Original sentence: San Francisco (before 1977 and between 1980 and 1999) had citywide elections in which people cast multiple votes – sometimes for as many as nine candidates but usually for five or six – simultaneously (block voting) through the use of a multi-member district
Edited sentence: San Francisco (before 1977 and between 1980 and 1999) had citywide elections in which people cast multiple votes – sometimes for as many as nine candidates but usually for five or six – simultaneously (block voting), delivering some of the benefits of proportional representation through the use of a multi-member district