The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a
legislature. This limit can operate in various ways, e.g. in
party-list proportional representation systems where an electoral threshold requires that a party must receive a specified minimum percentage of votes (e.g. 5%), either nationally or in a particular electoral district, to obtain seats in the legislature. In
Single transferable voting the election threshold is called the quota and not only the first choice but also the next-indicated choices are used to determine whether or not a party passes the electoral threshold (and it is possible to be elected under STV even if a candidate does not pass the election threshold). In MMP systems the election threshold determines which parties are eligible for the top-up seats.
The effect of an electoral threshold is to deny representation to small parties or to force them into coalitions, with the presumption of rendering the election system more stable by keeping out fringe parties. Proponents say that simply having a few seats in a legislature can significantly boost the profile of a fringe party and that providing representation and possibly veto power for a party that receives only 1% of the vote not be appropriate;
however, critics posit that in the absence of a
ranked ballot system (such as the
spare vote
The spare vote is a version of single transferable voting applied to the ranking of parties, first proposed for elections in Germany in 2013. This preferential party system is a ranked proportional representation electoral system applying to polit ...
), supporters of minor parties are effectively disenfranchised and denied the right of representation by someone of their choosing.
Two boundaries can be defined—a threshold of representation is the minimum vote share that might yield a party a seat under the most favorable circumstances for the party, while the threshold of exclusion is the maximum vote share that could be insufficient to yield a seat under the least favorable circumstances.
Arend Lijphart suggested calculating the informal threshold as the mean of these.
Some MMP systems allow a party that wins a local seat to be eligible for top-up seats even if it does not exceed the election threshold.
Recommendations for electoral thresholds
The
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recommends for parliamentary elections a threshold not higher than 3%. For
single transferable vote in part to keep the natural threshold below 10%, some scholar recommend a district magnitude higher than 3.
Electoral thresholds in various countries
In Poland's
Sejm, Lithuania's
Seimas, Germany's
Bundestag and New Zealand's
House of Representatives, the threshold is 5% (in Poland, additionally 8% for a coalition of two or more parties submitting a joint
electoral list
An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...
and in Lithuania, additionally 7% for coalition). However, in Germany and New Zealand, if a party wins a minimum number of directly elected seats—three in Germany and one in New Zealand—the threshold does not apply (in Germany the directly elected seats are kept regardless).
The threshold is 3.25% in Israel's
Knesset (it was 1% before 1992, 1.5% in 1992–2003 and 2% 2003–2014) and 7% in the
Turkish parliament. In Poland, ethnic minority parties do not have to reach the threshold level to get into the parliament and so there is always a small German minority representation (at minimum, one member) in the Sejm. In
Romania, for the ethnic minority parties there is a different threshold than for the national parties that run for the
Chamber of Deputies
The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.
Description
Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...
.
There are also countries such as
Portugal,
South Africa,
Finland, the
Netherlands and
North Macedonia that have proportional representation systems without a legal threshold, although the Netherlands has a rule that the first seat can never be a
remainder seat, which means that there is an effective threshold of 100% divided by the total number of seats (with 150 seats to allocate, this threshold is currently 0.67%).
Australia
For the
Senate of Australia, which is elected through the
single transferable vote (STV) form of
proportional representation, the need for a formal electoral threshold is rendered moot due to the presence of small electorates that return comparatively few members to Parliament (and as such, they require a relatively high percentage of the vote (as determined through the
Droop quota
The Droop quota is the quota most commonly used in elections held under the single transferable vote (STV) system. It is also sometimes used in elections held under the largest remainder method of party-list proportional representation (list PR). ...
) in order to be elected). As STV is a
ranked voting system, supporters of minor parties are not
disenfranchised as their votes are redistributed to other candidates according to the individual's indicated 2nd and further preferences.
Germany
Germany, as mentioned earlier, has a regular threshold of 5%, but a party winning three constituency seats in the Bundestag can gain additional representation even if it has achieved under 5% of the total vote, and ethnic minority parties have no threshold. The
2021 election demonstrated both thresholds:
The Left still qualified for list votes despite getting just 4.9%, because they held three direct mandate seats, and the
South Schleswig Voters' Association entered the Bundestag with just 0.1% as a registered party for Danish and Frisian minorities.
