Constituency

A constituency is any cohesive corporate unit or body bound by shared structures, goals or loyalty. It can be used to describe a business's customer base and shareholders, or a charity's donors or those it serves. The most common meaning of constituency occurs in politics and means the group of people or geographical area that a particular elected representative or group of elected representatives represents. The rest of this article deals with this sense of constituency.

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Specifically, a constituency often refers to the group or area from which voters in an election are drawn. Depending on the electoral system being used, a constituency may elect one or more members. For instance, in the United Kingdom, House of Commons Parliamentary constituencies each elect one Member of Parliament using a first past the post system (though some used to elect more than one), while the larger European Parliamentary constituencies each elect a number of Member of the European Parliament (see 'Regions of England').

Related Topics:
Electoral system - United Kingdom - House of Commons - Parliament - Member of Parliament - First past the post - European Parliament - Member of the European Parliament - Regions of England

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A marginal constituency is one where the margin between the expected voting for the major parties in an election is slim. In United Kingdom general elections, the voting in a relatively small number of marginal constituencies usually determines the outcome of the entire election.

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