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Tom Monto

Honduras used presidential-based PR starting in 1981, list PR starting in 1997, Open List PR since 2005

Updated: Aug 29

Honduras OLPR in use in 2013

16 MMDs,  DM ranged from 2 to 23;

2 districts (Gracias a Dios* and Islas de la Bahía), with one member each


A TSE-issued document specifies the following allocations of seats by Department: Atlántida, 8 seats;

Colón, 4 seats;

Comayagua, 7 seats;

Copán, 7 seats;

Cortés, 20 seats;

Choluteca, 9 seats;

El Paraíso, 6 seats;

Francisco Morazán, 23 seats,

Gracias a Dios, 1 seat;

Intibucá, 3 seats;


Islas de la Bahía, 1 seat;

La Paz, 3 seats;

Lempira, 5 seats;

Otocepeque, 2 seats;

Olancho, 7 seats;

Santa Bárbara, 9 seats;

Valle, 4 seats, and

Yoro, 9 seats. 


These figures were widely disseminated, not least because voters needed to know how many candidates they could vote for. 

(it is not clear if the voter can place his or her preferences across party lists. and whether or not the "votes cast" refers to ballots or actual votes.)


2013 report on the Honduras election states it clearly:

The open-list proportional system used for the National Congress elections enables voters to choose candidates from different party lists, but can produce counter-intuitive results, since the winning candidates are those from parties which won the most votes in the constituency, rather than necessarily the candidates who individually gained the most votes. {an individually-popular candidate may take many votes individually but if his party as a whole did not take enough votes to be eligible for one seat, then he or she will not be elected.]


* Gracias a Dios 

The Gracias a Dios department is rather remote and inaccessible by land, although local airlines fly to the main cities.


Although it is the second largest department in the country, it is sparsely populated, and contains extensive pine savannas, swamps, and rainforests


17,000 sq. kms

94,000 residents

================================


Overall

Honduran population 10.4M

National Congress 128 members


Each member represents about 81,000 residents on average.


"votes cast" in last election (2021): 31.7M votes

turnout said to be 638 percent based on the 5.1M eligible voters.

Party vote share not necessarily reflective of support on the ground.

Turnout was not 638 percent - most voters cast multiple votes.


actually voter turnout was 69.09 percent.

Here's why:

ballots cast: 3,580,527

registered voters: 5,182,42


(this info available on an official website:

======================

2013 results

no party took majority of votes overall

no party won a majority of seats overall


only in one MMD did a party take a majority of seats

Lempira DM-5 PN took three seats.


===============================

The EU election observation report does not examine how the seats are alocated.

Did each department get its fair share of seats?

Nor did it look at whether the seat count reflected the votes as cast.


Perhaps due to Honduras's use of list PR, that was not even up for question at all!


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Honduran adoption of PR


1981 first election since 1971 (military rule had been in use in the meantime)

Each voter had a single vote to cast for a presidential candidate, with seats in the National Congress divided based on the share of the vote their presidential candidate received. (info from 1981 Honduran general election)


1997 list PR adopted

voter cast votes for president and separately for party in Congress

first diversion between seat allocation in Congress and presidential vote tallies

Liberal party pres. candidate got 53 percent of vote

Liberal party got 49.6 percent of the vote and 72 of 133 seats.

three small parties were under-represented.

Liberals much over-represented and granted false majority


2001 list PR used

voter cast votes for president and separately for party in Congress

diversion between seat allocation in Congress and presidential vote tallies

National Party elected its pres. candidate with 53 percent of of votes

but took only 46 percent of votes cast for Congress and elected just 61 of 128 seats


2005 open list PR adopted (OLPR)

Voter cast as many votes for candidates as the number to be elected in the district and parties are allocated seats based on those votes.

Parties also used open list primaries to make up their party list.


Diversion between seat allocation in Congress and presidential vote tallies

Liberal pres. candidate elected with 49.9 percent of the vote

Liberal party took 45 percent of the vote overall in Congress elections, to take 62 of the 128 seats.

Only five parties running candidates


2009 only five parties. still mostly two party race


2013

this time 12 parties ran candidates

first election to be contested by the opposition since the controversial and polarising 2009 Honduran coup d'état. The social mobilization since then led to the founding of the main opposition party, Libre (Liberty and Refoundation).


The elections were the first since 1954 in which a party other than the National Party and Liberal Party received over 7 percent of the vote and more than five seats in the legislature in a general election.

Libre got 28 percent of the vote and 37 seats.


It was also the first time the Liberal Party did not finish either first or second in an election since the 1920s.


Seven parties elected member(s) in 128-member Congress

Only parties with less than 1 percent of the vote got no representation.

two parties who were running candidates for first time got seats -- 50 in total


====================================================

Here's an official explanation of changes in election procedure in Honduras elections


HONDURAS 1 (1980-1), 2 (1985) & 3 (1993)

In elections from 1980 through 1993, Honduras had a fused electoral system. The same vote for a single party was used both to elect the president and to allocate seats for the National Congress.

Seats were allocated within each Honduran department utilizing the largest remainder system of proportional representation with a Hare quota. That is, seats are allocated first for full multiples of the Hare quota – number of votes divided by the number of seats. Any seats not yet allocated are distributed based on largest remainders–votes not used towards a full Hare quota–with seats awarded in descending order of remainder votes until all are exhausted.


Lists were closed with seats allocated to candidates in the order on the list.

