Home > 3.2 Proportional systems > PORTUGAL - Law Governing Elections to the Assembly of the Republic
 
 
 
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Article 16
 

Criterion for election


Votes are converted into seats in accordance with d’Hondt’s proportional representation method and in compliance with the following rules:
a) The number of votes received by each list in the respective constituency shall be counted separately;
b) The number of votes counted for each list shall be successively divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc., and the quotients shall be placed in descending order in a series made up of as many terms as there are seats attributed to the respective constituency;
c) The seats shall belong to the lists to which the terms of the series created under the previous rule correspond, and each list shall receive the same number of seats as it has terms in the series;
d) In cases in which just one seat remains to be distributed and the next terms of the series are the same and from different lists, the seat shall go to the list that obtained the smallest number of votes.