National Assembly for Wales constituencies and electoral regions
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National Assembly for Wales constituencies and electoral regions were first used for the Welsh Assembly election, 1999. New boundaries will come into use for the Welsh Assembly election, 2007. The total numbers of constituencies and regions (40 constituencies and five regions) will remain the same.[1]
The constituencies of the National Assembly for Wales (or Welsh Assembly) (Welsh: Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru) were created with the boundaries of the Welsh constituencies of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster), as they were in 1999. The new boundaries are those which will be used, also, for the next United Kingdom general election. Between the dates of 2007 Assembly election and the next United Kingdom general election, the two sets of constituencies, Assembly and Westminster, will have differing boundaries.
Three constituency names, Conwy, Carnarfon, and Meirionydd Nant Conwy, will become historic, and the new boundaries will define three constituencies with new names, Arfon, Dwyfor Meirionnydd, and Aberconwy. Generally, the new boundaries define each constituency as a division of a single preserved county, take account of changes to local government ward boundaries, and create constituencies closer to equal in terms of the sizes of their electorates. Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, however, will continue to straddle the boundary between Mid Glamorgan and Gwent.
Unlike Westminster constituencies, Assembly constituencies are grouped into electoral regions, and an additional member system is used to elect four additional Assembly Members (AMs) (Welsh: Aelodau y Cynulliad) from each region, in addition, that is, to AMs elected by the constituencies. At each general election of the Assembly, each elector has two votes, one constituency vote and one regional party-list vote. Each constituency elects one AM by the first past the post (single-member district plurality, SMDP) system, and the additional Assembly seats are filled from regional closed party lists, under the d'Hondt method, with constituency results being taken into account, to produce a degree of proportional representation for each region. Altogether, 60 AMs are elected from the 40 constituencies and five electoral regions, creating an Assembly of 40 constituency AMs and 20 additional AMs. Every constituent is represented by one constituency AM and four regional AMs.
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