Editing Proportional representation (section)

===District magnitude===
Academics agree that the most important influence on proportionality is an electoral district's [[District magnitude|magnitude]], the number of representatives elected from the district. As magnitude increases, proportionality improves.<ref name="ideaEsd" />

At one extreme, where the district encompasses the entire country (and with a low [[electoral threshold]], highly proportionate representation of political parties can result), parties gain by broadening their appeal by nominating more minority and women candidates.<ref name="ideaEsd" />{{rp|83}} Very few countries elect using an at-large district{{Snd}}only the Netherlands, Israel, and a few others. Almost all PR systems use multi-member districts that divide the electorate while producing local representation. 

At the other extreme, the [[binomial voting|binomial electoral system]] used in [[Chile]] between 1989 and 2013,<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21643216-new-voting-system-should-liven-up-politics-tie-breaker |title=Electoral reform in Chile: Tie breaker |newspaper=The Economist |date=14 February 2015 |access-date=11 April 2018}}</ref> a nominally proportional open-list system, featured two-member districts. In some of those elections, a party with more than a quarter of the vote in a district was ignored. As well, overall it gave just one seat to a party with 5 percent of the vote. It is generally not considered a genuinely proportional system.<ref name="ideaEsd" />{{rp|79}}

Similar plans for very small districts that produce quasi- or semi-proportional representation have been proposed in the United States and United Kingdom.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}} 

Mollison's plan for STV in the UK proposes four- and five-member districts mostly, with three- and six-seat districts used as necessary to fit existing boundaries, and even two-seat and single-member districts used where geography dictates.<ref name="DMstvPdf" />{{Secondary source needed|date=May 2025}}

[[Politics of the Republic of Ireland|After the introduction of STV in Ireland]] in 1921, district magnitudes slowly diminished as more and more three-member constituencies were defined, benefiting the dominant [[Fianna Fáil]] party, until 1979, when an independent boundary commission was established, reversing the trend.<ref name="laver">{{cite web |last1=Laver |first1=Michael |title=A new electoral system for Ireland? |url=http://www.tcd.ie/policy-institute/assets/pdf/BP2_Laver_Electoral_System.pdf |publisher=The Policy Institute, [[Trinity College Dublin]] |year=1998}}</ref> In 2010, a parliamentary constitutional committee recommended a minimum magnitude of four but that was not implemented. Currently every [[Dáil constituency]] elects three, four or five TDs.<ref>{{cite web |title=Joint Committee on the Constitution |url=http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/Committees30thDail/J-Constitution/Report_2008/20100722.pdf |publisher=Houses of the [[Oireachtas]] |location=Dublin |date=July 2010}}</ref>