Early parliamentary elections were held in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

on 25 and 26 October 1959. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p961 Following the electoral reforms made after the June elections, the Independence Party won 16 of the 40 seats in the Lower House of the

Althing The Alþingi (''general meeting'' in Icelandic, , anglicised as ' or ') is the supreme national parliament of Iceland. It is one of the oldest surviving parliaments in the world. The Althing was founded in 930 at (" thing fields" or "assemb ...

Electoral reforms

The June 1959 elections had ended with both the Independence Party and the

Progressive Party Progressive Party may refer to: Active parties * Progressive Party, Brazil * Progressive Party (Chile) * Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus * Dominica Progressive Party * Progressive Party (Iceland) * Progressive Party (Sardinia), Ita ...

winning 13 seats, despite the IP receiving 42.5% of the vote to the PP's 27.2%. The electoral system involved a mix of single member

constituencies An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...

, two-member constituencies elected using

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

(PR) and one large multi-member constituency for

Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a po ...

that also used PR.Nohlen & Stöver, p955 The reforms saw the creation of eight multi-member constituencies elected using PR together with 11 open-list compensatory seats (parties had to win at least one constituency seat to be eligible for the compensatory seats). Five constituencies elected five members each, two elected six members each and Reykjavík elected 12. The number of seats for Reykjavík was also increased from the prior elections, increasing the overall total in the Lower House from 35 to 40 and in the Upper House from 17 to 20. The voters’ capacity to change the order of names on the PR lists was greatly reduced compared to prior elections as well, now only being used to calculate one-third of the final number of votes deemed to have been received by each candidate, while the party’s unaltered ordering determined the remaining two-thirds.

Results

References

Iceland 2 Parliament 2 1959 10 1959 10 Icelandic parliamentary election {{Iceland-election-stub