Summary
Local proportional representation is a voting system where voters are given a list of candidates for their riding and they vote for their favorite, as in plurality voting. All groups which receive as many votes as the average riding has voters, get seats. The seats are allocated by giving
all those groups except the most popular group, seats according to their share of the popular vote for all those groups rounded down. The most popular group gets the remaining seats.
Once all the votes are collected, the ridings for each group are ranked according to what proportion of the vote the party got in that riding. The ridings are distributed to the groups in a round robin until each group gets their seats.
Local proportional representation is similar to mixed member proportional using something like a largest remainder method to allocate seats. The advantage of local proportional representation is that the seat allocation is simpler than with the largest remainder method and independents can be elected.
Example
For example, the region of Electora has one hundred ridings. Of all the groups running for office, the Big Party, the Medium Party, the Small Party and independents received at least as many votes as the average number of votes per riding. Of the popular vote received by those groups, the Big Party received 48.8 ridings worth of vote, the Medium Party received 40.4 ridings worth of vote, the Small Party received 8.6 ridings worth of vote and the independents received 2.2 ridings worth of vote. The Medium Party gets 40 ridings, the Small Party gets 8 ridings, the independents get 2 ridings and the Big Party, the most popular group, gets the remaining 50 ridings. The seats are allocated as follows:
The Big Party candidate who won the highest vote proportion of all Big Party candidates wins their riding.
The Medium Party candidate who won the highest vote proportion of all Medium Party candidates in the remaining seats wins their riding.
The Small Party candidate who won the highest vote proportion of all Small Party candidates in the remaining seats wins their riding.
The independent who won the highest vote proportion of all independents in the remaining seats wins their riding.
The Big Party candidate who won the highest vote proportion of all Big Party candidates in the remaining seats wins their riding.
The round robin riding allocation continues and each group stays in until they reach their riding total. With B standing for the Big Party, M standing for the Medium Party, S standing for the Small Party and I standing for independents, the order of the entire allocation is as follows:
B M S I B M S I B M S B M S B M S B M S
B M S B M S B M S B M B M B M B M B M B
M B M B M B M B M B M B M B M B M B M B
M B M B M B M B M B M B M B M B M B M B
M B M B M B M B M B B B B B B B B B B B
Characteristics
Plurality voting safe ridings would have the same representation in local proportional representation. Plurality voting swing ridings would tend to be won by smaller groups.
In general, the Big Party would have fewer seats in a local proportional representation election than in a plurality voting election, the Medium Party would have a similar number of seats, the Small Party and independents would have more seats. Since all votes count towards the popular vote which determines the seats; there is no problem with vote splitting, gerrymandering does not alter the seat total and there is no reason for strategic voting. Groups would get a similar number of seats in local proportional representation as in a proportional representation system with the largest remainder method to allocate seats and a threshold of a few percent to get any seats.
Conclusion
With local proportional representation, voting is simple, allocating seats is simple, all candidates represent a riding and parties are represented in proportion to their votes. The government formed will be similar to governments in proportional representation systems, typically coalition governments.