Guidelines to Assist National Minority Participation in the Electoral Process Page: 18 • a majority system such as the two-round runoff or the alternative vote. This system requires the winner to win at least a majority of the votes cast in order to be elected. This may mean a runoff between the top two candidates if none of the candidates in the first round get a majority of the votes cast. Representatives elected under these kinds of electoral systems are therefore linked to the constituencies that elected them to office. If a national minority is concentrated in a particular area, then it will have a better chance of having its representatives elected. In most cases, single-member systems will only be of assistance to minority representation in countries where minorities are concentrated territorially. If minorities are concentrated territorially and there is a majority electoral system, then the chances of a member of such minority being elected are very high. This is the case, for example, in Albania with the Greek minority in the South of the country, in Canada with the French-speaking population of Quebec and in Italy with French speaking minority in the Valle d’Aosta and German speaking minority in the province of Bolzano. If minorities are dispersed generally throughout the country, depending on their numbers, they would not necessarily be ensured representation because there may not be sufficient votes to ensure a minority winner in any of the single member districts. The potential advantages of a single member system are: • a territorially concentrated minority may be ensured representation • direct accountability of the candidates to the constituencies. The potential disadvantages of such a system are: • there is every incentive for national minorities to campaign in their own area, resulting in a potentially chauvinistic and exclusivist approach and campaign. This also results in the potential to compartmentalise national minorities and the drawing of potential ethnic fault lines for future conflict; • it can also lead to non-competitive districts in that persons from the dominant ethnic grouping will always be elected; • unless there are appropriate external voting provisions, displaced persons who may have been driven from their communities will be unable to vote. There are implications for national minorities in the choice between plurality (first past the post) and majority systems. In a plurality system, there is no incentive to seek votes across the constituency if the national minority represents the largest percentage of voters but not the majority. In a majority system, there is an incentive to seek votes outside that of the national minority in order to acquire the required majority. If a national minority is concentrated in some areas but a significant number of that minority are dispersed nationally, a mixed system may be more appropriate to ensure fair representation of the national minority in the legislature. One such mixed system is called the mixed member proportional system (MMP). This is a variation of the single member system and the proportional representation system (PR). It is used in Germany, New Zealand, Bolivia, Italy, Mexico, Venezuela and Hungary. It attempts to combine the positive attributes of the two systems. A proportion27 of the representatives are elected in single member districts and the balance by PR. The PR seats are used in this system to 27 Roughly half of the parliamentary representatives in the German, New Zealand, Bolivian and Venezuelan electoral systems.