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Here is an electoral system that I came up with. It's derived from First-past-the-post, and still only elects one candidate per riding, but the process is modified for proportional representation. This idea has probably been proposed before, but I want to know what it's called.

Here is the procedure:

Each voter votes for one of the available candidates to represent their riding, but also for their favourite party.

After the votes are counted, it is determined what percentage of votes each party received. Each party will have this percentage of the seats in the legislature. For example, if the Liberal Party received 40% of votes, and there are 95 seats in the legislature, then the Liberal Party would be given 38 of them. After this is determined, the 38 Liberal candidates who received the highest percentage of votes in their riding are elected. This process is repeated for all other parties until a candidate has been elected from each riding.

The percentage of the popular vote for each party can be determined for the entire country/state/province/etc. Alternately, neighboring ridings can be grouped into "superridings", which each follow this process separately using their own subridings.

This system may not be perfect. I haven't figured out how it should deal with independent candidates.

However, if this system has been proposed before, than what is it called?

EDIT: I consider this system to be distinct from Mixed-member Proportional Representation (MMP). In MMP, candidates are elected through two different methods, with an preassigned number of seats to be given through a FPTP process and the remainder through List Proportional Representation. In the system I'm describing, all MP's are elected the same way (unless if implemented with "remainder ridings").

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  • Though not exactly the same, you may want to take a look at Mixed-Member Proportional representation: youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU
    – Publius
    Commented Feb 26, 2018 at 23:41
  • Yes. I know about that one. But it's pretty different in my opinion, even if it has the same aim. In the system that I described, all candidates are elected the same way (except for the "remainder ridings", although that may vary based on how this system is implemented).
    – Electric-Gecko
    Commented Feb 26, 2018 at 23:46
  • I discovered something on Wikipedia called "Localized list". (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Localized_list) This might be the same process that I am thinking.
    – Electric-Gecko
    Commented Feb 27, 2018 at 0:28
  • By "Riding" do you mean "constituency"?
    – James K
    Commented Feb 27, 2018 at 19:43
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    Who says there is a name? It's your system, name it.
    – CGCampbell
    Commented Apr 2, 2021 at 15:14

2 Answers 2

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Something similar exists in New Zealand and has since 1996, where it is called a mixed member proportional representation system.

It is also used in Bolivia (since 1994), in Lesotho (since 2002), in the federal parliament in Germany and some state parliaments in Germany, in the Scottish Parliament, and in the Welsh National Assembly.

Variations on it were used historically, but are no longer used in Albania (2001-2005), Hungary (last used in 2010), Italy (1994-2004), Romania (2008-2012), and Venezuela (last used in 2009).

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  • I consider MMP to be distinct, as candidates are always elected through 2 different methods (with a preset number for each). The system I'm describing mostly uses the same method to elect candidates. However, depending on the implementation, there might be a small number of "remainder ridings", which would be decided by FPTP.
    – Electric-Gecko
    Commented Feb 27, 2018 at 0:48
  • In NZ, at least for much of the time, you only voted for you local riding and then "bonus" seats were awarded if the total number of votes cast for a party was underrepresented in the riding based total. So, if the Liberals got 60% of the vote, but 55% of the seats out of 100 ridings, the Liberals would get 12-13 bonus seats not from ridings filled by the party to give them 60% of the total.
    – ohwilleke ♦
    Commented Feb 27, 2018 at 0:51
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    Please note that Germany was the first country to use the MMP voting system first time in 1953 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Germany#History).
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 11:44
  • @Trilarion Duly noted. Good point.
    – ohwilleke ♦
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 19:04
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This sounds like a variation of the auxiliary member system used in the Scottish parliament. There the constituency MSPs are elected using FPTP, then auxiliary members are added from party lists to make a proportional result across the whole of Scotland.

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