forholdstalsvalg

Forholdstallsvalg, or proportional representation, is an electoral system in which the number of seats a political party wins is intended to reflect its share of the vote. Elections are typically held in multi-member constituencies, and seats are allocated to parties using divisor or quota methods such as D’Hondt or Sainte-Laguë. To improve overall proportionality, many systems include mechanisms like leveling or compensation seats that adjust the distribution across constituencies to better match national vote shares.

Key features include a focus on party votes rather than single-winner outcomes, and often the use of party lists. Depending on the system, voters may be offered closed lists, where the party determines the order of elected candidates, or open lists, where voters can influence which candidates receive seats within a party through personal votes. Thresholds may be applied to prevent very small parties from entering the legislature, while some designs allow a party to win seats in a constituency even if it does not meet the national threshold.

In practice, forholdstallsvalg aims to produce a legislature that mirrors the electorate’s preferences more closely than winner-takes-all systems. It often facilitates broader representation and coalition governance, but can introduce complexity in both voting and post-election bargaining. A notable national implementation is in Norway, where the Storting uses proportional representation across multiple constituencies with mechanisms to ensure national proportionality, alongside open interaction between party lists and personal votes.