South Africa’s local government election system is based on a proportional representation system that combines “first past the post” ward representative, making up half of council, with representatives of parties making up the other half. This is different to voting systems where people might directly elect a Mayor, for example, or “plurality” or “majoritarian” systems where a single “majority” winning party takes on leadership, sometimes through blocked or phased voting.
We are data scientists and democracy geeks, so we tried to break this down for ourselves, and you!….