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Timeline of Electoral Reform, Part 1 Beginnings to 1919. Chronology of Proportional Representation (STV, List PR, MMP)

  • Tom Monto
  • 3 days ago
  • 30 min read

Updated: 4 hours ago

Chronology of history of Proportional Representation (List PR, STV, MMP) pre-1920


For events after 1919, see Part 2 1920-1971 and Part 3 1972-


(Entries in italics concern places that are not countries and historic events that are not elections.)


Highlights

1856 first use of PR in a government election (STV Denmark)

1867 United Kingdom adopted Limited Voting in some districts, including City of London with four seats.

1899 Belgium adopted PR for national elections (list PR)

1909   Australia state elections -- all members in Tasmania House of Assembly elected through STV. first election in the British Empire where all the members were elected through PR.

1918 first use of STV in the United Kingdom - to elect MPs representing the university constituencies

1920 first use of PR in legislative election in Canada - STV used to elect Winnipeg MLAs

1921 Malta adopted STV for national elections (first election in the British Empire where members were elected through PR)

1922 Ireland adopted PR (STV) for election of members both in the lower house and upper house.

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1789 - French Revolution, seminal event in drive for democracy (freedom and self-rule). Even reversion to Napoleonic military dictatorship did not end democratic advance. Belief in a king's absolutism and support for the old regime had grown faint. After Napoleon met his Waterloo, his successor, Louis XVIII, then ruled alongside a two-chamber parliament, in a society where men of means had the vote, freedom of the press, equal rule of law, and other civil liberties. (from Sheri Berman, "Lessons from Europe", Journal of Democracy, Jan. 2007, p. 32)


The use of elections in more and more European countries (where free and open was the aspiration) led to successive proposals and experiences of Proportional Representation, which was seen as the best route to freedom and self-rule, as we see below.


(1821 the principles of PR through STV was suggested by Thomas Wright Hill.) (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "Timeline - explanatory notes")


(info on early electoral reformers in the UK is available online:


(1839 Pennsylvania Legislature - used strict form of Limited Voting (actually SNTV) to elect administration officials, not members of legislature. In use from 1839 to at least 1926. Each voter had one vote in 2-seat contest. (The DM of just 2 prevented any real PR.) (Hoag & Hallett (1926), p. 182))


(1840 Australia: Adelaide city election -- a form of quota-based single voting. 19 members elected - two by quorum (quorum equalled 1/19th of the electorate - the Hare quota); the other 17 elected by the other voters using Block Voting.

Catherine Helen Spence, the daughter of the town clerk, grew up to be one of Australia's leading electoral reformers although as a woman never was able to vote in Australia federal elections.) (see 1861)

(for more information see my blog


(1844/1846 List PR was endorsed by Thomas Gilpin (Philadelphia, 1844) and Victor Considerant (Geneva, 1846). (Enid Lakeman, How Democracies Vote))


(1853-1858  two reform-minded books by Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey.

1853 a history and defence of his colonial policy in the form of letters to Lord John Russell (Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Administration, 1853). In it, he states that "if it is desired that the elected body should not be a representation of a single interest and a single class of opinions, some means must be adopted to guard against its falling entirely into the hands of of the dominant party" He recommended Cumulative Voting.

1858 - Earl Grey, K.G. (1858). Parliamentary Government. Considered with reference to a Reform of Parliament. An Essay. London: Richard Bentley. Retrieved 7 November 2009. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org)

Earl Grey [uncle of the man who gave Canada the Grey Cup] managed to explain the P.R. system in simple language and to make it comprehensible to working men...." (Jenifer Hart, PR Critics of the British Electoral System 1820-1945, p. 122)

(see 1864)


1856  Denmark used STV in 1856. Carl Andrae's variant did not include transfer of eliminated candidates. Hare quota. Random transfer of surplus votes. Denmark was divided into 29 electoral districts.

(Denmark soon switched to FPTP, switching to mixed member proportional in 1915.)

STV was used in indirect election of Denmark's upper house from 1856 to at least 1926. The use of Andrae's quota (equivalent to the Hare quota) meant that careful consideration was made of how many candidates to run and how votes should be shared out, but that was not difficult with fewer than 400 electors and all of them in one room.) (Hoag and Hallet, PR (1926), p. 75; Newman, Hare-Clark, p. 296; Droop, On Methods of Electing Representatives, p. 33)


(1857 Britain -- Thomas Hare's book The Machinery of Representation was published, to advocate for electoral reform, PR and a form of STV. Another book by him on the same subjects, A Treatise on Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal, was published in 1859. 

In these books, Hare proposed at-large country-wide election for all of the United Kingdom where each voter had one vote (and could mark back-up preferences), Hare quota was the amount that would guarantee election, and surplus votes of successful candidates were to be transferred. (But he did not envision transfers arising from elimination of least-popular candidates). He prescribed a random method to be used for transfer of surplus votes (according to Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 141) (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")

(The use of Hare versus Droop quota (see 1868) was not important -- In Hare's proposal, DM was to be 658 - a quota of 1/658th of votes cast (Hare) is very close to a quota of 1/659th of votes cast plus 1 (Droop). (Droop, On Methods of Electing Representatives, p. 33))


(Later, others advocated various forms of fair voting using multi-member districts instead of the country-wide district proposed by Hare. Lord John Russell (limited voting in 3-seat districts), Catherine Helen Spence (STV in MMDs) (Spence credited Sir John Lubbock for the innovation of multi-member districts), Droop and others also supported use of MMDs. (Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 26; Spence, A Plea, p. 23; Report of meeting on "Proportional representation," or effective voting, held at River House, Chelsea, on Tuesday, July 10th 1894. Addressed by Miss Spence, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Courtney, Sir John Lubbock and Sir John Hall)  (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")


