Seats

Overhang seats can arise in elections under the traditional (i.e. as it originated in Germany) mixed member proportional (MMP) system, when a party is entitled to fewer seats as a result of party votes than it has won constituencies. more...

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How overhang seats arise

Under MMP, a party is entitled to a number of seats based on its share of the total vote. If a party is entitled to ten seats, but wins only seven constituencies, it will be awarded three list seats, bringing it up to its required number. This only works, however, if the party's seat entitlement is greater than (or equal to) the number of constituencies it won. If, for example, a party is entitled to five seats, but wins six constituencies, the sixth constituency seat is called an overhang seat.

Two mechanisms to earn many overhang seats

The two mechanisms that together increase the number of overhang seats are

winning many constituencies; decreasing the number of party votes and therefore the number of seats to which the party is proportionally entitled;

In many countries, overhang seats are rare — a party that is able to win constituency seats is generally able to win a significant portion of the party vote as well. There are, however, some circumstances in which overhang seats may arise relatively easily:

Regional parties — Parties based in a particular region may win a substantial number of constituency seats in that region without necessarily gaining a large share of the national vote. Parties focused on particular ethnic or religions minorities may also come under this category, particularly if seats are reserved for these groups.; Few major parties, large number of minor parties — When there are only one or two major parties, but a relatively large number of minor parties that, combined, achieve a significant share of the total proportional vote, but fail to elect any constituency seats, the large parties often end up with overhang seats.; Individual candidates with strong local followings — Sometimes, a particular politician will have strong support in their own constituency, but will belong to a party with very low support, even in their own area. The candidate will be elected based on their own qualities, but the party they belong to will not receive enough votes to justify the candidate's seat. In the case of independent candidates, this is usually guaranteed — they have no party at all, and so obviously cannot win votes under MMP's party-list proportional representation. However, some countries, such as New Zealand, have special rules dealing with independents — seats won by these candidates are exempted from the proportional system altogether.; A large number of constituencies compared with the total number of seats — If too many seats are used for constituencies, the remainder are less likely to ensure strict proportionality.; Tactical voting — Voters in countries such as Germany may cast two votes and they need not be for the same party. A voter might support one party in the list vote but vote for the candidate of another party in the local vote, perhaps because the former party lacks a candidate in his or her riding or it has a candidate but he or she has little chance of winning. Parties that win many local seats but attract a reduced list vote may receive an overhang as a result.; Decoy parties — Party labels in the constituencies can be deliberately mismatched with those in the proportional vote in an attempt to induce tactical voting. In Italy in 2001, two lists won a majority of the total number of seats, despite winning less than 0.5% of the proportional vote. While Italy's electoral system like Scotland's and Wales's was not a type of MMP in which overhangs could occur (the two systems are intended to be only partly compensatory forms of MMP so that proportional allocation is only applied to list seats), what happened could apply to MMP as described in this article.; High electoral thresholds — Many MMPR systems include an election threshold that might prevent small parties from receiving seats, even if they poll a percentage of votes that equals or exceeds 100% divided by the total number of seats. This leaves the supporters of the smaller parties completely unrepresented, and opponents of thresholds argue that they result in what they sometimes call an "overhang" for every party that is awarded seats, since they are effectively awarded a portion of the support that was intended for other parties.;

Read more at Wikipedia.org