counting methods

[Neal McBurnett <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks, Ralph, for the direct insight from your German friend.

Germany is interesting for more reasons than hand-counting.
They use a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, also known
as personalized Proportional Representation, for choosing the
members of the parliament, which is influential:

 a number of countries around the world have adopted the German system
 for parliamentary elections, most notably among them New Zealand,
 where voters approved the switch from the first-past-the-post system
 to MMP in a 1993 referendum.

It is designed to represent more viewpoints than a system like ours,
but to avoid the plethora of tiny parties and highly fragmented
legislatures in the Weimar Republic that contributed to the rise of
Hitler.

It also gives a lot of power to parties, rather than legislators.

A great overview, complete with example calculations, is at

 http://electionresources.org/de/

A sample ballot and info on the parties is at

  http://www.german-embassy.org.uk/elections_and_political_partie.html

Note the vote for parties on the right, and for "personalized"
candidates on the left, most of whom are associated with one of the
parties.

Info on other countries is at: http://electionresources.org/

Neal McBurnett                 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
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