Here is the apportionment of mandates to departments for elections held from 1981 through 2017:

1981 [Honduras 1] 16 MMDs DM ranging 2 to 14 2 SMDs 82 total seats

1985 [Honduras 2] 16 MMDs DM ranging 2 to 22 2 SMDs 134 total seats

1989-2017 [Honduras 3] 16 MMDs DM ranging 2 to 23 2 SMDs 128 total seats


[Honduras 1, 2 and 3

Honduras 1 1981

Honduras 2 1985

Honduras 3 1989-2017]


Honduras 1, 2 and 3 are counted as separate electoral systems for two reasons.


First, the expansion of the National Congress from 82 to 134 seats in 1985 constituted a significant change in constituency magnitude. [DM. The maximum DM growing from 14 to 23.]


Second, [in 1985] Honduras switched to the double simultaneous vote (DSV), or ley de lemas, to elect the president for a single election. Parties could run more than one presidential candidate. The candidate with the most votes of the party whose candidates collectively received the most votes gained the presidency. The DSV allows a candidate to win with fewer votes than another candidate. In 1985, though Rafael Leonardo Callejas Romero (National Party) received over 200,000 votes more than José Simón Azcona del Hoyo (Liberal Party), the Liberal candidate won because the four Liberal candidates together had earned more votes than the three National candidates.


[for presidential elections] Honduras reverted back to the plurality elections in 1989.


HONDURAS 4 (1997-2001) [closed list PR]

Beginning in 1997, voters could cast separate ballots for president and deputies.

Though votes for the executive and the legislature were no longer fused, the allocation method remained the same: the largest remainder system of proportional representation with a Hare quota.

Lists remained closed with seats still allocated within departments.


HONDURAS 5 (2005-) [open list PR]

Honduras has used panachage to elect the National Congress since 2005.

Seats remain allocated within departments.

Panachage allows a voter to cast as many votes as there are mandates within their department.

Voters may vote for candidates from different parties and cannot cast more than one vote for a candidate.

Voters do not vote for a party but instead must tick the boxes for each candidate that they support.

Each vote for a candidate counts towards not just the candidate’s total but also the party total.

In each district, seats are first allocated to parties based on the total of all votes for its candidates, using the largest remainder system of proportional representation with a Hare quota.

Then the correct number of candidates with the most votes within the district for each party that received seats gain election.


=============================

The following shows the allocation process with Atlántida Department in 2013. Here is a copy of the ballot:

[nine parties, each running eight candidates]


from


2013 election in Atlantida

In 2013, each party had 8 candidates, as Atlántida has 8 mandates.[8 seats]

Voters did not vote for a party but could cast a single vote for up to 8 candidates and could vote for candidates from different parties.

Multiple votes for a single candidate were not permitted.


The following table shows the 2013 allocation of seats to parties in Atlántida:

815,131 valid votes 8 members to be elected

Hare quota 101,891

Hare Full Remainder Total

Votes quotas quota Remainder seats seats

Nacional 291,808 2.86 2 88025 1 3

Libre 206,728 2.03 2 2945 0 2

Liberal 161,027 1.58 1 59136 1 2

PAC 93,992 .92 93,992 1 1

DC 26,051 .26 26,051

PINU 12,738 .13 12,738

UD 12,112 .12 12,112

FAPER 5370 .05 5370

PAP 5305     .05                                      5305

Total 815,131 8


The Votes column shows the total number of votes received by all of the candidates for each party. Other columns show the allocation [of seats], first for multiples of the Hare quota and then based on remainder votes.

The first 5 seats were given out for full Hare quotas –1 to the Liberals, 2 to National, and 2 to LIBRE.

The last 3 seats were awarded in descending order of remainder votes, first seat to PAC, then second seat to National, and third seat to the Liberals.


Once the number of seats for each party had been determined, seats were allocated to candidates based on their [own] vote totals, regardless of their order on the ballot.

The candidates [indicated] won election with the order of election shown after their names.

For example, the candidate listed second on the PAC was elected because he [received] more votes than the candidate listed first.

The LIBRE candidate listed second won her party’s first seat because she had the most votes, though the candidate listed first also won election.


Nacional candidates' vote tallies ranged from 42,761 to 29,613.

Libre candidates' vote tallies ranged from 27,175* to 23,326.

Liberal candidates' vote tallies ranged from 28,000 to 14,000

PAC candidates' vote tallies ranged from 13,000 to 10,000


[* Likely this is typo as this person, Cesar Lopez, is said to have received the most votes but was not elected. Likely Cesar Lopez got something like 26,000 votes. in which case the range in Libre candidates' vote tallies was 27,138 (the vote tally of a different person who was in fact elected) to 23,326.]


Source: Juan Manuel Muñoz-Portillo, The rules of pork? The impact of electoral systems on legislators’ behaviour in Honduras. Dublin City University: Ph.D. Dissertation, 2013.


[As voters in different districts can cast different number of votes, overall country-wide party vote shares likely varies from overall party seat shares, but in each department, seat allocation is done through PR.

Departments have seats counts ranging from 2 to 23, with a couple single-member departments as well.

Atlantida (shown above) has 8 members]

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A Canadian version of this could be

in the cities, districts of seven members with each voter casting up to seven votes.

Smaller parties might run just two candidates, allowing their voters to mark for other parties as well.

or something like that.

But I think single voting in MMDs with ranked votes has advantages over multiple voting anyway.

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