Closed list describes the variant of party-list proportional representation where voters can (effectively) only vote for political parties as a whole, and thus have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters have at least some influence, then it is called an open list.
In closed list systems, each political party has pre-decided who will receive the seats allocated to that party in the elections,[1] so that the candidates positioned highest on this list tend to always get a seat in the parliament while the candidates positioned very low on the closed list will not.
However, the candidates "at the water mark" of a given party are in the position of either losing or winning their seat depending on the number of votes the party gets. "The water mark" is the number of seats a specific party can be expected to achieve. The number of seats that the party wins, combined with the candidates' positions on the party's list, will then determine whether a particular candidate will get a seat.
List of locations with closed list proportional representation
Albania[2][3]
Algeria
Andorra
Angola
Argentina
Armenia
Benin
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Colombia (depending on the party)
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic[4]
East Timor
Equatorial Guinea
Guatemala
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Hong Kong
Iceland
Israel
Italy
Kazakhstan[3]
Kyrgyzstan
Moldova
Montenegro
Morocco
Mozambique
Namibia[5]
New Zealand[6][7]
Nicaragua
Niger
North Macedonia
Paraguay
Portugal
Romania[8]
Russia[3]
Rwanda
Serbia
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
Taiwan
Togo
Tunisia
Turkey
Uruguay
See also
References
- ^ "Open, Closed and Free Lists —". ACE Project. Archived from the original on 28 June 2020. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
- ^ "IFES Election Guide | Country Profile: Albania". www.electionguide.org. Retrieved 2021-01-02.
- ^ a b c Lundberg, Thomas Carl (22 October 2010). "Post-communism and the abandonment of mixedmember electoral systems" (PDF). University of Glasgow. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 January 2021. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
- ^ "{title}". Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-11-22. Retrieved 2018-09-02.
- ^ "Elections - GRN Portal". www.ecn.na. Archived from the original on 2018-07-21. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
- ^ In New Zealand, there is open list and closed list voting
- ^ "New Zealand country brief". Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
- ^ Filimon, Paul (20 July 2015). "Legea ALEGERILOR PARLAMENTARE pe LISTE, promulgată de Iohannis". România Liberă (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 2017-07-02. Retrieved 2018-05-24.
External links
- Country profiles at IFES
- Open, Closed and Free Lists at Ace Project