> The list "Ábyrgrar framtíðar"
> is only represented in
> Reykjavíkurkjördæmi norður.
A party that got 144 votes nationwide and ran in one election.
But yes you're strictly correct. It's not illegal to only run for election in a subset of districts...
> And this is not a freak occurent
It really is in Iceland, I don't know about Norway.
Even new upstart parties run for elections in every district, because to do otherwise is leaving "money on the table", as in were.
The only exceptions are one-off parties with practically no following.
> This is really not the
> take-home. Remember that
> most of the seats are
> constituency seats, not
> adjustment seats.
I'm of the opinion that this aspect of the system has a more widespread overall impact than suggested by a mathematical review of who's directly impacted in each election.
It heavily biases the system away from one-district parties, and those parties in turn further encouraged to become monoliths where each representative is merely an interchangeable cog in the party machine, not someone voting with their own conscience.
On the other hand it's not like that wasn't happening before.
Another thing you haven't considered is that whenever you vote for a party your vote can be helping to elect someone nationwide, but you're only allowed to strike out the names of people listed in your local district.
So if you really dislike someone who's running for the party in another district, you might not vote for the party at all, least you help them.
> So most of the parlament
> will be people voted in
> with votes soley from their
> own constituency.
Those people might be "tainted" too, even if you look at this from a purely mathematical point of view.
Your seat in parliament may not be an "adjustment seat", but you may have pushed out a more popular candidate in your own district.
There's cases like that every election, e.g. the party with 20% in a district getting 3 members, and the one with 25% getting 2 members or whatever, because the difference of 5% in that district is accumulated to elect 4 members overall.
But yes you're strictly correct. It's not illegal to only run for election in a subset of districts...
It really is in Iceland, I don't know about Norway.Even new upstart parties run for elections in every district, because to do otherwise is leaving "money on the table", as in were.
The only exceptions are one-off parties with practically no following.
I'm of the opinion that this aspect of the system has a more widespread overall impact than suggested by a mathematical review of who's directly impacted in each election.It heavily biases the system away from one-district parties, and those parties in turn further encouraged to become monoliths where each representative is merely an interchangeable cog in the party machine, not someone voting with their own conscience.
On the other hand it's not like that wasn't happening before.
Another thing you haven't considered is that whenever you vote for a party your vote can be helping to elect someone nationwide, but you're only allowed to strike out the names of people listed in your local district.
So if you really dislike someone who's running for the party in another district, you might not vote for the party at all, least you help them.
Those people might be "tainted" too, even if you look at this from a purely mathematical point of view.Your seat in parliament may not be an "adjustment seat", but you may have pushed out a more popular candidate in your own district.
There's cases like that every election, e.g. the party with 20% in a district getting 3 members, and the one with 25% getting 2 members or whatever, because the difference of 5% in that district is accumulated to elect 4 members overall.