In
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 ...
(PR)
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 underhang seat is a seat that becomes vacant because the party that was entitled to it by virtue of its share of the total votes cast was unable to fill it through having submitted too few candidates.
Explanation
Under
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, parties receive a number of seats in proportion to the number of votes they received. If a party does not have enough people to fill its vacancies, there is an underhang. For example, if a party wins enough votes for ten seats, but only has seven people nominated on its list, then there is an underhang of three seats.
A way of dealing with underhangs is to allow the party to nominate additional people to become MPs. However, parties with underhangs usually are not entitled to retroactively add to their list, and lose the potential seats represented by the underhang. Parties aim to avoid the problem by having a substantially larger list than they would hope to win as seats.
Examples
If New Zealand's
99 MP Party (whose stated manifesto was to reduce the size of parliament) had received five percent of the vote in the
2005 New Zealand general election
The 2005 New Zealand general election on Saturday 17 September 2005 determined the membership of the 48th New Zealand Parliament. One hundred and twenty-one MPs were elected to the New Zealand House of Representatives: 69 from single-member e ...
, they would have been entitled to six seats within the 120-seat
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...
. But because they had just two people on their
list
A list is a Set (mathematics), set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of t ...
, they would have filled only two seats. The House would thus have shrunk by four
MPs. Since the party received only 0.03% of the vote, this eventuality was avoided.
The issue of an underhang returned at the
2023 New Zealand general election
The 2023 New Zealand general election was held on 14 October 2023 to determine the composition of the 54th New Zealand Parliament, 54th Parliament of New Zealand. Voters elected 122 members to the unicameral New Zealand House of Representatives ...
. Due to a missed deadline,
Liz Gunn's New Zealand Loyal party only managed to register two candidates on their party list, meaning that if they had exceeded the five percent threshold required to enter parliament (without winning an electorate), it would have resulted in four empty seats in the resulting parliament. Much like the 99 MP party before them, they failed to be elected, receiving just 1.2% of the vote, far short of the required minimum.
In the
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament ( ; ) is the Devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. It is located in the Holyrood, Edinburgh, Holyrood area of Edinburgh, and is frequently referred to by the metonym 'Holyrood'. ...
an underhang seat was caused by the death of
Margo MacDonald
Margo Symington MacDonald (''née'' Aitken; 19 April 1943 – 4 April 2014) was a Scottish politician, teacher and broadcaster. She was the Scottish National Party (SNP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow Govan from 1973 to 1974 and was D ...
in 2014. As she was elected as a regional list MSP as an independent (effectively the sole candidate of "the Margo party") her seat was left vacant until the
next election.
See also
*
Overhang seat
Overhang seats are constituency seats won in an election under the traditional mixed-member proportional (MMP) system (as it originated in Germany), when a party's share of the nationwide votes would entitle it to fewer seats than the number of ...
References
{{voting systems
Party-list proportional representation