1859-1874 United Kingdom - U.K.'s first attempts to get PR. Representative Reform Association. plagued by Hare's overly-intricate proposal. Campaigners agreed on the suitability of Walter Morrison's variant of Hare' s scheme, using multi-member districts, and surplus vote transfers and eliminated candidates' votes. (Hart, PR - Critics..., p. 84, 99; Ashworth and Ashworth, PR Applied to Party Government (1900) )

(Limited voting adopted in 1867, STV in 1918 for University seats)


(1861 Australia -- Catherine Helen Spence (see 1840) in a pamphlet A Plea for Pure Democracy put forward a system of STV where votes would be transferred both to address surplus votes held by winners and votes held by un-electable candidates. Multi-member districts, not at-large, was to be the districting. (At the time South Australia, her subject area, was using two-member districts and Spence might have thought it was easier just to go with the existing districting, rather than to try to force a state-wide at-large contest.)

In her notion of STV she pictured votes passing from a candidate in one district to a candidate in another district if that was choice of voter; as well, a district was not guaranteed to have a certain number of members or any members at all. (Such is done in some list PR systems under the name Apparentment.) (see 1896) (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")


1864 - reform-minded book by Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey (1802-1894)

 (His nephew, 4th Earl Grey, was a fanatic on the subject of PR -- see 1885.)


1865 Britain -- Thomas Hare advocated for a form of STV with elimination of candidates with fewest votes as well as transfer of surplus votes from successful candidates. (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")


(1867 Canada - Confederation authorized in British North America Act. The BNA Act dictated that Halifax riding was to have two members (Block Voting was implied). Later ten other ridings had two members, each used Block Voting. FPTP otherwise in use. (Since Confederation, every province except Quebec has used one or more multi-member districts at one time or another, or fairly consistently up to the 1990s. The last multi-member federal riding was broken up in 1968; the last multi-member provincial constituency was broken up in 1995.) (see 1886, 1920, 1924)


1867-1884 United Kingdom used Limited Voting to elect some MPs -- Birmingham and 12 other districts elected 3, each voter cast up to two votes. The City of London riding elected four, each voter cast up to three votes. This mostly prevented a clean sweep of district seats by one party. (On two occasions a one-party sweep happened.) (Farrell and McAllister, Australian Election Systems, p. 33; Humphreys, PR (1917), p. 64; Lakeman and Lambert, Voting in Democracies (1959), p. 75; Wiki: Birmingham (UK Parliament constituency)) (see Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")


(1868 Britain -- H.R. Droop introduced the Droop quota, a smaller proportion of votes cast compared to Hare quota. He published his ideas in the books Methods of Electing Representatives, and PR applied to the election of local governing bodies.  (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")


1870 

(1870 U.S. -- W.R. Ware, an M.I.T. professor, held a demonstration STV election to have M.I.T. students elect their four favourite English authors.

Thinking ahead to a possible by-election, he took the ranked ballots of STV and put them into a single-winner contest, where all but two were eliminated before the second round of counting. The "Ware system" later became known as Instant-Runoff Voting (but now is known as "supplementary voting" and "contingent voting").

Ware proposed optional-preferential voting. In certain contexts, optional-preference voting in conjunction with STV or PR can devolve into SNTV. But even if that happens, waste of votes is no more than under FPTP and mixed representation is elected under SNTV so still more fair than FPTP.)

Ware's Contingent Voting (sometimes called the Ware system), alongside Block Voting, was used in Queensland state elections starting in 1893.)



1870 U.S. -- Illinois adopted Cumulative Voting -- each district elected three, each voter could cast three votes but could place them all on one candidate. in use until 1980.)

(also see my blog on the progress of PR in North America:



(1872 United Kingdom -- Walter Baily, of Leeds, in his 1872 essay PR in Large Constituencies, called for districts with members "not less than five nor more than 15," and of variable DM where districts would cover whole cities. He also called for transfer of surplus votes and elimination of un-electable candidates, echoing Hare's 1865 book. Transfer of surplus votes was to be by the random method.

He went on to suggest a form of Indirect STV. Voters do not use ranked votes - instead transfer lists are drawn up and registered, and when a candidate achieves quota, he or she receives no more votes but instead subsequent votes are shifted to other candidates as per the list. (Later proposed forms of indirect STV were simpler - transfers from a successful candidate or eliminated candidate were to be dictated by the candidate involved.

But Indirect STV of any sort has never been used in any government election.)

(Baily's book is available online:


1872 United Kingdom - Walter Morrison, Member of Parliament, innovated simplifications of Thomas Hare's STV proposal - districts with 6 to 16 seats; transfers of both surplus votes and votes belonging to least-popular candidate. His proposal was adopted by the Representative Reform Association, as opposed to Thomas Hare's scheme. (Jenifer Hart, P.R. (1992), p. 84. 99) (see Montopedia blog "British electoral reform in 1800s..."

For other early versions of STV, see Ashworth and Ashworth, P.R. Applied to Party Government (1900), p. 145-159.


(1872 U.S. -- Senator Charles Buckalew called for PR in his 1872 book Proportional representation; or, The representation of successive majorities in federal, state, municipal, corporate and primary elections. He described use of Limited Voting. mentions Thomas Hare but barely mentioned STV. (available on Hathitrust website))


(1873 Argentina -- Province of Buenos Aires adopted constitution prescribing PR “for all public elections”. List PR used until 1926. PR again adopted in 1996. (Hoag & Hallett 1926, footnote p. 65))


(1873 United Kingdom - Thomas Hare's book The Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal. covered Ware's work with IRV.

