An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality

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 ...

s. An electoral list can be registered by a

political party 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 political ideology, ...

(a party list) or can constitute a group of independent candidates. Lists can be

open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gerd Dudek, Buschi Niebergall, and Edward Vesala album), 1979 * ''Open'' (Go ...

, in which case electors have some influence over the ranking of the winning candidates, or closed, in which case the order of candidates is fixed at the registration of the list. Electoral lists are required for

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 ...

systems. An electoral list is made according to the applying

nomination rules Nomination rules in elections regulate the conditions under which a candidate or political party is entitled to stand for election. The right to stand for election, right to be a candidate or passive suffrage is one part of free and fair elections ...

and election rules. Depending on the type of election, a

, a

general assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presby ...

, or a board meeting, may elect or appoint a nominating committee that will add, and if required, prioritize list-candidates according to their preferences. Qualification, popularity, gender, age, geography, and occupation are preferences that may influence the committee's work. The committee's proposed list may then be changed in a selection meeting, where new candidates may be added, or existing candidates may be moved or removed from the list. When the internal process is over, the final list is made public. The list may be printed on the

ballot paper A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election and may be found as a piece of paper or a small ball used in voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters in Italy around the 16th centu ...

cast by voters at the election, or on a separate voter information paper.

Replacement lists

When an elected representative vacates their seat, the

casual vacancy ''The Casual Vacancy'' is a novel written by British author J. K. Rowling, published worldwide by the Little, Brown Book Group on 27 September 2012. It was Rowling's first publication since the ''Harry Potter'' series, her first novel apart fr ...

in a list-PR system is typically filled by the highest-ranked candidate on the departed representative's list who was not already elected. For personal or party-strategic reasons, this person may choose to cede the place to a lower-ranked colleague. Replacement lists are sometimes used to fill casual vacancies in

single transferable vote The single transferable vote (STV) or proportional-ranked choice voting (P-RCV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vot ...

electoral systems. An example is

European Parliament elections Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by Universal suffrage, universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after Electio ...

in Ireland since

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

By country

New Zealand

In New Zealand's mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, the "party list" refers to the

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively vote for only 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 in ...

of candidates nominated by a registered party for election to the

New Zealand Parliament The New Zealand Parliament () is the unicameral legislature of New Zealand, consisting of the Monarchy of New Zealand, Sovereign and the New Zealand House of Representatives. The King is usually represented by his Governor-General of New Zeal ...

. Voters cast two votes: one for an

electorate Electorate may refer to: * The people who are eligible to vote in an election, especially their number e.g. the term ''size of (the) electorate'' * The dominion of a prince-elector in the Holy Roman Empire until 1806 * An electoral district ...

candidate and one for the party at large. The "party vote" determines the overall distribution of seats in Parliament, with candidates from the party list being elected based on their ranking on the list.

Germany

The state list (German: '' Landesliste'') is a closed list of candidates nominated by

parties A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...

at the

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

level, used in Germany's

mixed-member proportional Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a type of representation provided by some mixed electoral systems which combine local winner-take-all elections with a compensatory tier with party lists, in a way that produces pr ...

(MMP) system to allocate seats based on the party's share of the second vote ('' Zweitstimme'').

Netherlands

References