A party-list system is a type of

electoral system An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...

that formally involves

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

in the electoral process, usually to facilitate multi-winner elections. In party-list systems, parties put forward a list of

candidate A candidate, or nominee, is a prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position. For example, one can be a candidate for membership in a group (sociology), group or election to an offic ...

s, the party-list who stand for election on one ticket. Voters can usually vote directly for the party-list, but in other systems voters may vote directly for individual candidates within or across party lists (such systems are referred to as

open list Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a Political party, party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, in which party lists ...

and panachage), instead of voting directly for parties (

mixed electoral system A mixed electoral system is one that uses different Electoral system, electoral systems to elect different seats in a legislature. Most often, this involves a First Past the Post combined with a Proportional representation, proportional component ...

s). Most commonly, party-list systems refer to

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a system of proportional representation based on preregistered Political party, political parties, with each party being Apportionment (politics), allocated a certain number of seats Apportionm ...

, but there are other electoral systems using party-lists including the

general ticket The general ticket or party block voting (PBV), is a type of block voting in which voters opt for a party or a team of candidates, and the highest-polling party/team becomes the winner and receives 100% of the seats for this multi-member distric ...

(party block voting) and mixed electoral systems. Not only are not all party-list systems proportional, not all proportional systems are party-list systems. Candidates who won their seats from a party-list are called list MPs.

Types party-list systems

By proportionality of representation

* proportional party-list systems, including list PR and MMP * semi-proportional party-list systems, including

parallel voting In political science, parallel voting or superposition refers to the use of two or more Electoral system, electoral systems to elect different members of a legislature. More precisely, an electoral system is a superposition if it is a mixture o ...

and AMS * plurality/ majoritarian party-list system (

)

By candidate selection

* Open-list * Closed-list * Local list * Two-tier party-list systems * Ley de Lemas

By ballot type

* single vote * mixed ballot * panachage * double simultaneous vote

Other

s that use party-list PR to allocate some, but not all seats

References