Norway
In
Norway, the nationwide electoral threshold of 4% applies only to
leveling seat
Leveling seats ( da, tillægsmandat, sv, utjämningsmandat, no, utjevningsmandater, is, jöfnunarsæti, german: Ausgleichsmandat), commonly known also as adjustment seats, are an election mechanism employed for many years by all Nordic countrie ...
s. A party with sufficient local support may still win the regular district seats, even if the party fails to meet the threshold. For example, the 2021 election saw the
Green Party and
Christian Democratic Party each win three district seats, and
Patient Focus winning one district seat despite missing the threshold.
Slovenia
In
Slovenia, the threshold was set at 3 parliamentary seats during parliamentary elections in 1992 and 1996. This meant that the parties needed to win about 3.2% of the votes in order to pass the threshold. In 2000, the threshold was raised to 4% of the votes.
Sweden
In Sweden, there is a nationwide threshold of 4% for the
Riksdag
The Riksdag (, ; also sv, riksdagen or ''Sveriges riksdag'' ) is the legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral legislature with 349 members (), elected proportionally and se ...
, but if a party reaches 12% in one election district, it will take part in the seat allocation for that district. As of the 2018 election, nobody has been elected based on the 12% rule.
United States
In the United States, as the majority of elections are conducted under the
first-past-the-post system, legal electoral thresholds do not apply in the actual voting. However, several states have threshold requirements for parties to obtain automatic
ballot access to the next general election without having to submit voter-signed petitions. The threshold requirements have no practical bearing on the two main political parties (the
Republican and
Democratic
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
parties) as they easily meet the requirements, but have come into play for minor parties such as the
Green and
Libertarian
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
parties. The threshold rules also apply for independent candidates to obtain ballot access.
List of electoral thresholds by country
Europe
The electoral threshold for
elections to the European Parliament varies for each member state, a threshold of up to 5% is applied for individual electoral districts, no threshold is applied across the whole legislative body.
Non-European countries
Legal challenges
The German
Federal Constitutional Court rejected an electoral threshold for the
European Parliament in 2011 and in 2014 based on the principle of
one person, one vote.
In the case of Turkey, in 2004 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe declared this threshold to be manifestly excessive and asked Turkey to lower it (''Council of Europe Resolution 1380 (2004)''). On 30 January 2007 the
European Court of Human Rights ruled by five votes to two and on 8 July 2008, its Grand Chamber by 13 votes to four that the former 10% threshold imposed in Turkey does not violate the right to free elections (Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the
ECHR). It held, however, that this same threshold could violate the Convention if imposed in a different country. It was justified in the case of Turkey in order to stabilize the volatile political situation over recent decades.
Natural threshold
The number of seats in each
electoral district
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 ...
creates a "hidden" natural threshold (also called an effective, or informal threshold). The number of votes that means that a party is guaranteed a seat can be calculated by the formula (
) where ε is the smallest possible number of votes. That means that in a district with four seats slightly more than 20% of the votes will guarantee a seat. Under more favorable circumstances, the party can still win a seat with fewer votes.
The most important factor in determining the natural threshold is the number of seats to be filled by the district. Other less important factors are the seat allocation formula (
D'Hondt
D'Hondt is a Dutch surname, most common in East Flanders. ,
Saint-Laguë,
LR-Droop or
Hare
Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores, and live solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are able to fend for themselves shortly after birth. The ge ...
), the number of contestant political parties and the size of the assembly. Generally, smaller districts leads to a higher proportion of votes needed to win a seat and vice versa.
The lower bound (the threshold of representation or the percentage of the vote that allows a party to earn a seat under the most favorable circumstances) is more difficult to calculate. In addition to the factors mentioned earlier, the number of votes cast for smaller parties are important. If more votes are cast for parties that do not win any seat, that will mean a lower percentage of votes needed to win a seat.
Notable cases
An extreme example occurred in Turkey following the
2002 Turkish general election
General elections were held in Turkey on 3 November 2002 following the collapse of the Democratic Left Party–Nationalist Movement Party– Motherland Party coalition led by Bülent Ecevit. All 550 members of the Grand National Assembly were ...
, where almost none of the 550 incumbent MPs were returned. This was a seismic shift that rocked Turkish politics to its foundations. None of the political parties that had passed the threshold
in 1999
''In 1999'' is a 1912 one-act comedic short play by William C. deMille, originally produced by Jesse L. Lasky, that was popular upon its release. Its gags are based on a future where gender roles are reversed.
