• Skua@kbin.earth
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    18 hours ago

    No, it isn’t.

    Mixed member proportional has regional list candidates that compensate parties that are underrepresented in seats compared to their popular vote within that region. Regardless of how your preferred candidate does, your vote affects the regional results. New Zealand uses this at a national level, and Germany and the UK both have it in some sub-national elections

    Party list proportional has you vote for a party rather than a candidate, and each party gets a number of seats proportional to the number of votes. If your preferred party doesn’t win, they still get some seats. If they do win, your vote still gets them more seats. Absolutely loads of countries do this method.

    In a single transferable vote system, you rank the candidates. If candidates get enough first-choice votes to meet a given threshold, they’re elected. Any surplus votes go towards the voter’s next choice, potentially electing them. If your first choice is the least-popular, they’re eliminated and your vote goes to your next choice. Either way, the vote isn’t wasted. Ireland and Australia use this.