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Electing more than one, simply — majoritarian vs. proportional

Sometimes you're not picking a single winner — a board, a committee, a top-4. The instant there's more than one seat, a fork appears that trips almost everyone up: do you want the N best candidates, or a body that mirrors the whole electorate? Those are different goals, and they need different methods. This page is the plain-language fork; the machinery lives in proportional representation.

Level: 201 · for voters Prerequisite: you know single-winner STAR.

The fork: two different questions

The moment you fill more than one seat, "fair" splits into two meanings:

1. Majoritarian / at-large — "pick the N best." Everyone scores the candidates, and the STAR count runs once per seat — elect a winner, remove them, re-run — until N seats are filled. Simple, and exactly right when you genuinely want the best few, factions aside — a club choosing its 3 favorite logos, a shortlist of finalists. Its catch: a cohesive majority can sweep every seat, so a large minority can end up with nothing. Great for "best options," wrong for "represent us."

2. Proportional — "mirror the electorate." Seats are shared in proportion to support: a group that's ~40% of voters wins about 40% of the seats. Right when the body is meant to represent a diverse population — a city council, a legislature, a union board. It deliberately gives a minority its fair share instead of letting the majority take everything.

Neither is "better" — they answer different questions. The whole trick is knowing which question you're asking.

Which do you want?

You want… Use Because
the N best candidates, factions aside Bloc STAR you're picking winners, not representatives
a body that mirrors the electorate Proportional STAR or STV a 40% group deserves ~40% of the seats

The tell: is this a body meant to represent people, or a shortlist of the best options? Representation → proportional. Best-of → bloc. If a cohesive majority sweeping all the seats would feel wrong, you want proportional.

See it — same ballots, different bodies

The Pets Governance set runs the same electorate under bloc vs. proportional and elects different committees — the concrete version of the fork, side by side.

How proportional actually shares the seats (the one idea)

Proportional methods all rest on a quota — roughly "how many votes buys one seat" (for 3 seats, about a quarter of the voters each). When a candidate crosses the quota they're elected, and their surplus (or their voters' remaining weight) flows to the next choice, so no bloc is over-rewarded. STAR-PR and STV differ in the bookkeeping, not the goal. The full mechanics: the math behind proportional STAR.

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