Home > 1.3 Free suffrage > LATVIA - The Saeima Election Law
 
 
 
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Article 38
 

(1) The candidates elected in each constituency shall be determined by the Central Election Commission. The list of candidates that have gained less than five per cent of the total number of votes in the whole of Latvia regardless of the number of constituencies where their lists of candidates have been distributed shall be excluded from the distribution of seats. The total number of votes (total number of voters having taken part in the elections) shall be the number of valid ballot envelopes.

(2) The procedure to be applied in distributing the seats in the Saeima among the winning lists of candidates shall be the following:

1) the valid ballot papers cast for each list of candidates in each constituency shall be counted;

2) the number of ballot papers cast for each list of candidates shall be divided by 1, 3, 5, 7 and so forth, until the number of divisions is equal to the number of candidates nominated in each list;

3) all the division results concerning all the lists of candidates shall be numbered in a general diminishing sequence for each constituency;

4) the seats in a constituency shall be assigned to the lists of candidates that correspond to the highest division results. If a division result, having a sequence number which coincides with the number of seats assigned to the constituency, is equal to one or several consequent division results, the list of candidates that has gained the largest number of votes in the whole of Latvia, wins one more seat. If such lists of candidates have been registered only in one constituency, the seat is won by the list of candidates which was registered first.