Forthcoming: How America Chooses Its Presidents, Second Edition, by Alexander S. Belenky

Nineteen indices characterizing the disproportionality in a parliament are studied. A classification of these indices is suggested, and computational experiments and an axiomatic approach are used to study their properties. Effects of the number of parties and the degree of disproportionality are considered. The indices are evaluated for parliamentary elections (1995–2007) in Russia.