Resumen de Common Seat Allocation Methods in Proportional Representation Systems and a Novel “Priority Allocation by Rank” Method

Tim Sheaff

• There are many examples of elections in Canada in which the successful parties who formed government earned a majority of seats that were disproportionate to their proportion of the vote. Some argue these outcomes signal the need to transform to a system of proportional representation. Several types of proportional representation systems exist. In some of those systems, determining how seats should be distributed among parties requires applying some form of seat allocation method. This article discusses two such methods, the largest remainder and highest average methods, and presents a novel method developed by the author, referred to as “priority allocation by rank.” Voting results from British Columbia’s 2020 election were used to create a hypothetical election scenario for the purposes of comparing seat allocations produced by these three methods. The results suggest that the priority allocation by rank method has potential to be a viable alternative to the other two methods.