Production
The piece debuted at th ...
, passed it again:
DYP
The Democrat Party ( tr, Demokrat Parti), abbreviated to DP, is a liberal conservative Turkish political party, established by Ahmet Nusret Tuna in 1983 as the True Path Party ( tr, Doğru Yol Partisi or DYP). It succeeded the historical Democ ...
got only 9.55% of the popular vote,
MHP got 8.34%,
GP 7.25%,
DEHAP 6.23%,
ANAP 5.13%,
SP 2.48% and
DSP 1.22%. The aggregate number of
wasted votes was an unprecented 46.33% (14,545,438). As a result,
Erdoğan's
AKP gained power, winning more than two-thirds of the seats in
the Parliament with just 34.28% of the vote, with only one opposition party (
CHP, which by itself failed to pass threshold in 1999) and 9 independents.
Other dramatic events can be produced by the loophole often added in
mixed-member proportional representation
Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...
(used throughout Germany since 1949, New Zealand since 1993): there the threshold rule for party lists includes an exception for parties that won 3 (Germany) or 1 (New Zealand)
single-member districts. The party list vote helps calculate the desirable number of MPs for each party. Major parties can help minor ally parties overcome the hurdle, by letting them win one or a few districts:
*
2008 New Zealand general election
8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9.
In mathematics
8 is:
* a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2.
* a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...
: While
New Zealand First
New Zealand First ( mi, Aotearoa Tuatahi), commonly abbreviated to NZ First, is a nationalist and populist political party in New Zealand. The party formed in July 1993 following the resignation on 19 March 1993 of its leader and founder, Winst ...
got only 4.07% of the list vote (so it was not returned to parliament),
ACT New Zealand won 3.65% of the list vote, but its leader won an electorate seat (
Epsom), which entitled the party to list seats (4). In the
2011 election, leaders of the
National Party and ACT had tea together before the press to promote the implicit alliance (see
tea tape scandal). After their victories, the Nationals passed a
confidence and supply agreement with ACT to form the
Fifth National Government of New Zealand.
* In Germany, the post-communist
PDS
PD, P.D., or Pd may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''People's Democracy'' (newspaper), weekly organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
* ''The Plain Dealer'', a Cleveland, Ohio, US newspaper
* Post Diaspora, a time frame in the '' Honorverse' ...
and its successor
Die Linke
The Left (german: Die Linke; stylised as and in its logo as ), commonly referred to as the Left Party (german: Die Linkspartei, links=no ), is a democratic socialist political party in Germany. The party was founded in 2007 as the result of th ...
often hovered around the 5% threshold: In
1994
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...
, it won only 4.4% of the party list vote, but won four districts in
East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...
, which saved it, earning 30 MPs in total. In
2002
File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...
, it achieved only 4.0% of the party list vote, and won just two districts, this time excluding the party from proportional representation. This limited the red-green majority to just a few MPs, with the
Schröder Cabinet II lasting only 3 years. In
2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...
, it won only 4.9% of the party list vote, but won the bare minimum of three districts (
Berlin-Lichtenberg,
Berlin-Treptow-Köpenick, and
Leipzig II
Leipzig II is an electoral constituency (German language, German: ''Wahlkreis'') represented in the Bundestag. It elects one member via first-past-the-post voting. Under the current constituency numbering system, it is designated as constituency 15 ...
), salvaging the party, which received 39 MPs.
The failure of one party to reach the threshold not only deprives their candidates of office and their voters of representation; it also changes the
power index Power index may refer to:
* Banzhaf power index
* Shapley–Shubik power index
The Shapley–Shubik power index was formulated by Lloyd Shapley and Martin Shubik in 1954 to measure the powers of players in a voting game. The index often reveals sur ...
in the assembly, which may have dramatic implications for coalition-building.
* Slovakia,
2002
File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...
. The
True Slovak National Party (PSNS) split from
Slovak National Party (SNS), and
Movement for Democracy (HZD) split from the previously dominant
People's Party – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia. All of them failed to cross the 5% threshold with PSNS having 3.65%, SNS 3.33% and HZD 3.26% respectively, thus allowing a center-right coalition despite having less than 43% of the vote.
* Norway,
2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
. The
Liberal Party got 3.9% of the votes, below the 4% threshold for
leveling seats, although still winning two seats. Hence, while right-wing opposition parties won more votes between them than the parties in the governing coalition, the narrow failure of the Liberal Party to cross the threshold kept the governing coalition in power. It crossed the threshold again at the
following election with 5.2%.
