There are many forms of proportional representation. Australia uses a version for its national Senate elections that is more complicated than most. This article explains it. Thanks to John Fund for the link.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
This article made me think that perhaps some courts would interpret some preceding cases to invalidate proportional representation, if it were ever passed.
For instance, at one time, Virginia elected members of its House and Senate, and U.S. House, based on districts drawn on county and city lines that were VERY roughly proportional to population. So the Eastern Shore (Accomack and Northampton Counties) elected one House member, while voters in Newport News voted three times for three delegate slots that city was entitled to. So for large jurisdictions with more than one member, it was somewhat similar to proportional representation. Well that was all struck down by “one man, one vote,” and of course as a Southern state with a history of massive resistance racism, Virginia was subject to the pre-clearance section of the Voting Rights Act. So now we have the alternative, gerrymandered districts which have parts only adjacent by means of water and creative imaginations. Some local elections still have multi-member districts and ask you to vote more than one time, though.
Simple P.R.
Pre election candidate rank order lists (of the other candidates) made public at a deadline.
Total Votes / Total Seats = EQUAL votes needed for each winner.
Surplus votes down. Loser votes up.
Both majority rule and minority representation.
Australia should let each candidate lodge a preference list, and then let individual voters give partial preferences. If the individual preferences are exhausted, the ballot would revert to the preference list of the voter’s 1st preference. So in effect the voter would be saying I want X as my 1st preference, and if he can’t be elected, then Y, and so on. And then if all preferences were exhausted, the ballot would be voted based on candidate X’s preferences. If a voter trusted X to be Senator, it is reasonable that he would trust his judgment on the other candidates.
This would spread out the vote among the larger party’s candidates, and force elimination of the candidates with little support.
This would also work in places like San Francisco, where it is illegal to vote more than 3 candidates.