There are a variety of mechanisms possible to ensure "minority" representation - it say that guardedly as women are in fact the majority!
Note that guaranteed representation for women voters and election of women members are two diff things.
Do we want to
-hive off women's votes to give women dedicated representation -- that is, ensure that women members are elected by women voters only .
or
-ensure that women are elected, by votes cast by any mixture of voters, male or female ?
The following are ways to use districts or ballots to get that...
(thus I am not talking about zippering under list PR.)
women-districts method" in each district hive off women voters and say they can only vote for women (seems draconian to me)
"Maori districts" -- have separate set of districts for women and say they can vote for candidates on the ballot of their districts only. Men could stand for seats in these districts, but only women voters could vote there.
"Edmonton southside" rep. method -- have multi-member districts and say at least 40 percent of seats in each district will have to go to women candidates - women can win seats through normal election process (whatever that is), but if not enough women are elected that way (using votes of men and women mixed), then men set to be elected are dropped and the women with the most votes are declared elected.
This could be done at overall level - say 40 percent of seats in the legislature must be filled by women. and if not enough women are elected that way (using votes of men and women mixed), then men set to be elected are dropped and the women with the most votes are declared elected.
(this would break with local representation principle so not appealing, even if fair.)
other more-technical options are presented below in excerpt from Electoral Society of Britain publication.
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Minority group (Indigenous) representation
about gender parity (minority representation), here's a survey I have done myself on minority group (Indigenous) representation and the four or so routes to such.
Indigenous representation in Canada - how will they get it?
for Indigenous representation, four methods seem possible:
Affirmative gerrymandering - Nova Scotia ... "Some Canadian provinces have already taken steps to improve the representation of certain minority groups in their provincial legislatures. They have done this by drawing “protected constituencies” that have a specific group as a significant proportion of the population within it, which increases their voting power when electing a representative"
[The majority-minority district would likely not work for women's representation. likely all districts are women-majority districts!]
"Parallel system" - NZ Maori seats
Croatia's "multiple parallel systems"
Croatia uses what might be termed multiple parallel systems, the minority systems using at-large districts, whether electing single or multiple members. two of the minority contests would elect multiple members -- three would elect just one member "the creation of reserved seats for national minorities within the Sabor, the Croatian Parliament. There are eight of these seats, with each assigned to specific minority groups based on the group’s population...."
4th method would be modification of Edmonton southside method described above.
Something as simple as this works to ensure election of women members
-- if only one seat is left open and for fairness sake, it should go to a woman, then a woman gets it, whether ahead in votes or not.
if two or more women still in the running, then all votes still remaining with un-elected male candidates should be transferred as per marked back-up preferences, if any, to ensure the woman who is most popular overall is elected to the seat. (speaking of STV here)
women members would be elected partially by men's votes, in other words.
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Electoral Society of Britain recently published a study of methods to get women representation. (link provided below)
it seems to fudge principle of election of women members with representation of women voters, and speaks of nomination fairness to women as well as election of women members
election of women members discussed in "Reserved seats".
its technical discussion style is likely just for hard-core electoral fanatics:
Quota Mechanisms
-a women-only nation-wide tier
-constituencies reserved for women [Maori],
-best loser "Reserving seats guarantees political representation of women in parliament..." [perhaps close to Edmonton southside guarantee?
Non-legislative party quotas [voluntary]
"Party quotas rely on each political party to mandate gender quotas in their candidate lists. ..."
[if one party run women candidates, then others do same]
"There is evidence of voluntary introduction of party quotas influence on other parties to adopt quotas. Table 1 shows how the main political parties in Germany all implemented quotas in the space of 13 years from 1983 following the adoption of a 50% gender quota by the Green Party...."
Legislative quotas [legislated gender equality on party slates]
"Legislative quotas are laws which require a certain percentage of women to be nominated by each political party. They can be mandated via candidate selection and at party list level."
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Also see this online source:
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As well one of Canada's leading proportionalists, Anita Nicholson, has an interesting blog on women and PR.
She only looks at STV as used in Tasmania and ACT. Both are places, the only places in Australia, where STV is used in the lower house.
She finds that in both, women are elected more often than in the lower houses of the other States and Territories.
She does provide stats on women representation in the upper houses in the other States and Territories -- where STV is used.
Anita can be quite blunt, in other words a square shooter.
For instance she said
We [in Canada] are not getting a nation-wide, or province-wide, party list system. All the systems for Canada are rather unique because they keep local representation."
By this she means provinces will be broken into either multi-member districts (STV), MMDs and single-member districts (Rural-Urban PR), or single-member districts with regaionalized or province-wide top-up (MMP). In each voters will cast votes for candidate of choice, not for party of choice.
Problematically she went on to say
"This means a PR system for Canada won't be nearly as proportional as somewhere like Denmark."
This must be reference to how Denmark allocates top-up seats at nation-wide scale, in its mixed-member system of PR.
