I was also talking about mixed systems I’ve seen. During the first B.C. single transferable vote referendum, I studied the proposal and voted in favour. It seemed to me to be the best one that balanced proportionality and representation. Although it received a majority vote, it didn’t meet the minimum thresholds for ridings in favour and a certain percentage province-wide in favour.
A few years later, they held a second referendum. This time there were more details into how the ridings and MLAs were to be distributed. To say I was shocked was an understatement. Ridings outside of the Lower Mainland were put in 5 member “super ridings” which were massive and centred around one medium sized city. There was no pretence of local representation. Not surprisingly, it went down in defeat when people were shown the details.
I’ve also looked at other mixed systems like Germany and New Zealand. The biggest complaint of those systems is like mine, loss of local representation because the ridings become so huge.
I’d love to see a PR system that didn’t sacrifice local representation. I am currently unaware of any that do.