Talk:Tweede Kamer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, an attempt to improve, organise and standardise Wikipedia's articles in the area of politics. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Article Grading: The article has not been rated for quality and/or importance yet. Please rate the article and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article..

	This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Netherlands, an attempt to create, expand, and improve articles related to the Netherlands on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, visit the project page where you can join the project or contribute to the discussion.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.

What do the 19 electoral districts do in this system? And why are the residual seats divided by nineteen? --rmhermen

The electoral districts don't seem to have much affect on the calculations, apart for a bit of an obstacle for new parties to get the signatures of support, but maybe they have some role in organising the elections, polling stations, ballot papers etc. I don't know what happens if a party submits a different candidate list for each district. Not sure what you mean by residual seats divided by nineteen: rather there's a different calculation method used if the number of remander seats is greater than 19. -(

The electoral districts are: 1. an obstable for new parties, they need 30 signatures in every district and 2. a way to place regional candidates only on a list in their home region. Parties can choose to have a list with the same candidates throughout the country, or different lists in every district or a group of districts, so every party has somewhere between 1 and 19 different lists. Usually only the last 5 candidates differ, but larger differences, although rare, may occur.

To calculate the total number of seats a party receives, the sum of votes on all these lists is used. When a party has more than 1 list, the seats a party received are further allocated on these lists by dividing the parties number of votes through the number of seats it received. Remainder seats are allocated using the largest surplus method. When candidates are declared elected on more than one list (what happens if there is hardly any difference between the different lists), they are elected on the list where they received the most preference votes. Usually this means that top candidates are elected on the list in either their home region, or the list from electoral district 7, Arnhem, the largest district, and backbenchers on the other lists. This also means that when a MP resigns, the list on which he was elected is used to nominate his replacement.

There is no different calculation system when the number of remainder seats is higher than 19. In practice the number of remainder seats in Second Chamber elections is 4-6. The D'Hondt system of largest averages is always used. You are probably confused with the municipal councils (gemeenteraden). When the number of seats of a council is 19 or higher, the D'Hondt method is used. This means that a party can win more than one remainder seat, and there is a preference for larger parties (making list combinations interesting). When the number of seats is 17 or less, the largest surpluses method is used, which prefers smaller parties and limits the number of remainder seats for a party to one. Freako 18:43, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "it is possible to gain one of the 150 seats with as little as 0.6 percent of the votes."

What is so special about being able to gain a seat with as little as 0.6% of the votes (which btw. should be rather 0.7% rounded correctly)? In the US Senate, which only has 100 seats, it's possible to acquire a seat with less than 0.1% of the votes (either one of the two Wyoming seats, or other less populated US states).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.146.181.169 (talk • contribs)

Bad example, because the USA is a republic. Residents of one state cannot vote for a Senate candidate of another state. Intangible 22:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It is possible to gain a seat with as little as 0.7% of the votes in each of the districts. That is the difference. Arnoutf 09:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger

I am not in favour. To my memory the tables used to be in this article and were moved to the separate article to cleanup the current one. Moving it back in would undo this idea Arnoutf 21:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)