Italy Trentino Alto Adige Regional Council 2013

An election apportionment diagram is the graphic representation of

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has oper ...

results and the seats in a plenary or

legislative body A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...

. The chart can also be used to represent data in easy to understand terms, for example by grouping allied parties together.

Background

Votes in an election are often represented using

bar chart A bar chart or bar graph is a chart or graph that presents categorical data with rectangular bars with heights or lengths proportional to the values that they represent. The bars can be plotted vertically or horizontally. A vertical bar chart i ...

s or

pie chart A pie chart (or a circle chart) is a circular statistical graphic, which is divided into slices to illustrate numerical proportion. In a pie chart, the arc length of each slice (and consequently its central angle and area) is proportional t ...

s, often labeled with the corresponding percentage or number of votes. An example of this can be seen in the BBC Coverage of the 2019 parliamentary election () The

apportionment The legal term apportionment (french: apportionement; Mediaeval Latin: , derived from la, portio, share), also called delimitation, is in general the distribution or allotment of proper shares, though may have different meanings in different c ...

of seats between the parties in a legislative body has a defined set of rules, unique to each body. As an example, the

Senate of Virginia The Senate of Virginia is the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly. The Senate is composed of 40 senators representing an equal number of single-member constituent districts. The Senate is presided over by the lieutenant governor of Virg ...

says,

Instead of using a bar or pie chart, the

of seats between the parties in a legislative body such as a parliament can be represented more clearly by displaying the individual representatives of each party as dots in a pattern, because the number of representatives is also significant, and is easily understood visually. The dots are typically coded according to the

political color Political colours are colours used to represent a political ideology, movement or party, either officially or unofficially. It is the intersection of colour symbolism and political symbolism. Parties in different countries with similar ideo ...

of the respective parties. This was traditionally presented as a seating chart of a plenary hall, but can also be represented in a more abstract fashion which more loosely corresponds to the seating arrangement in a legislature, for example a form of half-donut chart as an abstract representation of a

hemicycle In legislatures, a hemicycle is a semicircular, or horseshoe-shaped, debating chamber (''plenary chamber''), where deputies (members) sit to discuss and pass legislation. Although originally of Ancient Greek roots, the term and modern design d ...

, or a stylized representation of the

Westminster Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremac ...

, showing government, opposition, speaker and

crossbenchers A crossbencher is an independent or minor party member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and oppositi ...

. In Germany, the order of the bars usually corresponds from left to right to the placement of the parties in the previous election and is thus based on the order given on the

ballot A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election and may be found as a piece of paper or a small ball used in secret voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters in Italy around the 16t ...

, which is regulated in Section 30 of the . These charts can also be used to represent data in easy to understand terms. An example of this is politicians’ responses to the Orlando shootings.

Gallery

File:House of Lords composition.svg, Schematic diagram of the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminst ...

, showing government, opposition, cross-bench and speaker, without being an accurate representation of the seating layout. File:NIAssembly20200111.svg, a stylised U-shaped diagram meant to depict the layout of the

Northern Ireland Assembly sco-ulster, Norlin Airlan Assemblie , legislature = Seventh Assembly , coa_pic = File:NI_Assembly.svg , coa_res = 250px , house_type = Unicameral , house1 = , leader1_type = ...

File:Bundestag Draft D transparent.png, An election apportionment diagram closely mirroring the actual seating layout of the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...

References

External links

*{{Commonscat-inline, Election apportionment diagrams
Parliament diagram creation toolTHE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND ITS MEMBERSHouse seating plan
Apportionment (politics) Statistical charts and diagrams

Background

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading

External links