Iceland elects on a national level a ceremonial head of state—the president—and a legislature. The president is elected for a four-year term by the people. The parliament (''Alþingi'') has 63 members, elected for a four-year term by proportional representation using the D'Hondt method with a

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some inf ...

. Iceland has a multi-party system, with numerous parties in which no one party typically has a chance of gaining power alone which typically results in a hung parliament, so parties must work with each other to form

coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...

s. The most recent election was held on 25 September 2021.

Voting

Eligibility

According to Registers Iceland, All Icelandic nationals who have lived abroad for less than eight years are automatically registered to vote as long as they are 18 and have lived in Iceland at some point. Icelandic citizens who lived abroad for more than eight years must register to vote, as long as they are a citizen, at least eighteen years old, and have had legal domicile in Iceland Foreign nationals are not allowed to vote in presidential elections, parliamentary elections, or national referendums. Danish nationals who lived in Iceland on 6 March 1946 or any point ten years before that are eligible to vote. Foreign nationals from

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, Denmark, Norway, and Finland can vote in munincipal elections if they have registered their domicile in Iceland before election day. Foreign nationals from other countries have to live in Iceland for three years to vote in these elections.

Schedule

Latest elections

2021 parliamentary elections

2020 presidential election

References

External links

Adam Carr's Election ArchiveNSD: European Election Database - Iceland
publishes regional level election data; allows for comparisons of election results, 1991–2009
Election history
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