Home > 1. The principles of Europe's electoral heritage > CZECH REPUBLIC- Act on Elections to the Parliament and on Amendments of Certain Other Acts
 
 
 
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Article 51
 

Second Scrutiny [*note of the translator*]

(1) The legislative seats that remain to be distributed shall be allocated by the Central Election Board in the second scrutiny. All the votes remaining of each party's/coalition's total vote after the first scrutiny shall be transferred to the second scrutiny as well as the total vote accrued by Political Parties and coalitions that failed to receive any seat in the first scrutiny.

(2) No later than twelve hours following the conclusion of the first scrutiny, chairmen of Political Parties, and/or persons authorized to act on behalf of coalitions shall tender their lists of candidates who will contest a legislative seat in the second scrutiny to the chairman of the Central Election Board. The number of candidates listed in the lists of candidates nominated for the second scrutiny shall not be limited, however, Political Parties and coalitions shall have the right to list only those candidates who had already been nominated to run for election in one of the electoral regions and who failed to secure a legislative seat in the first scrutiny. After the lists of candidates contesting a legislative seat in the second scrutiny have been delivered to the board, neither may the candidates be substituted, nor their position on the list be altered. Should the chairmen of Political Parties, and/or the persons authorized by coalitions fail to deliver their list of candidates within the above defined period of time, the Central Election Board shall select the candidates for the second scrutiny for them according to the number of preferential votes each particular candidate of the party/coalition in default accrued.

(3) In the second scrutiny, the Central Election Board shall add up all the party/coalition votes remaining from the first scrutiny. The total thus obtained shall then be divided by the number of legislative seats yet to be distributed, plus one. The number arrived at by the aforementioned formula, and rounded to the nearest whole number, shall define [the average number of votes required for a party/coalition to win one of the representative seats yet to be allocated in the second scrutiny -] the country vote quota. Each Political Party or coalition shall then be awarded as many seats as many times the full country vote quota shall be contained in the sum of the remaining party/coalition vote transferred from the first scrutiny.

(4) If after the above procedure, several seats still remain undistributed, the seats that were not won by full country vote quotas shall subsequently be awarded to Political Parties and coalitions with the largest remainder of votes after the quota has been subtracted from each party's/coalition's total of remaining votes for each seat it was awarded in the second scrutiny pursuant to Paragraph 3 of this Article. The legislative seats shall be awarded sequentially to the Political Parties and coalitions with the largest remainder until all the remaining seats have been assigned. Should there be several Political Parties or/and coalitions with equally highest remainder of remaining votes, a legislative seat shall be awarded to the Political Party or coalition with the largest total of remaining votes transferred from the first scrutiny to the second scrutiny. If such vote remainder totals is equally highest in the case of several Political Parties or coalitions, a representative seat shall be awarded to the Political Party or coalition which has accrued the highest popular vote of these competitors; should the total popular vote accrued by several Political Parties and/or coalitions be equally highest, lots shall be drawn to decide. The procedure hereinbefore described shall apply should a Political Party or coalition have nominated a smaller number of candidates for the second scrutiny than the number of representative seats awarded to such party or coalition.

(5) If in the above manner, one seat was distributed in excess of the number of representative seats to be distributed in the second scrutiny, the seat that was awarded in excess of the limit shall be subtracted from the seats assigned to the Political Party or coalition with the smallest remainder of votes after the quota has been subtracted from each party's/coalition's total of remaining votes for each seat it was awarded in the second scrutiny. Should there be several Political Parties or coalitions with equally smallest remainder of remaining votes, then the seat shall be subtracted from the seats awarded to the Political Party or coalition which has accrued the smallest total popular vote of these competitors; should there be more Political Parties or coalitions with equally smallest party/coalition totals, then lots shall be drawn to determine the losing Political Party or coalition.

(6) The seats that a Political Party or coalition wins shall be allocated to its candidates in the order in which they appear on the party/coalition-compiled list of candidates for the second scrutiny.

(7) Candidates who have succeeded in securing a legislative seat in neither the first scrutiny nor the second scrutiny shall become stand-ins.