The Republic of Ireland uses a voting system known as proportional representation (PR) in all elections.
Local Member of Parliament, TD (Member of the Irish Parliament); Members of the European Parliament (MEP) and even the President of Ireland are all elected through PR.
In a PR system, every voter has a single transferable vote (STV).
This means that in each precinct, people can vote for as many candidates as they want on the ballot, marking their choices in numerical order.
The PR-STV system means that if a voter's preferred candidate receives too few first preference votes and is eliminated, those ballots can be redistributed to the remaining candidates based on the voter's second preference, etc.
Additionally, if a candidate receives more votes than needed to reach the electoral quota, the remaining votes may be redistributed according to the voters' preferences.
The advantage of PR electoral systems, as opposed to simple “candidate selection” elections, is that PR tends to give smaller parties and independents a better chance of winning seats against larger, more established parties.
Voters can also express alternative preferences if their chosen candidate has little chance of winning, giving them more of a say in who represents them.
But critics of the PR system argue that it can result in a weak coalition coming to power rather than a government with a strong majority that can govern decisively.
They also argue that PR allows parties to remain in power by forming new coalitions even when their popularity has declined.