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1881 Social Democratic Federation of England. ascribed to Marxist socialism. Its constitution (as of 1897) called for "Adult suffrage. Annual parliaments. Proportional representation. Second ballot. Initiative and referendum. Canvassing to be made illegal. Abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords..."



(1884  British reformer John Westlake, Q.C. in his 1884 book Proportional Representation A Practical Proposal suggested a form of list PR combined with Cumulative Voting.) (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiuo.ark:/13960/t3bz6j72c&view=1up&seq=13)



1884 United Kingdom - Sir John Lubbock organized meeting of British proportionalists. They founded the (British) Proportional Representation Society (PRS), successor to the 1859-1874 Representative Reform Society.

Jones, Politics of Reform  (1972), says that Lubbock (PRS's first president), Leonard Courtney and Albert Grey were absurd. Hart though said Lubbock put the case for PR in sensible and moderate terms. (Hart, PR Critics of the British Electoral System 1820-1945, p. 122) 

The PR campaign was plagued by the usual resistance from elected politicians and the public, and also by divergence of opinion on the best replacement for FPTP and by difficulty in presenting the case for ER. (Jenifer Hart, PR Critics of the British Electoral System 1820-1945, p. 100, 101, 122)


1884  United Kingdom - Gladstone Reform Bill/Representation of the People Act passed into law in 1884

A pamphlet produced at the time by John Lubbock called for PR

Lubbock affirmed that PR is about fair rep to both majority and minority/minorities) and that it is needed to make the chamber "a mirror of the people." (p. 11)

Co-author Arnold-Forster (at the time only 25 years old) recounted how he had got 184 school children to be voters and performed an STV election, electing three "MPs" from a list of kings and queens (apparently people of whom the children had knowledge). (p. 14)



1885  United Kingdom - Redistribution Law was passed. Moved U.K. elections to just single-member districts, thus stopping the use of Limited Voting that had been in effect since 1867. (Jenifer Hart, PR Critics of the British Electoral System 1820-1945, p. 119)

Not achieving PR in 1884/5 was seen as a setback for the PR campaign.

"PR Society (Britain) showed common weaknesses of organizations run almost wholly by volunteers - unrealistic optimism amongst some of the cause combined with defeatism amongst others, but it also displayed some of the common strengths of such bodies, namely an immense amount of devoted labor performed by its supporters and largely voluntary  staff. 

Its main mistake was probably not to settle on the form of PR it recommended until December 1884. That left many people confused about the subject, though discussion about the means of obtaining PR should not have prevented them from understanding the principle." (Jenifer Hart, PR Critics of the British Electoral System 1820-1945, p. 100, 101, 122) (in Canada, STV was not decided on as the best alternative until around 1900, from what I understand. And now (2025) most countries in the world use one or another form of list PR, with only four using STV in national elections (Ireland, Malta, Australia, Nepal), and only a few using MMP (only three using MMP with FPTP and list top-up -- NZ, Germany, Lesotho). So the options open to use are wider than back in 1900 or in the 1800s, making choosing the most suitable replacement of FPTP more difficult rather than easier.)

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(1885  Albert Grey, an MP at the time (later the 4th Earl Grey) helped organize a STV election among British miners. Its success furthered the PR cause in UK. (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 129-130) (He served as Canada's Governor General 1904-1911. see 1904))


(1886, 1890 Canada -- Toronto used Limited Voting to elect its 3 MLAs -- 3-seat city-wide district, each voter could cast two votes.)


1887 New Zealand - a legislative PR bill failed to become law. Proposal was to have country divided into two MMDs, each of 20 members and to use STV to elect the members. These districts were considered too big; the government anyway was on its last legs; and opposition to the proposal was strong. (see John Hall's speech in Report of meeting on "Proportional representation," or effective voting, held at River House, Chelsea, on Tuesday, July 10th 1894, online hathitrust.) (see 1991)


1891   Japan was the first country to adopt SNTV for election of government members. In 1891 Japan adopted SNTV for provincial politicians (and in 1900 for national politicians - members of House of Representatives), where administrative areas were used as electoral districts, with DM ranging from 1 to 12. Later redistribution was done by adding or subtracting members, not by redrawing boundaries.

Already by 1891 it was noticed that "in certain of the administrative areas a minority of the voters often obtained a majority of the elected members. It was almost impossible for political parties to obtain representation in proportion to the strength of their supporters." A system of single voting based on Marshall's Cumulative Voting was devised by Kametro Hayashida, Secretary of the Japanese House of Representatives. This produced district PR and also allowed Independents to be elected. But the system "lacked the elasticity and adaptability that an election system should have" (Humphreys). Parties needed to regulate the size of their slates.

Robert Tyson described the system in "Electoral Wisdom of Japan", The Arena, Sept. 1904. At the time, he said it used 47 districts with average of 8 members each. DM ranged from 5 to 15. (Tokyo with 1.5M residents had 15 members) (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 74, 217, 284; Hoag and Hallet, Proportional Representation (1926), p. 45)


(1891/1892 Switzerland -- First documented public use of party-list PR in Europe, in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. A revolution broke out, and a politician was killed and other politicians arrested by the people. Investigating federal official (Colonel Kunzli) proposed use of PR to establish a body on constitutional reform and Conservatives passed a law adopting PR for elections. The adoption of PR prevented a civil war, it is said.  (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 129)

Geneva adopted list PR in 1892. (Switzerland adopted P.R. for national elections in 1918.)

