Home > 1.3 Free suffrage > VENEZUELA - ON THE LEGAL ISSUES RAISED BY DECREE No. 2878 OF 23 MAY 2017 OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC ON CALLING ELECTIONS TO A NATIONAL CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY
 
 
 
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Paragraph 22
 

The Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters of the Venice Commission, sets out the five principles underlying Europe's electoral heritage are universal, equal, free, secret and direct suffrage. In section 2.2, the Code states: “Equal voting power: seats must be evenly distributed between the constituencies.


i. This must at least apply to elections to lower houses of parliament and regional and local elections.


ii. It entails a clear and balanced distribution of seats among constituencies on the basis of one of the following allocation criteria: population, number of resident nationals (including minors), number of registered voters, and possibly the number of people actually voting. An appropriate combination of these criteria may be envisaged.


iii. The geographical criterion and administrative, or possibly even historical, boundaries may be taken into consideration.


iv. The permissible departure from the norm should not be more than 10%, and should certainly not exceed 15% except in special circumstances (protection of a concentrated minority, sparsely populated administrative entity).”