Arfon is a constituency

United Kingdom constituencies

In the United Kingdom , each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one or more members to a parliament or assembly.Within the United Kingdom there are now five bodies with members elected by constituencies:...

 of the National Assembly for Wales

National Assembly for Wales

The National Assembly for Wales is a devolved assembly with power to make legislation in Wales. The Assembly comprises 60 members, who are known as Assembly Members, or AMs...

, created for the 2007 Assembly election. It elects one Assembly Member by the first past the post method of election. Also, however, it is one of nine constituencies in the North Wales

North Wales (National Assembly for Wales constituency)

North Wales is an electoral region of the National Assembly for Wales, consisting of nine constituencies. The region elects thirteen members, nine directly elected constituency members and four additional members...

 electoral region, which elects four additional members

Additional Member System

The Additional Member System is the term used in the United Kingdom for the mixed member proportional representation voting system used in Scotland, Wales and the London Assembly....

, in addition to nine constituency members, to produce a degree of proportional representation

Proportional representation

Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...

 for the region as a whole.

Boundaries

The constituency has the boundaries of the Arfon Westminster constituency

Arfon (UK Parliament constituency)

Arfon is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Although the constituency is relatively large by geographical area, it is a predominantly urban rather than rural seat, with the majority of the population living in the two towns on which the constituency is...

, entirely within the preserved county

Preserved counties of Wales

The preserved counties of Wales are the current areas used in Wales for the ceremonial purposes of Lieutenancy and Shrievalty. They are based on the counties created by the Local Government Act 1972 and used for local government and other purposes between 1974 and 1996.-Usage:The Local Government ...

 of Gwynedd

Gwynedd

Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although the second biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated...

, which will come into use, also, for the 2010 United Kingdom general election. The new constituency merged together areas currently within the Caernarfon

Caernarfon (National Assembly for Wales constituency)

Caernarfon was a constituency of the National Assembly for Wales from 1999 to 2007. It elected one Assembly Member by the first past the post method of election...

 constituency and the Conwy

Conwy (National Assembly for Wales constituency)

Conwy was a constituency of the National Assembly for Wales from 1999 to 2007. It elected one Assembly Member by the first past the post method of election...

 constituency. The Caernarfon constituency was entirely within the preserved county of Gwynedd. The Conwy constituency was partly a Gwynedd constituency and partly within the preserved county of Clwyd

Clwyd

Clwyd is a preserved county of Wales, situated in the north-east, bordering England with Cheshire to its east, Shropshire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Gwynedd to its immediate west and Powys to the south. It additionally shares a maritime border with the metropolitan county of...

.

The North Wales region was created for the first Assembly election

Welsh Assembly election, 1999

The first National Assembly for Wales elections were held on 6 May 1999. The overall turnout of voters was 46.3%. Although the Welsh Labour Party were the biggest party, they did not gain enough seats to form a majority government and instead entered into coalition with the Liberal Democrats...

, in 1999. For the 2007 election, however, it had new boundaries. It includes the constituencies of Aberconwy, Alyn and Deeside, Arfon, Clwyd South

Clwyd South (National Assembly for Wales constituency)

Clwyd South is a constituency of the National Assembly for Wales. It elects one Assembly Member by the first past the post method of election...

, Clwyd West, Delyn, Vale of Clwyd, Wrexham

Wrexham (National Assembly for Wales constituency)

Wrexham is a constituency of the National Assembly for Wales. It elects one Assembly Member by the first past the post method of election. Also, however, it is one of nine constituencies in the North Wales electoral region, which elects four additional members, in addition to nine constituency...

 and Ynys Môn.

Voting

In general election

General election

In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

s for the National Assembly for Wales, each voter has two votes. The first vote may be used to vote for a candidate to become the Assembly Member for the voter's constituency, elected by the first past the post system. The second vote may be used to vote for a regional closed party list

Closed list

Closed list describes the variant of party-list proportional representation where voters can only vote for political parties as a whole and thus have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected...

 of candidates. Additional member seats are allocated from the lists by the d'Hondt method

D'Hondt method

The d'Hondt method is a highest averages method for allocating seats in party-list proportional representation. The method described is named after Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt who described it in 1878...

, with constituency results being taken into account in the allocation.

Assembly Members

Period		Member	Party
	2007 to present	Alun Ffred Jones Alun Ffred Jones Alun Ffred Jones is a Welsh politician and member of Plaid Cymru. Jones was the National Assembly for Wales Member for Caernarfon 2003–07 and for the newly created Arfon constituency since the National Assembly for Wales election, 2007....	Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ' is a political party in Wales. It advocates the establishment of an independent Welsh state within the European Union. was formed in 1925 and won its first seat in 1966...

Elections