Most Swiss canton councils and local governments were using list PR by 1927. Switzerland adopted list PR because it fit in with previous voting practice -- Swiss voters were used to voting for party under the scrutin de liste system.

Swiss list-PR allowed voters to cast multiple votes.

The system used in the canton of Zug allowed Cumulative Voting.

Adoption of PR came after several cantons adopted Direct Legislation in 1861. The right of Initiative allowed any 2500 citizens of the 20,000 Geneva citizens to introduce a law.

The campaign for Direct Legislation overlapped with the drive for PR in many parts of the world -- see https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/pantheon-of-reformers-alfred-cridge-annie-denton-cridge-alfred-jr-and-william-denton

(D.R. Record, June 1893 (online p. 74/744); Humphreys, PR (1917), p. 197; Hoag & Hallett 1926, p. 65, 66; Arena, vol. 34, 1904) (see 1900, 1918)




(1892/1893 Sandford Fleming, one of Canada's leading scientists at the time, published two books on electoral reform. One included essays by Catherine Helen Spence who toured Canada at that time, and by former Canadian Alfred Cridge.) (Spence, Ever Yours, p. 148)


1893-1894 Catherine Helen Spence, one of Australia's leading proportionalists, toured U.S.A., Canada and the United Kingdom. (C.H. Spence, Ever Yours, C.H., p. 144-163)


(1893 North America (U.S. and Canada) -- PR League published the PR Review 1893-1895 1914-1928. https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=propreprev)



1893  August 10-12 Chicago - Electoral Reform convention.

Catherine Helen Spence spoke there.

Convention chose two systems as their preference - list PR as per Geneva law and the Gove system (Indirect STV). STV was discussed and endorsed by Montague Leverson, who was speaking in favour of a proxy plan, which combined varying number of votes per elected member and what today is called liquid democracy.) (online: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.101740688&seq=11)

Alfred Cridge on "Majority Myths"

(see also "The Proportional Representation Congress" by Stoughton Cooley

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 4 (Nov., 1893), p. 112-117 (6 pages).  https://www.jstor.org/stable/1009042?seq=1



1894 Catherine Helen Spence author of article "P.R. the only effective moralizer of politics" Arena, 1894 [online: 10/767]



1894 -- Belgium began its incremental journey toward PR by adopting tentative and partial list PR in the larger municipal councils. (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 115-116) (see 1899) (see footnote)


1896 National Direct Legislation League founded in U.S. Eltweed Pomeroy was president (formerly he had been secretary of the DL League of New Jersey). In 1897 he put article in New Times A Magazine of Social Progress "Representation Does not Represent", saying among other things that geographic representation is all FPTP does and that is no longer good enough.



(1896 Australia -- Catherine Helen Spence (see 1840, 1861) in her book What is Effective Voting? again proposed that multi-member districts, not at-large, be the best way for STV to operate. She suggested no less than 6 seats in each district, with 7 or 8 being preferred. (Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 26; Newman, Hare-Clark, p. 16))


(1897 Tasmania used STV (a variant called Hare-Clark or Hare-Spence) for election of members of state chamber to represent cities of Hobart and Launceston.

First use in the world of STV (with both transfers from eliminated and elected candidates).

10 members elected through district STV; 28 members elected through FPTP.

Hobart elected six members through STV in city-wide district.

Launceston elected four through STV in city-wide district.

Hare quota. Surplus votes held by elected candidates were transferred non-randomly by the Exact Method (the system later used in Canada). (see footnote for clarification)

John H. Humphreys , PR (1911), p. 141-2 states that Hare-Clark form of STV used the exact method for transfer of surplus votes, as does Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 27

The votes' total was recorded as a whole-vote integer.

Semi-optional preferential voting -- voter had to mark as many preferences as half the number of seats in the district. Hare-Spence used again in 1900 election, then Tasmania went back to using FPTP in single-member districts. then switched to permanent STV -- 1909 used STV (Hare-Clark) to elect all members in Tasmania. in use ever since. (see 1909).

Later three other states and two territories in Australia have also switched to using STV for election of members of their upper house, and two have switched to using STV for election of members of their lower house. -- see "Australia's switch to STV." in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes") (Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 27; Newman, Hare-Clark, p. 9, 47-48))

(see Johnston, Observations on the working results of the Hare System... online)


1899  Belgium adopted PR using list PR. Members were elected in multi-member districts, each having 2 to 18 seats. Seats were allocated to parties using the D'Hondt method. (PR already had been used at city level.)

Ashworth and Ashworth PR Applied to party government (1900) stated:

"Belgium has also quite recently adopted a scheme of proportional representation. As in Switzerland, its advent was hastened by political disturbances. The Catholic party, not satisfied with exerting a preponderating influence in the country districts, wished to obtain also its proportionate share of representation 
in the cities and proposed a scheme of proportional represent-ation for them only. This caused such ill feeling that riots took place in the streets of Brussels. Finally, proportional representation was promised all round, and became law for both the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate at the latter end of 1899."

PR addressed Belgium's previous artificially-created regionalism - prior to PR no Catholic was elected in an industrial or French-speaking region; no Socialist or Liberal in a Flemish-speaking or farming region. Peace and unity were seriously menaced due toeh artificially-disproportional regional rep. Thanks to PR each party became truly national, and soon knew how to harmonize, and began to seek to harmonize, the ideas and desires, the interests and the needs of all parts of the country. Under a non-PR system, a shift of a few votes changed the entire complexion of the election, while under PR a change could only come through a profound change in public opinion (according to Hoag and Hallet, P.R. (1926), p. 67).

Unsettled political situation (general strike threatened) -- Belgium held 8 elections by 1915. But in part due to PR, serious violence was prevented.

