Anelection apportionment diagram is a graphic representation ofelection results and the seats in a plenary orlegislative body. These charts can also represent data in easy-to-understand terms, for example, by grouping allied parties together.
Election votes are often represented usingbar charts orpie charts, frequently labeled with the corresponding percentage or number of votes.[1] Theapportionment of seats among the parties in a legislative body has a defined set of rules unique to each body. For example, theSenate of Virginia states,
The Clerk of the Senate, after the election of Senators, shall assign desks to the individual Senators with the Senators elected as members of the majority party in the Senate in the chamber area beginning at the north side of the chamber until all such desks have been assigned, and then the Senators elected as members of the minority party in the Senate, and then any Senator not elected as a member of the two major political parties.[2]
Instead of using a bar or pie chart, theapportionment of seats among parties in a legislative body such as a parliament can be more clearly represented by displaying the individual representatives of each party as dots in a pattern. The number of representatives is significant and easily understood visually. The dots are typically coded according to thepolitical color of the respective parties.[3] Traditionally presented as a seating chart of aplenary hall, it can also be represented in a more abstract fashion that loosely corresponds to the seating arrangement in a legislature, such as a form ofhalf-donut chart as an abstract representation of ahemicycle, or a stylized representation of theWestminster Parliament, showing government, opposition,speaker andcrossbenchers. In Germany, the order of the bars usually corresponds from left to right to the placement of the parties in the previous election and is thus based on the order given on theballot, which is regulated in Section 30 of theFederal Electoral Act [de].[4]
These charts can also represent data understandably.[5] An example of this is politicians’ responses to theOrlando shootings.[6]
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Media related toElection apportionment diagrams at Wikimedia Commons