Editing Electoral threshold (section)

== Recommendations for electoral thresholds ==
The [[Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe]] recommends for parliamentary elections a threshold not higher than three percent.<ref>[http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=17531&lang=en Resolution 1547 (2007), para. 58]</ref> 

For [[single transferable vote]], to produce representation for parties with approximately ten percent of the vote or more, John M. Carey and Simon Hix recommend a district magnitude of approximately six or more in the districts used.<ref>Carey and Hix, The Electoral Sweet Spot, p. 7</ref><ref name="CareyElecSweetSpot">{{cite journal|last1=Carey|first1=John M.|last2=Hix|first2=Simon|title=The Electoral Sweet Spot: Low-Magnitude Proportional Electoral Systems|journal=[[American Journal of Political Science]]|date=2011|volume=55|issue=2|pages=383–397|doi=10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00495.x|url=http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/25125/1/PSPE_WP1_09_%28LSERO%29.pdf|doi-access=free}}</ref> Support for a party is not homogenous across an electorate, so a party with ten percent of the general vote is expected to easily achieve the threshold in at least one district even if not in others. Most STV systems used today set the number of votes for the election of most members at the [[Droop quota]], which in a six-member district is 14 percent of the votes cast in the district. Carey and Hix note that increasing the DM past six lowers the natural threshold in the district only in small increments and deceasingly each time.<ref name="CareyElecSweetSpot" />