Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) systems, as used in Germany (see Germany: The Original Mixed Member Proportional System), New Zealand (see New Zealand: A Westminster Democracy Switches to PR), Bolivia (see Bolivia: Electoral Reform in Latin America), Italy, Mexico, Venezuela, and Hungary, attempt to combine the positive attributes of both majoritarian and Proportional Representation (PR) electoral systems. A proportion of the parliament (roughly half in the cases of Germany, Bolivia, and Venezuela) is elected by plurality-majority methods, usually from single-member districts, while the remainder is constituted by PR lists. This structure might on the surface appear similar to that of the Parallel systems described earlier; but the crucial distinction is that under MMP the list PR seats compensate for any disproportionality produced by the district seat results. For example, if one party wins ten percent of the national votes but no district seats, then they would be awarded enough seats from the PR lists to bring their representation up to approximately ten percent of the parliament.
In all but one of the seven countries using MMP, district seats are elected using FPTP, while Hungary uses the Two-Round system previously described. Italy's method is considerably more complicated, with one-quarter of the parliamentary seats being reserved to compensate for wasted votes in the single-member districts. In Venezuela there are 102 FPTP seats, 87 National List PR seats and 15 extra compensatory PR seats. In Mexico 200 List PR seats compensate for the usually high imbalances in the results of the 300 FPTP seats, but an extra provision states that no single party can win more than 315 parliamentary seats, and if they receive less than sixty percent of the vote the maximum becomes 300 seats.
