So let’s move on to talk a bit about how lower house elections actually work. Lower house elections are done by province. Each province evaluates the number of seats it has. This is a function of population, voting policy, the presence of rotten burghs and citizenship policy. Then we evaluate who a POP would vote for inside the province, looking first at party issue and then ideology. The presence of machine politics inside a state also influences the votes cast. Then we have political reforms that can increase the share of the vote the ruling party gets. If you are in charge of the country you can use things like gerrymandering to keep yourself in power once you have got there. Once we have calculated who a POP votes for (and it can split it’s vote between several parties), we then allocate seats to the parties based on your voting formula. We have three options, first past the post where the largest party wins all the seats in a state, and then two forms of proportional representation. Next, one that favours larger parties, and lastly a purer form of proportionality, which gives smaller parties a better seat share. Thus allowing a greater spread of election outcomes, making politics vary more as you change the nature of your political system through reform.
