Folketing elections were held in
Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
on 22 April 1918,
Dieter Nohlen
Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...
& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p524 the first in which women could vote. The result was a victory for
Venstre, which won 45 of the 140 seats in the Folketing, which had been expanded from 114 to 140 seats. Voter turnout was 75.5%.
Electoral system
The Folketing was elected by
rural–urban proportional representation
Rural–urban proportional representation (RUP), also called flexible district PR, is a supermixed electoral system which combines the use of single- and multi-member constituencies in a lower tier and top-up seats in an upper tier to meet the ...
.
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
had 24 members elected by
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 ...
using the
d'Hondt system
The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is an apportionment method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in proportional representation among political parties. It belongs to ...
, while in the rest of the country 93 members (42 in the
Danish Islands and 51 in
Jutland
Jutland (; , ''Jyske Halvø'' or ''Cimbriske Halvø''; , ''Kimbrische Halbinsel'' or ''Jütische Halbinsel'') is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein). It ...
) were elected in single-member constituencies using
first-past-the-post voting
First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first- ...
. There were a further 23
leveling seat
Leveling seats (, , , , ), commonly known also as adjustment seats, are an election mechanism employed for many years by all Nordic countries (except Finland) in elections for their national legislatures. Germany also used national leveling seats ...
s to make the results more proportional.
Of the 23 leveling seats, twenty (nine in the islands and eleven in Jutland) were allocated on a regional basis, and three (one in the islands and two in Jutland) were allocated based on the nationwide vote (including Copenhagen).
The allocation of candidates to leveling seats was based on a
best-loser rule, using a form of
Scorporo
''Scorporo'' (, ) is a partially compensatory, mixed-member majoritarian electoral system, sometimes referred to as a negative vote transfer system (NVT) whereby a portion of members are elected in single-member districts (SMDs) and a portion ...
; in each single-member constituency a
Hare quota
The Hare quota (sometimes called the simple, ideal, or Hamilton quota) is the number of voters represented by each legislator in an idealized system of proportional representation where every vote is used to elect someone. The Hare quota is eq ...
of votes for the appropriate region was subtracted from the winner's votes and the remainders were pooled at a county level. The candidates with the highest proportion of the votes relative to the region's Hare quota were allocated the leveling seats.
The 1918 elections were the only ones in Danish history to feature this mixed system.
Future elections would be entirely using proportional representation with the single-member districts not affecting the party-level results.
Results
References
{{Danish elections
Folketing election
Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
Folketing elections