* In the
2013 German federal election
Federal elections were held on 22 September to elect the members of the 18th Bundestag of Germany. At stake were all 598 seats to the Bundestag, plus 33 overhang seats determined thereafter. The Christian Democratic Union of Germany/ Christian ...
, the
FDP, in Parliament since 1949, got only 4.8% of the list vote, and won no single district, excluding the party altogether. This, along with the failure of the right-wing eurosceptic party
AfD (4.7%), gave a left-wing majority in Parliament despite a center-right majority of votes (
CDU/CSU itself fell short of an absolute majority by just 5 seats). As a result, Merkel's CDU/CSU formed a
grand coalition
A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies unite in a coalition government. The term is most commonly used in countries where there are t ...
with the
SPD.
* Poland,
2015
File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...
. The
United Left achieved 7.55%, which is below the 8% threshold for multi-party coalitions. Furthermore,
KORWiN only reached 4.76%, narrowly missing the 5% threshold for individual parties. This allowed the victorious
PiS to obtain a majority of seats with 37% of the vote. This was the first parliament without left-wing parties represented.
* Israel,
April 2019. Among the 3 lists representing right-wing to far-right Zionism and supportive of Netanyahu, only one crossed the threshold the right-wing government had increased to 3.25%: the
Union of the Right-Wing Parties with 3.70%, while future Prime Minister Bennett's
New Right narrowly failed at 3.22%, and
Zehut only 2.74%, destroying Netanyahu's chances of another majority, and leading to snap elections in
September.
* Czech Republic,
2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...
.
Přísaha
Přísaha () is a List of political parties in the Czech Republic, political party in the Czech Republic, founded in 2021 by Robert Šlachta.
History Foundation
Šlachta became known to the public as the investigator in a 2013 Czech political cor ...
(4.68%),
ČSSD (4.65%) and
KSČM (3.60%) all failed to cross the 5% threshold, thus allowing a coalition of
Spolu and
PaS. This was also the first time that neither ČSSD nor KSČM had representation in parliament since
1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
.
Memorable dramatic losses:
* In the
1990 German federal election
Federal elections were held in Germany on 2 December 1990 to elect the members of the 12th Bundestag. This was the first all-German election since the Nazi show election in April 1938, the first multi-party all-German election since that of Ma ...
, the Western Greens did not meet the threshold, which was applied separately for former East and West Germany. The Greens could not take advantage of this, because the "
Alliance 90
Alliance 90 () was a political alliance of three non-communist political groups in East Germany. It was formed in February 1990 by the New Forum, Democracy Now and the Initiative for Peace and Human Rights. It received 2.9% of the vote in the 19 ...
" (which had absorbed the East German Greens) ran separately from "The Greens" in the West. Together, they would have narrowly passed the 5.0% threshold (West: 4.8%, East: 6.2%). The Western Greens returned to the Bundestag in 1994.
* Israel,
1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
. The extreme right-wing
Tehiya (Revival) got 1.2% of the votes, which was below the threshold which it had itself voted to raise to 1.5%. It thus lost its three seats.
* In Bulgaria, the so-called "blue parties" or "urban right" which include
SDS,
DSB,
Yes, Bulgaria!
Yes, Bulgaria! ( bg, Да, България!, translit=Da, Balgariya!), is a Bulgarian political party, founded in January 2017 by former Minister of Justice Hristo Ivanov. Yes, Bulgaria! is part of a coalition with Democrats for a Strong Bulg ...
,
DBG,
ENP and Blue Unity frequently get just above or below the electoral threshold depending on formation of
electoral alliances: In the
EP election 2007, DSB 4.74% and SDS 4.35% were campaigning separately and both fell below the natural electoral of around 5%. In
2009 Bulgarian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 5 July 2009. With 40% of the vote, the decisive winner of the elections was the established in 2006 personalistic party of Boyko Borisov, GERB. The Socialist Party, in power before the election, w ...
, DSB and SDS ran together as
Blue Coalition
The Blue Coalition ( bg, Синята коалиция, Sinyata koalitsia) was a centre-right electoral alliance in Bulgaria, whose members were the Union of Democratic Forces (SDS), Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria (DSB) and three smaller parties ...
gaining 6.76%. In
2013 Bulgarian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 12 May 2013, two months ahead of schedule. Protests had forced the resignation of the GERB government in February, leading to the election being moved up.
