Electoral counts in municipal council elections

Norwegian municipalities differ greatly in size, ranging from Utsira with its around 200 inhabitants to Oslo with its more than 670,000 inhabitants. This is reflected in the size of the municipal councils, although the election process is the same in all municipalities. The electoral count is based on the parties' list votes. Each ballot paper contains a number of list votes that correspond to the number of representatives being elected to the municipal council.

Example of electoral count in a municipality

The electoral count itself is fairly complicated. The simplest thing therefore is to explain by means of an example. We have chosen to show how an electoral count will be carried out in a municipality with a municipal council consisting of 23 representatives.

In such a municipality, 23 representatives will be elected to the municipal council. Each ballot paper will thus represent 23 list votes. Therefore, to find the party's total number of list votes you need to take the number of votes the party polled and multiply this by 23.

In municipal council elections, voters can also vote for candidates from other parties' lists by adding them to the ballot paper. This is known as 'throwing', which means a list vote is given to the party the 'thrower' comes from at the expense of the party being voted for. If party A in the municipality mentioned above is voted for and there are two throwers on the ballot paper, then party A will receive 21 list votes, while the last two list votes will be given to the throwers' parties.

The calculation for the municipality we have used as an example is shown below. Four parties have put up candidate lists:

 

		List votes
Party	Votes	Number of representatives to be elected in the municipality	Before throwers	Throwers recieved	Throwers given	Final
Parti A	3 500	23	80 500	24	22	80 502
Parti B	2 000	23	46 000	18	23	45 995
Parti C	1 100	23	25 300	18	7	25 311
Parti D	750	23	17 250	11	12	17 249

For party A the calculation is: 3,500 votes x 23 representatives = 80,500 list votes You then add the 24 throwers the party has received and deduct the 22 throwers given to other parties. Thus the final number of list votes is 80,502.

From votes to representatives

Once the total list votes have been finalised, the number of representatives is calculated for each party. In Norway, the modified Sainte-Laguë method is used in municipal council elections.

When the modified Sainte-Laguë method is used, each party's total list votes are first divided by 1.4. They are then divided by 3, 5, 7 and so on. This continues for as long as is it necessary to find the number of seats the party has won.

After this, each party is left with a number of quotients. The first seat on the municipal council goes to the party with the highest quotient. The second seat goes to the party with the second highest quotient. This process continues until all of the seats the municipal council have been distributed. If two parties have the same quotient, the seat goes to the party that polled the highest number of votes. If the number of votes is also equal, lots are drawn to distribute the seat.

For our example municipality, we get the following results:

1,4	3	5	7	9	11	13	15	17	19	21	23
Party A	57501,4	26834,0	16100,4	11500,3	8944,7	7318,4	6192,5	5366,8	4735,4	4236,9	3833,4	3500,1
Party B	32853,6	15331,7	9199,0	6570,7	5110,6	4181,4	3538,1	3066,3	2705,6	2420,8	2190,2	1999,8
Party C	18079,3	8437,0	5062,2	3615,9	2812,3	2301,0	1947,0	1687,4	1488,9	1332,2	1205,3	1100,5
Party D	12320,7	5749,7	3449,8	2464,1	1916,6	1568,1	1326,8	1149,9	1014,6	907,8	821,4	750,0

Thus in this example, party A gets 11 representatives, party B gets six, party C gets four, and party D gets two.

Once the electoral committee has distributed the seats to the various parties, they then distribute them to the candidates on the lists. This is done on the basis of two factors:

Additional votes from the party: Candidates whose names appear in bold on the ballot papers receive additional votes equivalent to 25 per cent of the number of votes the party polled.

Personal votes from voters: In municipal council elections, voters may also give personal votes to the candidates, either to candidates on the list being voted on, or in the form of throwers as described above.
The candidates who receive the most personal votes when point 1 and point 2 are added together are elected. If two candidates receive the same number of personal votes, the order on the ballot paper applies.

Once the electoral committees have completed this work, they have completed their electoral count.