(As well by that time Belgians had been successful in fighting against restricted franchise. Previous to 1893 only those of wealthy tax brackets and some other voters had had the vote. The restriction on voting was abolished in 1893 after the first general strike in Europe and replaced with plural voting for the better-off. Plural voting for some was used in elections from 1894 to 1919 as a way to limit the impact of universal suffrage. The system was unpopular, and two more general strikes were held, in 1902 and 1913, demanding it to be abolished, which was finally achieved in 1919.)

(FVC has country study on Belgium, showing the situation when it adopted PR in 1899. Humphreys PR 1911 discusses Belgium's PR (1911), pages 115-116.

Catherine Helen Spence Ever Yours, C.H. discusses Belgium's PR pg. 182-183

(see 1919)

(use of list PR in national elections so successful that in 1911 discussion was afoot of extending PR to provincial councils. Belgium provincial councils elected through STV starting in 1921) [I don't know why system switched to STV at provincial level]  

(see footnote)

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1900    Japan began to use SNTV.

Lower house (House of Representatives) - 376 members were elected in 51 multi-member constituencies -- prefectures and cities.

(Then or later Japan was bicameral.

Upper house (1947) -- parallel system (voter has two votes):

152 elected by SNTV in 47 districts (DM perhaps 3 to 5);

100 elected country-wide by list PR.

Lower house (House of Representatives) - 376 members were elected in 51 multi-member constituencies based on prefectures and cities. (DM unknown, likely 4 to 9 seats per district.) SNTV

SNTV accused of fostering "money politics" so in 1994 SNTV dropped, replaced by parallel voting.

The House of Representatives (Shugi-in) then had 500 members (later 465):

300 members in single-member constituencies; 200 elected by list PR in 11 MMDs. Voter has two votes. (Another bit of info: Prior to 2019, preferential voting strictly determined the order of candidates on party lists. so ranked voting apparently used as well, some place.) (see 1947)


1900 Switzerland -- List PR in use since 1891 in some cantons. Swiss voters voted not to adopt list PR in national elections. (Same result in 1910. 1918 referendum -- majority in favour of change.) (Hoag and Hallett, P.R. (1926), p. 66)


(After 1900 list PR and STV became main PR methods. Cumulative Voting, Limited Voting and SNTV seldom used after that. Bucklin method too found wanting. MMP first appeared in 1940s.)


(1901 Australia -- Tasmania used STV to elect six Senators and five Representatives to represent Tasmania in the Australian Parliament. Used state-wide at-large voting. (Hoag and Hallett, PR (1926), p. 259; Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 127; P.R. Review, March 1902)


1902 Australia -- debate on adoption of PR (STV) for election of the Senate as the Australian federation is formed. It was decided that each state would elect their Senators the same way. Catherine Helen Spence proposed multi-member districts (not at-large), the Hare quota (not Droop), and the Gregory method (not the whole-vote "exact method" (see footnote))

Droop, Nansen and other experts each fought for their own variation, each different from Spence's. Partly due to this confusion, Australia adopted FPTP/Block Voting. Thereafter, Tasmania, with experience of STV, could not use STV to elect its Senators. (Australia would not adopt STV for election of federal members until 1948.) (Farrell and McAllister, Aus. Electoral Systems, p. 26-36, 42)


1902 Rhode Island -- Lucius F.C. Garvin elected governor of state of Rhode Island. Member of Am. PRS. As governor, he shepherded bill through Assembly allowing municipalities to adopt single voting without transfer [SNTV]. Bill was blocked by state Senate. (P.R. Record, Dec. 1902)


1904 Albert Grey, the 4th Earl Grey), appointed as Canada's Governor General. He served as Canada's Governor General 1904-1911 and likely helped inspire City of Ottawa's push for city-level PR in 1915.) (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 129-130))

(see 1906 Montopedia "Timeline of Canadian Electoral Reform part 1")


1906 -- The Proportional Society of Society (UK) conducted model STV elections in 1906, 1908 and 1910. (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 343 reprints specifics of the STV used in those model elections)


1906 Finland - The Diet adopted party-list PR. No at-large members. All members elected in MMDs. (unicameral)


1907 Tasmania again adopted STV -- see 1909 for the first election under the new system.


1907 Sweden - both houses of Riksdag adopted PR. The Swedish constitution required that the 1907 law be reaffirmed after the next national election (held in 1909). P.R. first used in 1911 Swedish election, then again in 1914. King's power was weakened in 1918. Prior to 1907 four reform efforts had failed (in 1866, 1896, 1902, 1906).

(Provincial councils and local governments also began to use PR in 1907).

Sweden uses open-list PR and appartement (multi-party lists or pooling of votes).


1907 Ireland/UK -- Mr. Birrell, Chief Secretary for Ireland, proposed 24 appointed members that would represent minorities, beside 82 elected members. Humphreys (1911) remarked that the minority members would not have respect of the elected members. (the use of appointed members was not adopted.) (see 1922)


1908 United Kingdom[?] -- Caxton Hall demonstration STV election conducted by Humphreys. 21,000 participated. Catherine Helen Spence in far-away Australia noted this achievement. (Spence, "Effective Voting," The Register (Adelaide) Dec. 2, 1909)


(1908 -- Western Australia first place in world to use single-winner Instant-Runoff Voting. (likely called Alternative voting) (https://archive.fairvote.org/irv/vt_lite/history.htm)


(1909  Australia -- all members in Tasmania House of Assembly elected through STV.

The first election in the British Empire where all the members were elected through PR.

