PRO-POST combines the best of PROportional Representation, used
in some countries where each vote counts, and First-Past-The-Post,
our current Canadian system where each riding has its own
member.
By way of example, I applied my approach to the last federal
election in British Columbia and composed the
following tables [see linked Excel document
below] Table 1 (RESULTS) shows the actual election
results by riding with votes won for each candidate and percentage
of these votes in the respective ridings. Table 2 (PARTIES) shows a
summary of all votes cast in the province, the seats actually won
in the last election and the seats which would have been allocated
to parties if my proposal had been in place. Table 3 (SEATS) shows
the ranking of all candidates by percentages attained in their own
ridings and the actual and proposed distribution of seats among
them. You may note that 24 out of the 34 seats would have been won
by the same candidates. This is a fairly high percentage if one
considers that one party had to vacate 37% of its seats.
The determination of the final allocation of seats is
accomplished by sorting the election results. On page PARTIES by
party names and totalling total of votes won by each party, on page
SEATS by percentage of votes attained by each candidate and
allocating seats to each candidate going down the list, as long as
his/her party still has a seat available and his/her district has
not yet been allocated above. Each candidate who has been allocated
a seat will have his/her line colour coded in red or green (P).
Copying the page back to the RESULTS page and resorting them by
line number (Column A) results in the original results data but now
with the allocations clearly shown. I also colour coded the actual,
but not proposed results in black (A) and proposed in green
(P).
By the way, it may happen that one less seat is allocated than
available. This is due to the fact that seats are won by dividing
the party results by all valid votes cast. So 13.49 will result in
13 seats and 13.51 in 14. If 1 seat is left, the results of all
parties are looked at and the extra seat allocated to the party
whose decimal result is closest to .50.
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