Rhondda 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...

. It elects one Assembly Member by the first past the post method of election. Also, however, it is one of eight constituencies in the South Wales Central

South Wales Central (National Assembly for Wales constituency)

South Wales Central is an electoral region of the National Assembly for Wales, consisting of eight constituencies. The region elects 12 members, eight 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 eight 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 was created for the first election to the Assembly, in 1999, with the name and boundaries of the Rhondda Westminster constituency

Rhondda (UK Parliament constituency)

Rhondda is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election...

. It 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 Mid Glamorgan

Mid Glamorgan

Mid Glamorgan is a preserved county of Wales. From 1974 until 1996, it was also an administrative county, with a county council.Mid Glamorgan was formed in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972...

.

The other seven constituencies of the region are Cardiff Central, Cardiff North, Cardiff South and Penarth, Cardiff West, Cynon Valley, Pontypridd and Vale of Glamorgan.

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.

Members of the National Assembly for Wales

Election		Member	Party
	1999	Geraint Davies	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...
	2003	Leighton Andrews Leighton Andrews Leighton Andrews is a Welsh Labour politician, currently the National Assembly for Wales member for Rhondda since 2003...	Labour Wales Labour Party Welsh Labour is the part of the United Kingdom Labour Party that operates in Wales. Labour is the largest and most successful political party in modern Welsh politics, having won the largest share of the vote at every UK General Election since 1922, every Welsh Assembly election since 1999, and...

Elections