The Voting System for European Elections


The European Union uses proportional representation for the European Parliament, and it can take a bit of getting used to if it's unfamiliar, which it often is because so little attention is paid to European elections, but it's not as complicated as it looks. You can explain the whole thing in ten short points.
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---1.--Each country of the EU is divided into several electoral regions, and each region is allocated a number of seats according to its population.
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---2.--In the UK the three nations Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland comprise one region each, while England is divided into nine regions, made up of eight groups of counties plus Greater London.
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---3.--England, Wales and Scotland elect MEPs using what's known as the d'Hont system which was invented by someone of that name. Northern Ireland, for local reasons, uses a transferable vote system.
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---4.--Northern Ireland: Vote by listing the candidates in order of preference. In each round of counting, the candidate with the fewest votes drops out, and their ballots are then redistributed among the remaining candidates according to their second preference. This continues until there are three candidates left, and they are then allocated one seat each.
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---5.--England, Scotland and Wales: Vote by d'Hont, thus: Each seat is allocated according to a calculated vote. The same formula is applied to each party in turn, and the calculation is:
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..............................................................._V__  =  Calculated vote
...............................................................S + 1
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V  =  Votes cast for that party
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S  =  Seats won by that party in previous rounds
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---6.--Each round of counting allocates one seat to the party with the highest calculated vote. After each seat is allocated, the calculation is done again to take account of that party now having one more seat than before.
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---7.--Whenever a party wins a seat it goes to the candidate next in order of precedence on their official party list for that constituency.
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---8.--Each party can submit as many candidates for each constituency as there are seats available in that constituency.
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---9.--There are as many voting rounds as seats available in that constituency, one seat being awarded in each round until all the seats have been won and the election is complete.


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