What is Proportional representation?
{{More citations needed|date=February 2022}} [[File:Proportional representation, 40% of the votes = 40% of the seats.jpg|thumb|right|The basic idea of proportional representation is that a party wins the number of seats equal to that of the percentage of the vote it wins]] '''Proportional representation''' is a system used to elect people, usually to a country's [[parliament]] or other type of [[legislature]]. Proportional representation works by taking the results of an [[election]] to decide how many seats each [[political party]] receives. It is calculated out of a political party's total number of votes in the election what that number is as a [[percentage]] (%) of all the votes cast in the election. This percentage is then equal to the amount of votes the party will receive. For example, if a party gets 20% of the vote, it will receive 20% of the seats in the legislature. Most countries have a minimum percentage a party has to receive to get seats. This minimum is usually between 3% and 5% of the total overall vote.<ref>{{cite news |last= Difford |first= Dylan |date= 3 September 2021 |title= Barriers to entry: How do electoral thresholds work? |url= https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/barriers-to-entry-how-do-electoral-thresholds-work/ |work= Electoral Reform Society (ERS) |access-date= 10 October 2023}}</ref> Another way to run an election is the [[First-past-the-post voting|first-past-the-post]] system in which constituencies vote in one member. The [[United Kingdom]] works this way. In most western countries, there is more than one political party. Most elected representatives will be a member of one or another party. If one party has an overall majority, then it forms the government. Otherwise the government must have members of more than one party. Countries which use proportional representation include: [[Austria]], [[Argentina]], [[Belgium]], [[Brazil]], [[Bulgaria]], [[Czech Republic]], [[Denmark]], [[Estonia]], [[Finland]], [[Greece]], [[Iceland]], [[Ireland]], [[Israel]], [[Netherlands]], [[No