Map detailing the amount of election districts per province, or in two special cases, per pair of provinces. The electoral heart of the nation is clearly situated on the Bolton-Elisabethtown Axis.
For the purpose of national elections, Granida is divided into 181 election districts. Each of those districts elects one representative to the national parliament. In general, election districts are partitions within the provinces of Granida.
Apportionment[]
Line chart showing the amount of election districts per province (population x 100,000).
Ideally, there is one election district for every 100,000 people. This is only the case for Coastal province. De facto, one member represents 43,000 to 145,000 inhabitants. There is a distortion that causes the least populous provinces to be overrepresented. Districts in low-density provinces generally cover smaller population groups, to compensate for the dominance of the populous cities.
The apportionment is based on the latest available Granida Census population figures per province.
Over- and underepresentation[]
The five most populous provinces together contain half of the voting districts. If all provinces were proportionally represented (with at least one district per province), 58% of all districts would be located in the top five provinces. As a result of the slight overrepresentation of rural provinces, and the underrepresentation of the largest provinces, a single inhabitant of Elisabethtown has the lowest impact on the elections, whereas inhabitants of Charleston have the largest.
Two sets of two provinces are joined for the purpose of national elections: Ulysses and South Point province together form two districts, that do not follow province borders. Similarly, the Selessian Hills and Morphea split three districts over their combined territories.
Voting system[]
The system used is the internationally widely used simple plurality voting system, also known as first-past-the-post (FPTP). For each district, the candidate with the highest amount of votes, and not necessarily the majority, but rather a plurality, wins the district.
Criticism[]
Duverger's law in political science says that constituencies that use first-past-the-post systems will become two-party systems, given enough time. As a result of the FPTP system, minorities which are present in various provinces, but are unable to reach a plurality in any of those provinces, are unrepresented. Several smaller Granida political parties have urged to adjust the system. One often-heard option is to introduce plural districts, which elect several members per district. Another possibility is to either introduce an additional at-large district that acts as a plural district. A more radical solution would be to make districts larger and elect all members at-large per super-district. The exact opposite could also bring some relief: by making the districts much smaller in population size, the number of representatives would rise, and with it, smaller parties would get more opportunities, especially in homogenous communities.
List[]
Main article: List of Granida election districts.