The elections resulted in a minority parl ...
, campaigning separately DGB got 3.25%, DSB 2.93%, SDS 1.37% and ENP 0.17%, thus all of them failed to cross the threshold this even led to a tie between the former opposition and the parties right of the centre. In the
EP election 2014, SDS, DSB and DBG ran as
Reformist Bloc gaining 6.45% and crossing the electoral threshold, while Blue Unity campaigned separately and did not cross the electoral threshold. In
2017 Bulgarian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 26 March 2017. They had originally been scheduled for 2018 at the end of the four-year term of the National Assembly. However, following the resignation of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and the fail ...
, SDS and DBG ran as Reformist Bloc gaining 3.06%, "Yes, Bulgaria!" got 2.88%, DSB 2.48%, thus all of them failed to cross the electoral threshold. In the
EP election 2019, "Yes, Bulgaria!" and DBG ran together as
Democratic Bulgaria and crossed the electoral threshold with 5.88%. In
November 2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...
, electoral alliance Democratic Bulgaria crossed electoral threshold with 6.28%.
* Slovakia,
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
. Both the
Party of the Hungarian Community which (including their predecessors) hold seats in parliament since the
Velvet Revolution and the
People's Party – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, which dominated in the 1990s, got an 4.33% thus failed the 5% threshold.
* Slovakia,
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...
. The
Christian Democratic Movement achieved 4.94% missing only 0.06% votes to reach the threshold which meant the first absence of the party since the
Velvet Revolution and the first democratic elections in
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
.
* Slovakia,
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...
. The coalition between
Progressive Slovakia and
SPOLU won 6.96% of votes, falling only 0.04% short of the 7% threshold for coalitions. This was an unexpected defeat since the coalition had won seats in the
2019 European election
The 2019 European Parliament election was held between 23 and 26 May 2019, the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent more than 512 million peopl ...
and won the
2019 presidential election less than a year earlier. In addition, two other parties won fewer votes but were able to win seats due to the lower threshold for single parties (5%). This was also the first election since the
Velvet Revolution in which no party of the Hungarian minority crossed the 5% threshold.
* Lithuania,
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...
. The
LLRA–KŠS won only 4.97% of the party list votes.
* Madrid, Spain,
2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...
. Despite achieving 26 seats with 19.37% of the votes in the
previous election, the liberal
Ciudadanos party crashed down to just 3.54% in the 2021
snap election called by
Isabel Díaz Ayuso
Isabel Natividad Díaz Ayuso (; born 17 October 1978) is a Spanish politician and journalist serving as the president of the Community of Madrid since 2019. She is the president of the People's Party of Madrid.
A member of the People's Party ...
, failing to get close to the 5% threshold.
* Slovenia,
2022
File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...
.
Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia only achieved 0.62% of the vote. This was the first time when DeSUS did not reached the 4% since 1996 which was part of almost every coalition since its foundation.
* Germany,
2022 Saarland state election
The Next Saarland state election will be held on 27 March 2022 to elect the 17th Landtag of Saarland. The current government is coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Minister-President Tobias H ...
.
Alliance 90/The Greens
Alliance 90/The Greens (german: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, ), often simply referred to as the Greens ( ), is a Green politics, green List of political parties in Germany, political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens ...
fell 23 votes or 0.005% short of reaching representation.
The Left fell from 12.8% to below the electoral threshold with 2.6% in their only western stronghold. Total percentage of votes not represented was 22.3%.
* Israel,
2022 Israeli legislative election
Legislative elections were held in Israel on 1 November 2022 to elect the 120 members of the 25th Knesset. The results saw the right-wing national camp of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu achieving a parliamentary majority, amid losses ...
.
Meretz
Meretz ( he, מֶרֶצ, ) is a left-wing political party in Israel. The party was formed in 1992 by the merger of Ratz, Mapam and Shinui, and was at its peak between 1992 and 1996 when it had 12 seats. It currently has no seats in the Knesset ...
fell to 3.16% thus failed to cross the threshold for the first time.
There has been cases of tries to attempts to circumvent thresholds:
* Slovakia,
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...
.
Slovak Democratic Coalition
The Slovak Democratic Coalition ( sk, Slovenská demokratická koalícia, SDK) was a political party in Slovakia, which existed from 1998 to 2002.
