhappy with the government, responsibility is spread across several parties, so it is hard to clearly push a particular party out at an election, and the same party may stay in power by changing its partners. The lower the minimum vote share is kept, the more parties with extreme views can gain a foothold in parliament, and the greater the danger that they push through extreme demands as the price of joining a coalition. Ties with a local representative also weaken, and some people may find it unclear whom to turn to about problems in their own area. It is certainly true that winner-take-all has strengths that are hard to give up: clear responsibility and quick decisions.
Learn the background
When only one person is chosen from each district, every vote for anyone but the winner leads to no seat at all. In societies that use this system, it happens again and again that a party with only about thirty-some percent of the votes takes a majority in parliament, or that a party that wins more than ten percent of votes nationwide gets almost no seats. The people who suffer are those who are in the minority where they live. People who back a rural party in a city, or a city party in the countryside, young people who raise new issues, and minority peoples scattered across regions go through election after election feeling that their votes do not count. As a result, more people avoid candidates who cannot win and vote for the "less bad" one, or stop voting altogether, and the faces in parliament drift away from the real range of views in society. On top of that, parties pay attention only to voters in the few close districts that decide who wins, while the voices of people in safe strongholds are treated lightly. An election system looks like a neutral tool, but because it decides whose votes carry meaning, this is a question of equality.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-20b) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes