General elections were held in

San Marino San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...

on 19 June 1909 to elect the second term of the

Grand and General Council The Grand and General Council ( it, Consiglio Grande e Generale) is the parliament of San Marino. The council has 60 members elected for a five-year term. History From the fifth century San Marino was ruled by an assembly composed by all t ...

. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1678

Electoral system

According to the decisions of the Meeting of 1906, a third of the seats in the

should be renewed every three years; to do so, councillors elected in 1906 had been divided into three classes, under the model of the

Senate of the United States The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...

, by random

sortition In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a larger ...

. The age limit to be an elector was lowered from 25 to 21 on 5 July 1906, but a major change occurred on 6 May 1909, when the Council passed a law establishing male

universal suffrage Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stan ...

in the country. In addition, the ancient constituency of

City of San Marino The City of San Marino ( it, Città di San Marino; also known simply as San Marino and locally as Città) is the capital city of the Republic of San Marino. It has a population of 4,061. It is on the western slopes of San Marino's highest poi ...

was divided in two, ceding 10 seats to new constituency of

Borgo Maggiore Borgo Maggiore (; rgn, E Bórgh) is one of the 9 communes or ''castelli'' of San Marino. It lies at the foot of Monte Titano and has a population of 6,871 (May 2018), making it the second largest town of San Marino, after Dogana. Etymology From ...

. All councillors were elected in their constituency using a

plurality-at-large voting Plurality block voting, also known as plurality-at-large voting, block vote or block voting (BV) is a non- proportional voting system for electing representatives in multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of sea ...

, a

non-partisan Nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with, and a lack of bias towards, a political party. While an Oxford English Dictionary definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers s ...

system. However, as happened in 1906, candidates elected generally belonged to the

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

group which had supported the democratic action of the Citizenry Meeting or, more, were members of the sole organized party of the country, the

Sammarinese Socialist Party The Sammarinese Socialist Party ( it, Partito Socialista Sammarinese, PSS) was a socialist and, later, social-democratic political party in San Marino. Its Italian counterpart was the Italian Socialist Party and its international affiliation was w ...

. If the political composition of the council did not change significantly, this time the Socialists refused to join the government they left in 1907 after disagreements around industrial and

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...

themes. Voters had to be citizens of San Marino, male, the head of the family and 24 years old.

Results

References

{{Sammarinese elections

General elections in San Marino

General A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED ...

Non-partisan elections