SDK coalition
The SDK was founded on 3 July 1997 as an electoral coalition, from the five politi ...
ran as political party because the threshold was 25%.
* Turkey,
2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
and
2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
. The
DTP/
BDP-led
Thousand Hope Candidates and
Labour, Democracy and Freedom Bloc only gained 3.81% (2007) and 5.67% (2011) of the vote not crossing the 10% threshold but because they ran as independents they won 22 and 36 seats.
* Poland,
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
. After the United Left and KORWiN failed to cross the thresholds in 2015 both of them with their new alliances bypassed the coalition threshold by either running under
SLD label (
Lewica) or registering their alliance as a party itself (
Confederation). Similarly to Lewica, the
Polish Coalition ran under
Polish People's Party label. Lewica and Polish Coalition would have crossed the coalition threshold of 8% with 12.56% and 8.55% respectively while Confederation only gained 6.81% of the vote.
* Czechia,
2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...
. The
Tricolour–
Svobodní
Svobodní ( en, Freedomites), until 2019 known as the Party of Free Citizens or the Free Citizens' Party ( cs, Strana svobodných občanů), is a classical liberal and right-libertarian, –
Soukromníci alliance tried to bypass the coalition threshold by renaming Tricolour to include the names of their partners but they only 2.76% failing to cross the usual 5% threshold.
Amount of unrepresented vote
Electoral thresholds can sometimes seriously affect the relationship between the percentages of the popular vote achieved by each party and the distribution of seats. The proportionality between seat share and popular vote can be measured by the
Gallagher index. While the amount of
unrepresented vote is a measure of the total amount of voters not represented by any party sitting in the legislature and is related to
No taxation without representation.
The failure of one party to reach the threshold not only deprives their candidates of office and their voters of representation; it also changes the
power index Power index may refer to:
* Banzhaf power index
* Shapley–Shubik power index
The Shapley–Shubik power index was formulated by Lloyd Shapley and Martin Shubik in 1954 to measure the powers of players in a voting game. The index often reveals sur ...
in the assembly, which may have dramatic implications for coalition-building.
The amount of unrepresented vote changes from one election to another, here shown for New Zealand.
The unrepresented vote changes depending on voter behavior and size of effective electoral threshold, for example in
2005 New Zealand general election
5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has attained significance throughout history in part because typical humans have five digits on eac ...
every party above 1% got seats due to the electoral threshold in New Zealand of at least one seat in first-past-the-post voting, which caused a much lower unrepresented vote compared to the other years.
In the
Russian parliamentary elections in 1995, with a threshold excluding parties under 5%, more than 45% of votes went to parties that failed to reach the threshold. In 1998, the Russian Constitutional Court found the threshold legal, taking into account limits in its use.
After the first implementation of the threshold in Poland in
1993
File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...
34.4% of the popular vote did not gain representation.
There had been a similar situation in
Turkey, which had a 10% threshold, easily higher than in any other country.
The justification for such a high threshold was to prevent multi-party coalitions and put a stop to the endless fragmentation of political parties seen in the 1960s and 1970s. However, coalitions ruled between 1991 and 2002, but mainstream parties continued to be fragmented and in the
2002 elections
The following elections occurred in the year 2002.
* 2002 Bahraini parliamentary election
* 2002 Comorian presidential election
* 2002 East Timorese presidential election
* 2002 Fijian municipal election
* 2002 Hong Kong Chief Executive election
* ...
as many as 45% of votes were cast for parties which failed to reach the threshold and were thus unrepresented in the parliament. All parties which won seats in 1999 failed to cross the threshold, thus giving
Justice and Development Party Justice and Development Party may refer to several political parties, the best-known ones being:
* Justice and Development Party (Morocco)
* Justice and Development Party (Turkey)
Justice and Development Party may also refer to:
* Justice and Dev ...
66% of the seats.
In the
Ukrainian elections of March 2006, for which there was a threshold of 3% (of the overall vote, i.e. including invalid votes), 22% of voters were effectively
disenfranchised, having voted for minor candidates. In the
parliamentary election held under the same system, fewer voters supported minor parties and the total percentage of disenfranchised voters fell to about 12%.
In Bulgaria, 24% of voters cast their ballots for parties that would not gain representation in the elections of
1991
File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...
and
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...