Also first use of Gregory method in a government election in the world. (Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 27)

DM-6 (six members for each of five electorates). The districts used were the federal electoral districts in  Tasmania  (Bass, Darwin, Denison, Franklin and Wilmot, each on average having about 21,000 voters and 10,000 votes cast in each district). (Bass was (and is) about 8,000 sq. kilometres in size, about a quarter the size of an average Canadian riding.)

Optional-preferential voting, but voters had to express a minimum set number of preferences.

Hare-Clark version of STV used -- Surplus votes are transferred according to the Gregory method using only the last parcel of transfers; whole votes are recorded, not fractional votes.

In Denison: 16 candidates. elimination of ten candidates and transfer of two small surpluses. 11 hours to do vote count

In Franklin: 12 candidates. elimination of six and one surplus transfer. Nine hours to do vote count.

Overall: "Not a hitch." Two parties - Labour with 39 percent of votes elected 12 men (40 percent of seats); Anti-Socialists with 61 percent elected 17 (57 percent of seats); one Liberal Democrat was elected.

About 2 percent spoiled votes -- about same as under old system. (Catherine Helen Spence, "Effective Voting in Municipal Elections," The Register (Adelaide) Dec. 2, 1909) https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/57879383

(The number of members per district was increased to seven in 1959.

(see George Howatt, "The need for seven-member constituencies," (1958)

DM was reduced to five in 1998.

DM put back up to seven in each district in 2024.

For PR purposes, an odd-numbered DM is recommended, as Howatt indicated in his 1958 pamphlet).



(1909 South Africa -- use of STV at both state and city level. in each of these the size of electorate was small and voters had to have "special qualifications" (for one thing, likely not being black). (Humphreys, p. 131)

(National Convention formed of both Boer and British delegates - this fairness helped achieve the federation of South Africa. Original draft constitution signed at Cape Town envisioned STV for all elections, including election of House of Assembly, but strong opposition of the Cape Colony Parliament struck it out for the House of Assembly (it was decided to use FPTP instead), leaving STV in place for the Senate and city elections).

Delimitation Committee (tasked with drawing districts for Assembly (and Prov. Councils) was discomfited by the lack of PR (MMDs). According to Committee secretary, the job of framing districts to make representatives who are "a true mirror of the various sections of the people" was made doubly difficult by use of single-member districts. Charges of gerrymandering. Lack of safeguards for minority representation impeded the "consolidation and unification of South Africa."

(STV used to elect South African Senate through indirect election. DM 8.

The First Senate included eight senators from each province. They were elected for a ten-year term, by the members serving during the final session of the legislatures of each of the four colonies that merged to form the Union of South Africa. The election was by STV. see wiki "Senate of South Africa")


Pretoria and Johannesburg adopted STV in city elections. at-large. "complete success".

Jo'burg 160,000 (or 100,000?) population in 1909

Oct. 28, 1909 election of ten members --

Humphreys (Honorary secretary of the PR Society (UK)), who had just pulled off the Caxton Hall demo election (see 1908), went there to help organize the elections.

12,000 votes cast. Only 43 percent voter turnout, same as last election. 367 spoiled votes.

23 candidates:

10 business candidates in total in 1st round took 75 percent of the votes and elected 6.

three Labour candidates    in total in 1st round took not quite two quotas but received enough votes from defeated candidate that two were elected,

ten Ind. cand. in total in 1st round took about two quotas, received few transfers. Two elected.

Women ratepayers voted in larger numbers despite disagreeable day -- wind and dust.

The three Jo'burg daily newspapers all agreed - elected representation was fair to all parties; the filling up of the ballot papers was simple for the voter (half of the spoiled votes were spoiled on purpose); the whole proceedings were orderly and educative.

Experienced councillors were re-elected. They noted under STV no good man could be defeated by a local clique or for a locally-unpopular act, whereas under ward system he runs great risks.  (Catherine Helen Spence, "Effective Voting in Municipal Elections," The Register (Adelaide) Dec. 2, 1909) https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/57879383

STV was used in Pretoria and Johannesburg at least to 1919.)


STV used to elect executive committees of provincial councils in all four provinces.

STV was used to elect members of Senate of the Cape Colony. Blomenfontein Post: "the system proved in practice as simple and accurate as it was scrupulously fair." Each party achieved the same representation that the party had in the provincial councils.

(Humphreys, p. 31, 56, 122, 131, 268))

(Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 343 reprints specifics of the STV used in South African cities.)

("Growing Demand for Electoral Reform" (PR League, 1927) (Equity (magazine) 1919, p. 78))

=====


1910 Report of Royal Commission on Electoral Reform (UK) released. Referred to by John H. Humphrey as "a very considerable advance in the history of the movement in the UK" (PR (1911), p. 122) The Royal Commission led to passage of the 1910 Municipal Representation Bill, which called for STV and the use of the Exact Method to transfer surplus votes (instead of the more exact Gregory Method being used in Tasmania elections). (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 143, 343) Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 343 reprints specifics of the STV authorized in the Municipal Representation Bill (on voluntary basis?). See 1916.

First UK city to use STV was Sligo -- see 1919.


1910 - Uruguay adopted a form of minority representation. (Humphreys, P.R. (1911), p. 124)


1911  Portugual - Lisbon and Oporto began to use PR to choose representatives under the electoral scheme of the Portuguese government. (Humphreys, P.R. (1911), p. 124)


(1911 John H. Humphreys in his book simply titled Proportional Representation gives a "state of the world of PR" round-up.

At that time he listed these PR systems being in use (or having been in use):

list PR used in Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Bale (canton in Switzerland);

STV as already used in Denmark, South Africa (Johannesburg city and Cape Colony Senate), and Tasmania;

"single voting" (SNTV) in Japan.)


1913 Costa Rica adopted PR.


(1914 North America (U.S. and Canada) -- after almost 20 years, PR League started again to publish the PR Review. published 1914-1928.



1915

1915 Denmark - Landsting (upper house) and Folketing (lower house) elecgted through PR.

Folketing members elected through Flexible District PR ("Rural-Urban PR") (mixture of single-member districts (FPTP)/MMD (list PR) with nation-wide top-up (list PR). This system used just in 1918. (see 1856 above) (adopted full PR prior to 1920 election) -- mixed member proportional, with some elected in multl-member districts, some by overall top-up, using best-losers in local contests, allocated regionally.

(1915 U.S. -- Ashtabula (Ohio) first city in U.S. to adopt PR (STV).

Droop quota. Used random method to transfer surplus votes (but equal number of votes transferred from each voting precinct). (Hoag and Hallett, PR (1926), p. 346)

23 other U.S. municipalities later adopted STV - see 1917, 1918, 1937, 1940, 2022)

see Barber's book P.R. and Election Reform in Ohio

(for first Canadian city to use STV, see 1917; for first city in U.K., see 1919)


(1915 Ottawa - referendum on adoption of STV. Majority voted in favour. Ontario government forbade the city from adopting STV.)


1916 United Kingdom -- The PR Society submitted evidence to the Speaker’s Conference. Two of the 32 members of the conference were already committed to PR (Earl Grey and Aneurin Williams). The Conference unanimously recommended the application of STV to London, to boroughs with three or more members (UK was using many multi-member districts and block voting), to groups of contiguous boroughs returning together three to five members, and to two three-member university constituencies. The Representation of the People Act (1918) called for steps to be taken toward the election of 100 MPs in districts having between three and seven members each through "proportional representation, each elector having one transferable vote." (The HofC had 707 members at that time.) (None of these PR schemes were established by law except the university seats.) (see 1918)


1916 - C.J. Yorath, Saskatoon City commissioner, called for STV to be used in Saskatoon city elections. He cited the usage PR was getting in the wider world at that time:

"STV or some similar system of proportional representation has been adopted in Belgium, Sweden, South Africa, Tasmania, Switzerland and is likely to be adopted for Ireland. Proportional Representation was one of the chief political issues in France prior to the outbreak of war and a bill providing for its application to French politics has already passed the Chamber of Deputies." (Yorath, Civic Government (1916) (City of Saskatoon Archives, 1069-1030-004) (see Montopedia blog "Saskatoon... for more info.)



1917

1917 Netherlands adopted PR. At-large (country-wide district). List PR. 100 members. DM-100. Low electoral threshold of just 0.5 percent. (see footnote)

1.3M votes cast in first PR election (1918). The smallest party won a seat with just 0.51 percent of the vote. Only two percent of the vote was not used to elect someone. First woman was elected (even though women were not yet allowed to cast votes.

In 1922, Netherlands again used PR. By then women had got the vote, and this time, seven women were elected.)

(Netherlands and Israel are only two countries in world to use PR at-large country-wide.)

(Netherlands has kept PR since 1917. It did not hold elections from 1937 to 1946 (exclusive) due to threat of war and German military occupation.)

(see Lakeman and Lambert, Voting in Democracies (1959), p. 177-181)


(1917 Calgary was first Canadian city to adopt STV. STV in use until 1960, and in 1971.

Annual elections, so any casual vacancies filled in next election. Two-year terms, staggered terms, half of councillors up for election each year (except 1961 and 1971 when all the seats filled).

Gregory Method (version unknown) was used for transfers of surplus votes.

at first elections were held at-large, city-wide

DM varied from five to nine, variance due to casual vacancies.

1960 adopted two-seat wards - 1961 both seats filled at same time.

Through 1960s most seats elected singly in alternating years, through IRV.

1971 both seats in each ward filled by STV.

1917 9 elected -- 6 to 2-year terms, three to one-year terms

from 1918 to 1960, DM ranged from 6 to 8. (5 to 9?)

1961, 1971 two-seat wards.

three times in 1960s -- both seats in a ward were filled at the same time, due to casual vacancy (so STV was used.)

Calgary's adoption of STV in 1917 was copied by 19 other municipalities within the next 11 years. All except Calgary, Winnipeg and some Winnipeg area suburbs dropped STV by 1930, Saskatoon was only one (so far) to put STV into use again later.) (see 1920, 1923, Saskatoon 1939)

Calgary had population of about 66,000 in 1917. (1917 Henderson's Directory, p. 39) so not until Cleveland adopted STV in 1924 did the first large N. Am. city adopt STV.


1917 USA - Boulder, Colorado second city in U.S. to get PR (STV). Hare quota. "Exact method" used to transfer surplus votes of members elected in first count, if any. (Hoag and Hallett, PR (1926), p. 201, 392; League of Woman Voters of Boulder County "Making Democracy Work" online))


(1917 Puerto Rico - Senate had 5 members elected at-large through SNTV. Three parties represented among the five winners. Some time later, House of Representatives and Senate each got 11 members elected at-large through SNTV. To avoid vote splitting, the two major parties will typically nominate only 6 members and smaller parties typically only nominate one. Parties may choose the ballot order of its candidates in different districts, in an attempt to signal to voters the preferred method of voting. However, each voter is free to choose any candidate.)


(1917 New Zealand -- STV was used for elections to the Christchurch City Council in 1917 and for the Woolston Borough Council in 1917 and 1919.

