Election Guide 2002 - Sweden.se

More documents

Recommendations

Info

equired to give advance notice of participation in an election. No law governs their nomination procedure. They do receive financial aid from the state, but are not obliged to render an account of how the funds are spent. Voting Most voting takes place at polling stations or post offices. Polling stations are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on election day. In connection with the elections, large numbers of temporary post offices are set up in hospitals, old people’s homes, prisons and other institutions where the inmates cannot vote at a polling station. Voting by proxy is allowed in certain cases. Postal voting is relatively wide-spread in Sweden. Voters vote for a political party, but can also cast a personal vote by marking the name of a particular candidate on the ballot paper. The voter is free to indicate his or her personal choice of candidate, or to accept the party’s ranking and vote only for the party. A personal choice may only be indicated for one candidate. Counting the votes Votes are counted in several stages, starting with a preliminary count at the polling stations after they close on election day. The preliminary results of parliamentary elections are usually known fairly early in the evening, but these only tell us how many seats each particular party has won, not the names of the individual successful candidates. The definitive count is made by the County Administrative Boards. Constituencies and distribution of seats For parliamentary elections, Sweden is divided into 29 constituencies, commanding between 2 and 35 seats. For county council elections, the counties are also divided into constituencies. Regulations for the elections of municipal councils state that, in certain cases, municipalities too must be divided into constituencies. Parliamentary, county and municipal council elections 16
are proportional. In the event of deviations from a proportionally correct result in connection with the allocation of seats in constituencies, a contingency arrangement of equalising seats applies to both parliamentary and county council elections. In parliamentary elections, there are 310 fixed constituency seats and 39 equalising seats to be divided between the parties. First the fixed constituency seats are allocated, on the basis of the election results in the constituency concerned. An estimate is then made of how the 349 seats would be allocated if the entire country was regarded as one single constituency. The difference between the number of seats a party would then get and the number of fixed constituency seats it has actually won is made up by means of equalising seats. In county council elections, nine-tenths of the seats are fixed constituency seats and the remainder equalising seats. For these elections, the bar on small parties has been set at 3%. There are no equalising seats in municipalities which are subdivided into constituencies. There is no formal bar for small parties. In subdivided municipalities, however, the division into constituencies can have significant blocking effect on the small parties. Seats are distributed between parties by the “oddfigure” transferable vote method, with the first divisor set at 1.4. Under this method a seat is awarded, in a certain order of preference, to the party with the highest comparative ratio in each round. The first comparative ratio is the number of votes divided by 1.4. Having the first divisor greater than 1 makes it more difficult for a party to gain its first seat. This, therefore, can be termed a bar to small parties. The subsequent comparative ratios are obtained by dividing the number of votes won by a party with the figure corresponding to twice the number of seats allotted to that party plus 1 – that is, 3, 5, 7 and so on. This method is used when allocated both the fixed constituency seats and the equalising seats. Where the latter are concerned, however, a modification comes into play whereby, in a constituency where the party has not been allotted a fixed constituency seat, the comparative 17
Page 1 and 2: Swedish Election Guide 2002 1
Page 3: Contents Foreword..................
Page 7 and 8: The Swedish political system Histor
Page 9 and 10: After the general election in 1994,
Page 11 and 12: The political parties The seven par
Page 13: Local government Swedish democracy
Page 18 and 19: atio in connection with the first e
Page 20 and 21: The Centre Party 20 Centerpartiet
Page 22 and 23: 22 In this year’s election Maud w
Page 24 and 25: Equal conditions are a prerequisite
Page 26 and 27: 5. Equal development opportunities
Page 28 and 29: 28 Centre Party endorses the Riksda
Page 30 and 31: The Christian Democratic Party 30 K
Page 32 and 33: 32 and, of course, bandy. He has be
Page 34 and 35: has about 24,000 members and organi
Page 36 and 37: Important topics for the 2002 elect
Page 38 and 39: training capacity, better working c
Page 40: 40 Names and addresses Party Headqu
Page 43 and 44: Maria Wetterstrand Maria Wetterstra
Page 45 and 46: mentarians and ministers, co-ordina
Page 47 and 48: quality control in all schools, bot
Page 49 and 50: 17. Better terms for animals! We de
Page 51 and 52: 30. Cancel Third World debts and in
Page 53 and 54: Names and addresses National Office
Page 55 and 56: Gudrun Schyman Gudrun Schyman is on
Page 57 and 58: legislation requiring large corpora
Page 59 and 60: profit considerations. The same goe
Page 61 and 62: Names and addresses Party Headquart
Page 64 and 65: The Liberal Party 64 Folkpartiet Li
Page 66 and 67:
History of the Liberal Party In 189
Page 68 and 69:
The following is the Liberal Party
Page 70 and 71:
Disabled care v Restore the right t
Page 72:
72 Names and addresses Party Headqu
Page 75 and 76:
Bo Lundgren MP, Chairman of the Mod
Page 77 and 78:
chaired by Carl Bildt - and the Eur
Page 79 and 80:
had had a Prime Minister belonging
Page 81 and 82:
The party election manifesto adopte
Page 83 and 84:
will not be worth so much. It is ob
Page 86 and 87:
The Social Democratic Party 86 Soci
Page 88 and 89:
88 and more common assumption of re
Page 90 and 91:
founded in 1992. It succeeded the C
Page 92 and 93:
persons hesitate to start families.
Page 94:
94 Names and addresses Party Headqu
Page 97 and 98:
Press Centre for foreign correspond
Page 99 and 100:
Ministry of Agriculture, Food and F
show all

Election Guide 2002 - Sweden.se

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?