open-list PR -- voters choose whether to vote for party or candidate
Swedish voters can choose between three different types of ballot papers.
The party ballot paper has simply the name of a political party printed on the front and is blank on the back. This ballot is used when a voter wishes to vote for a particular party, but does not wish to give preference to a particular candidate.
The name ballot paper has a party name followed by a list of candidates (which can continue on the other side). A voter using this ballot can choose (but is not required) to cast a personal vote by entering a mark next to a particular candidate, in addition to voting for their political party.
Alternatively, a voter can take a blank ballot paper and write a party name on it.
Finally, if a party has not registered its candidates with the election authority, it is possible for a voter to manually write the name of an arbitrary candidate. In reality, this option is almost exclusively available when voting for unestablished parties.
However, it has occasionally caused individuals to be elected into the city council to represent parties they do not even support as a result of a single voter's vote
In Riksdag elections, constituencies are usually coterminous with one of the Swedish counties, though the Counties of Stockholm, Skåne (containing Malmö), and Västra Götaland (containing Gothenburg) are divided into smaller electoral constituencies due to their larger populations.
The number of available seats in each constituency is based on its number of voters (vis-à-vis the number of voters nationwide), and parties are apportioned seats in each constituency based on their votes in that constituency.
In Sweden the seats of the Riksdag are allocated to the parties, and the prospective members are selected by their party.
Sweden uses open-list PR and uses apparentement between lists of the same constituency and party to form a cartel, a group of lists that are legally allied for purposes of seat allocation.[3]
Which candidates from which lists are to secure the seats allocated to the party is determined by two factors:
preference votes are first used to choose candidates which pass a certain threshold,[13] then the number of votes cast for the various lists within that party are used.[3][14][13]
In national general elections, any candidates who receive a number of personal votes equal to five percent or greater of the party's total number of votes will automatically be bumped to the top of the list, regardless of their ranking on the list by the party.
This threshold is similarly five percent for local elections and elections to the European Parliament.
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