2024 is the year of the Korean National Assembly elections. Since this is an election to elect the National Assembly members, the people's representatives, it will be really important for all of us to participate. However, what is becoming a hot topic in this general election is none other than the proportional representation system. Should it be a parallel type or a linked type? It is said that the ruling and opposition parties are debating whether to do so. What kind of system is the proportional representation system? And what is the difference between the parallel type and the linked type? The proportional representation system was created to more accurately reflect the will of the people in elections. District elections have the meaning of selecting representatives from our village and sending them to the National Assembly. However, the opinions of citizens who did not vote for the elected candidate become resignation votes and disappear. For example, if the winner in one district receives 35% of the votes, the will of the remaining 65% of the people will not be reflected. Additionally, there are cases where candidates from minority parties who received nationwide support are not elected due to a lack of votes in the district. The proportional representation system was created to compensate for the shortcomings of these district election systems. You vote one vote for the local worker you support, and one vote for the political party you support. The votes cast for the political party are counted nationwide. The seats will be assigned in the order of the parties with the most votes. In this way, the will of the people will be evenly reflected, and minority parties that were not elected in the constituency can also have the opportunity to advance to the National Assembly. However, the proportional representation system is not as simple as it seems. Districts Elections are a simple method in which the candidate who receives the most votes is elected, but the proportional representation system can have hundreds of methods depending on how the seats are divided. Among them, the two methods that are at issue in this election are the parallel method. Parallel type and linked type, what do they mean and what is the difference? The parallel type is a method of conducting elections separately from district elections and proportional elections. For example, if Party A, a minority party, has 3 constituency members and 10% proportional seats, Of the 47 seats allocated to proportional representatives, you will get 5 seats, which is about 10 percent. Proportional elections do not affect district elections. The linked type is a method in which proportional voting results affect the total number of seats. (A total of 300 Korean lawmakers) If the linked type is applied to Party A, what will be the change? In the linked type, 30 seats are guaranteed by applying 10% proportionality to the total. 3 district councilors and 27 proportional councilors will be elected. On the other hand, party B, a large political party with many constituency members elected, is of little use even if it receives many proportional votes. Since this is already filled with local constituency members, in extreme cases, it may not be possible to get even a single proportional representative. Therefore, the parallel type is advantageous for large political parties, and the linked type is advantageous for minority parties. The linked proportional representation system was introduced in 2020. It was a system that combined the semi-linked system and the parallel system to make up for the shortcomings of the linked system. However, when the semi-linked proportional representation system began, problems arose. Large political parties, unable to obtain proportional representation, formed fake minority parties to win seats. This political party is a 'satellite party'(위성정당) Because of this satellite party, seats that were supposed to go to existing minority parties were absorbed by large parties. To summarize, the parallel type is a method of calculating district votes separately and proportionally, and the linked type is a method of calculating party votes. It is a method of filling in proportional members according to the results. The parallel type has the disadvantage of not properly reflecting the will of the people because it is still centered on the constituency, and the linked type has the disadvantage of not benefiting minority parties if satellite parties proliferate.
