POWELL JR., G. Bingham <br/><br/>
Elections laws, disproportionality and median correspondence :  implications for two visions of democracy 

 -  jul.2000 
<br/><br/> Comparative studies of election rules and legislative representation have focused intensibely on vote-seat disproportionality as an indication of poor representation. Beginning with citizens' preferences, rather than votes, has important advantages and is especially more appropriate for a majoritarian vision of democracy. We analyse the effect of election rules on both vote-seat correspondence and median left-right correspondence in seventy elections in seventeen countries. We show theoretically the stringent conditions necessary to reduce vote-seat disproportionality in high threshold systems and empirically their high variance (and righer levels) of distortion. Although good median correspondence could be created, in theory, under a wide range of electoral systems, our empirical results suggest that proportional representation (PR) systems tend to outperform single-member district (SMD) systems by this criterion also