Denmark also uses list PR in multi-member districts, but that is equivalently proportional compared to STV in same-size districts.
Denmark in 2024 has MMDs that range in size from 2 to 20 seats.
That sort of District Magnitude is do-able under STV, hence is workable under pure STV and under R-U PR, which uses STV in MMDs.
I doubt if she perceives a "proportionality gap" between STV and list PR at the district level, Canada to Denmark respectively.
Denmark uses list PR in MMDs, while Anita -- and past Canadian political culture -- indicate that Canada will not be using list PR when it gets PR.
(As Denmark uses list PR both in districts and nation-wide, Anita might have used more straightforward example if she had used Netherlands or Israel - about the only two that do not use districts at all at the federal level.)
Anita went on to say
"It also means that when we talk about electing more women "naturally", we need to deal with what is on the table: MMP and STV (or a hybrid - such as R-U PR).
Both MMP and STV - the most commonly recommended for Canada - are relatively uncommon voting systems. If you look at the 80 or 90 countries that use PR, MMP is used in 8. STV is used to elect the lower house in two countries (Ireland and Malta) and SNTV (a variation of STV) is used in four others (for a total of 6).
STV is also used in the Australian Senate, in two Australian territories (ACT and Tasmania) and for local elections in New Zealand and Scotland."
Actually almost every State and Territory in Australia uses STV either in its upper house or its lower house.
STV is used to elect the upper houses in NSW, Victoria, Southern Australia and Western Australia.
(Only Queensland anf Northern Territory do not use STV at all - they are unicameral and elect their one body using Alternative Voting).
Anita provides the proportion of women representation in the Aus. States and Territories.
We see those with STV have the largest percentages of elected female legislators:
STV Alternative Voting
Northern Terr. unicameral - 40 percent
Federal Senate 38 percent Federal Lower house 27 percent
Tasmania lower house 36 percent upper house 40 percent*
ACT lower house 41 percent not applicable (ACT is unicameral)
WA upper house 42 percent lower house 22 percent
Victoria upper house 33 percent lower house 33 percent
NSW upper house 31 percent lower house 20 percent
South Aus upper house 26 percent lower house 23 percent
Queensland unicameral - 22 percent
Putting aside Northern Territory's high percentage of women legislators elected by AV, we see that in almost every state where STV is used in one chamber or another, the one using STV elects higher proportion of women. (Victoria shows no real difference between the two systems).
The only exception is Tasmania, where very high percentage of women are elected under both systems but with AV system electing slightly more. at least that was the case in 2014.
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"To date the ACT and Tasmanian parliaments have been the only Australian parliaments to reach equal gender representation."
this is according to
That source explains how STV versus AV is not only consideration affecting gender rep.:
" . More women tend to be elected to parliaments, or to houses of parliament, via proportional representation than via AV.
For example, in Australia the Senate has a higher proportion of women than the House of Representatives.
When it comes to Australian state and territory parliaments, however, the picture that emerges is more complex.
At the time of publication [2022], this tendency holds true for the ACT Legislative Assembly, and the Victorian and the South Australian legislative councils (upper houses).
Queensland’s unicameral parliament, which is elected via AV, has a relatively low proportion of women.
However, the legislative assemblies (lower houses) of New South Wales and Western Australia, which are elected by AV, have a higher proportion of women than the legislative councils of those states, which are elected by proportional representation.
The Tasmanian Legislative Council (upper house), which is elected by AV, has a higher proportion of women than the Tasmanian House of Assembly (lower house), which is elected by proportional representation.
The Northern Territory Legislative Assembly (single house), which is elected via AV, comprises 48 percent women [a very high proportion].
These differences suggest that, as well as electoral systems, other factors affecting the gender composition of parliaments and houses of parliament also play an important role. Those factors include each parliament’s party composition, as well as party and voter choices about candidate selection and election...."
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A different means to effect gender parity was the one used in Iceland in 2010 in election of its Constitutional Assembly.
2010 Iceland used STV to elect 25-member Constitutional Assembly (an elected body performing the role sometimes done by a citizens assembly).
At-large district covering whole island. 232,374 voters. 83,531 voted, which was 36 percent turnout. 522 candidates ran for the 25 seats (this record DM is to be shadowed by West Aus. election in 2025).
Weighted Inclusive Gregory Method used for transfer of surplus votes.
As well, rough gender parity was ensured -- 40% gender-balance rule was applied after the STV-PR election for the 25 places had been completed. If candidates of either gender did not have at least 10 of the 25 seats (“two-fifths”), additional seats were to be allocated to the under-represented gender to bring representation of that gender up to “two-fifths”, subject to a limit of six additional seats.
These additional seats were to be allocated to the required number of the last eliminated candidates of the under-represented gender.
Thus it was possible for 31 members to be elected.
This was similar to the guaranteed rep for the Edmonton southside, described above except the number of seats was not set in stone but those who were set to be elected under STV were elected, with simply more seats added to bring up rep. of the under-represented gender.
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