Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

elects on a national level a mostly ceremonial

head of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...

—the president—and a

legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...

. The president is elected for a four-year term by the people. The

parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

() has 63 members, elected for a four-year term by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

using the

D'Hondt method 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 ...

with a closed list. 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 A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system (typically employing Majoritarian representation, majoritarian electoral systems) to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing ...

, so parties must work with each other to form

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

s. The last election was on 1 June 2024.

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, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

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 ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

, and

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

can vote in municipal 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 be eligible to vote in these elections.

Voting procedures

By law, municipal and presidential elections take place on a Saturday. Parliamentary elections have also traditionally taken place on Saturdays since 1983, although a particular weekday is not mandated by law. Voters are required to present a government issued photo ID such as a passport or a driving license. All voting is done by paper ballots. The voter gets a single ballot containing ordered electoral lists for every party.

Schedule

Latest elections

2022 Icelandic municipal 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
{{Iceland topics, state=autocollapse