.
In the
2020 Slovak parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Slovakia on 29 February 2020 to elect all 150 members of the National Council.
The anti-corruption list led by Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) movement emerged as the largest parliame ...
, 28.47% of all valid votes did not gain representation. In the
2021 Czech legislative election
Legislative elections were held in the Czech Republic on 8 and 9 October 2021. All 200 members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected, with the leader of the resulting government to become the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Following th ...
19.76 percent of voters were not represented. In the
2022 Slovenian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Slovenia on 24 April 2022 to elect all 90 members of the National Assembly.
The ruling Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), led by prime minister Janez Janša, conceded and was defeated by Robert Golob and his ...
24% of the vote went to parties which did not reach the 4% threshold including several former parliamentary parties (
LMŠ,
PoS
POS, Pos or PoS may refer to:
Linguistics
* Part of speech, the role that a word or phrase plays in a sentence
* Poverty of the stimulus, a linguistic term used in language acquisition and development
* Sayula Popoluca (ISO 639-3), an indigenous l ...
,
SAB,
SNS and
DeSUS
The Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia ( sl, Demokratična stranka upokojencev Slovenije, also known by the acronym DeSUS) is a political party in Slovenia led by Ljubo Jasnič. The party claims broadly liberal values with a strong focus ...
).
In the Philippines where party-list seats are only
contested in 20% of the 287 seats in the lower house, the effect of the 2% threshold is increased by the large number of parties participating in the election, which means that the threshold is harder to reach. This led to a quarter of valid votes being wasted, on average and led to the 20% of the seats never being allocated due to the 3-seat cap In
2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
, the 2% threshold was altered to allow parties with less than 1% of
first preferences to receive a seat each and the proportion of wasted votes reduced slightly to 21%, but it again increased to 29% in
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
due to an increase in number of participating parties. These statistics take no account of the wasted votes for a party which is entitled to more than three seats but cannot claim those seats due to the three-seat cap.
Electoral thresholds can produce a
spoiler effect, similar to that in the
first-past-the-post voting system, in which minor parties unable to reach the threshold take votes away from other parties with similar ideologies. Fledgling parties in these systems often find themselves in a
vicious circle
A vicious circle (or cycle) is a complex chain of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop, with detrimental results. It is a system with no tendency toward equilibrium (social, economic, ecological, etc.), at least in the short r ...
: if a party is perceived as having no chance of meeting the threshold, it often cannot gain popular support; and if the party cannot gain popular support, it will continue to have little or no chance of meeting the threshold. As well as acting against extremist parties, it may also adversely affect moderate parties if the political climate becomes polarized between two major parties at opposite ends of the political spectrum. In such a scenario, moderate voters may abandon their preferred party in favour of a more popular party in the hope of keeping the even less desirable alternative out of power.
On occasion, electoral thresholds have resulted in a party winning an outright majority of seats without winning an outright majority of votes, the sort of outcome that a proportional voting system is supposed to prevent. For instance, the Turkish
AKP won a majority of seats with less than 50% of votes in three consecutive elections (2002, 2007 and 2011). In the
2013 Bavarian state election, the
Christian Social Union failed to obtain a majority of votes, but nevertheless won an outright majority of seats due to a record number of votes for parties which failed to reach the threshold, including the
Free Democratic Party Free Democratic Party is the name of several political parties around the world. It usually designates a party ideologically based on liberalism.
Current parties with that name include:
*Free Democratic Party (Germany), a liberal political party in ...
(the CSU's coalition partner in the previous state parliament). In Germany in
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...
15.7% voted for a party that did not meet the 5% threshold.
In contrast, elections that use the
ranked voting system can take account of each voter's complete indicated ranking preference. For example, the
single transferable vote redistributes first preference votes for candidates below the threshold. This permits the continued participation in the election by those whose votes would otherwise be wasted. Minor parties can indicate to their supporters before the vote how they would wish to see their votes transferred. The single transferable vote is a proportional
voting system designed to achieve
proportional representation through
ranked voting in ''multi-seat'' (as opposed to single seat) organizations or
constituencies (voting districts).
Ranked voting systems are widely used in Australia and
Ireland. Other methods of introducing ordinality into an electoral system can have similar effects.
See also
*
List of democracy and elections-related topics
Notes
External links
PACE report on electoral thresholds, 2010{{voting systems
Electoral systems
Electoral restrictions