With the elections approaching, people read a lot in the newspaper about a number of small, new political parties that are known to be unable to reach the electoral threshold. However, those parties do get a few percent of the votes. What actually happens with that? i.e. are they distributed among the other parties? are they just lost? or other…?
Answer
Voting by parties that do not reach the electoral threshold: nothing happens. Only parties that achieve more than 5% are admitted to the calculation of the seat distribution.
Please note: the electoral threshold is calculated at the level of the electoral district (in the case of the coming Flemish elections, this will be at the provincial level).
If a party in one or more cantons (a canton is a combination of several municipalities) achieves less than 5%, but is above 5% in the entire province, then they are simply eligible for the distribution of seats.
If a party achieves less than 5% throughout Flanders, but does achieve more than 5% in one or more provinces, then they are eligible to win seats in those specific provinces (This happened with the N-VA in the parliamentary elections of 2003 when they were only above 5% in West Flanders and Geert Bourgeois got a seat there).
Talking about an electoral threshold when discussing election results at the Flemish level or at the level of a canton (as sometimes happens in the media) is therefore actually beside the point.
It is also not the case that when one reaches the electoral threshold, one automatically gets a seat. In a number of provinces (due to the small number of seats that can be allocated) one has to achieve 6 to 7% in practice to really get a seat. One is eligible for the calculation of the seat distribution from the moment that 5% is achieved over the entire provincial electoral district, but that calculation does not necessarily result in a seat.
Bram Wauters
Department of Governance and Policy
HighSchool Gent
Answered by
dr. Bram Wauters
http://www.ugent.be
.