Christchurch dropped STV after 1917 but STV came back a decade later, 1929, 1931 and 1933.) (https://localgovernmentmag.co.nz/the-fpp-or-stv-question-rolls-around-again/)


From 1918 to 1922, "Proportional Representation -- "P.R.", as it is called for short -- is spreading over the world rapidly." ("Hare system remedy for boss rule" (1922))

Twelve European nations adopted list PR in those four years.

Two adopted STV in those years.


1918

1918 Germany - National Constituent Assembly - adopted PR in 1918. Used a form of apparentment -- In the election of the Assembly in the 1920s, an unused vote could be used outside the original district to help a party get an additional seat (Hoag and Hallett, PR (1926), p. 427). Reichstag adopted list PR in 1919. (State legislatures and local governments also used PR starting in 1919)

(PR suspended in 1930s. PR reborn in 1949)


1918 Austria adopted PR (PR used for both houses in 1920) (Provincial councils and local governments also used PR) (elections suspended in 1930, 1945 PR reborn)


1918 Switzerland -- country's third referendum on PR, 67 percent voted in favour of PR, 33 percent against. PR adopted to elect members of Conseil National (lower house). (PR at canton level had been in use since 1891) (see 1919)


1918 Latvia adopted PR


1918 Czechoslovakia adopted PR (PR reborn in 1993)


1918 United Kingdom -- STV was adopted for MPs representing the university constituencies of Cambridge, Oxford, Combined English Universities, Combined Scottish Universities and Dublin University. Seven university constituencies elected a total of 14 MPs. Five of these constituencies (Combined English Universities, Combined Scottish Universities, Dublin University, Oxford University, and Cambridge University) were multi-member seats, electing two or three MPs; the other two had a single seat each. "The Representation of the People Act" stipulated that university elections were to be held by STV. STV was then used for Westminster elections, to elect no fewer than 34 MPs (including former Labour Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald), across eight general elections. (IRV was used for 15 Univ. seat by-elections).

These constituencies (made up of graduates of the respective institutions) continued to use STV until their abolition in 1950 (1922 in the case of Dublin University). (rare case of non-geographic constituencies used in the British Commonwealth, or anywhere)


(1918  Australia -- New South Wales lower house elected through STV.

24 districts -- 15 had 3 members; nine had five members.

Unlike previous election, where "majority runoff" (contingent voting?) was used, two additional parties got representation in this election - Progressives and Socialist Labor.

In 1922 election, Democrat and Ind. Coalitionist were new arrivals.

In 1925, Protestant Labor and Ind. Nationalist members were new arrivals.

STV dropped in 1926, replaced by IRV. Later (1992) NSW adopted STV for its upper house.)


(1918 Scottish school boards (educational authorities of counties and large cities) used STV. 37 separate bodies. Used STV until 1929.)


(1918  USA - Kalamazoo (Michigan) adopted PR in 1918. Used in 1918, 1919, 1920 elections. 1919 referendum - majority voted to continue STV. System eventually ruled out of order by courts in 1920 or 1921. (Hoag and Hallett, PR (1926), p. 202, 392))


1919

1919 Norway adopted PR for Parliament. (Local government elections used STV by law.)


1919 Italy adopted PR


1919 Switzerland adopted list PR. The system included apparentment. Apparentment means a vote is first applied to fill a district seat, then used as per a group list, or joined with votes cast outside the original district to elect an additional member.


1919 Belgium added apparentment to its list PR system. in Belgium a vote was allowed to float outside the district to aid the election of a candidate in another district in the same province. As well, plural voting was finally stamped out. (see 1899)


1919 France adopted PR. list PR in use 1919-1927, 1945-1958 and 1986.

For some reason, PR created instability in France. In the 12 years from 1946 to 1958, the Fourth Republic had 24 Présidents du Conseil (equivalent of PM) who formed 22 governments; 9 governments lasted less than 41 days; and from May 1957 to 1958, 5 governments held power, each lasting an average of less than 59 days. Only two governments lasted more than a year (Henri Queuille 13 months; Guy Mollet 16 months) (from https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-French-democracy-not-using-proportional-representation-for-election-of-the-assembly.)      (See 1951)

(France dropped PR in 1927. France again used PR 1945-1958 and in 1986.

1986 list PR department-wide MMDs.

1927-WWII, 1958-1986 and 1986-present - France used majoritarian Two-Round System.


1919 Luxembourg adopted PR. (Local governments used PR, optional in areas with less than 8000 inhabitants.)


1919 Poland adopted PR


(1919/1920 United Kingdom/Ireland -- 1919 Sligo city election used STV.

First borough in UK to use STV. Three 8-seat wards.

Whole-vote "exact method" used for transfer of surplus votes (see footnote).

Protestant-Catholic troubles, labour tension, borough in deep financial straits. Members of three parties (Ratepayers, Sinn Fein, Labour) plus Independents elected.

80 percent voter turnout. newspaper hailed election as "absolutely fair."

(Sligo election was so successful that STV was prescribed for all cities and towns in Ireland. On Jan. 15, 1920, 126 government bodies in Ireland were elected by STV. (likely the "Exact method" was used to transfer surplus votes.) (Hoag and Hallet, PR (1926), p. 237)

(subsequently no elections held until 1926 (1925?) due to the Troubles.)

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Further reading

Belgium's adoption of PR:


Ireland's adoption of PR:


Netherland's adoption of PR:


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for Montopedia blog "Timeline of Electoral Reform part 2 1920-1971"

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History | Tom Monto Montopedia is a blog about the history, present, and future of Edmonton, Alberta. Run by Tom Monto, Edmonton historian. Fruits of my research, not complete enough to be included in a book, and other works.

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