ABSTRACT
A key aspect of any electoral system is the degree to which each party’s vote share is translated equitably into seats. Four different methods for calculating the proportionality of an election outcome are compared using data from English county council elections between 1973–97. Three of the measures are seen to be closely related to each other, but the fourth produces rather different results. To avoid confusion in any public debate over electoral reform for local government it is proposed that only one measure of proportionality is employed. The choice between the four measures is made on the basis of the ease of calculation and whether the measure appears intuitively attractive. A single measure is then used to analyse proportionality in English county elections in more detail. The evidence shows that while the electoral outcome in some counties in some years appears proportional this is largely an artefact of patterns of voting and the nature of party competition and as such is rarely stable.
