Proportional Representation in the Welsh Assembly

The proposed rule for electing members to the Welsh Assembly gives each voter two votes, to cast at the Parliamentary constituency level, and at the bigger European constituency level. Half of the members are to be elected for the Assembly by a form of proportional representation, where party support is calculated by aggregating the two votes. The voters will be allowed to cast the second vote for a different party than the one for which they voted at the parliamentary level. This additional degree of freedom can frustrate the objective of obtaining better correspondence between party support and the number ofseats.